Driving in the snow

[Linford]

The problem with the RWD sports car like the Beemers and Mercs is that they have no weight over the driven wheels, The diff will happily spin one wheel all day and feed no power to the other one (unless they come with LSD's). Wide wheels are good, but as they are low profile tyres, have little compliance with an uneven surface. It doesn't help either that they have such powerful engines producing massive amounts of torque which the average leadfoot struggles to measure out in small doses

2CV's do reasonably well offroad for what they are because they are so light, but the notion that thin wheels/tyres combinations help grip in poor conditions, is to me a bit of a bogus one. If this were actually true, they would have equipped Helen Skelton with a Roadie shod with 23c tyres than what she actually did the polar challenge on.

Likewise, when Clarkson and co went to the magnetic north pole in a car, they took this and as you can see from the tyres in this pic, they are running virtually flat to give as much grip as possible on a very low traction surface (these tyres actually have very soft compounds so flexible in low temperatures unlike a regular tyre, and are 'siped' with cuts in the tread blocks so they spread out more easily under the weight of the vehicle to give more of a surface area)

I usually go driving in my 4x4 in the back lanes of the Cotswolds when the snow hits as you usually have the roads to yourself, and last night was no exception. I did about 25 miles, and the most I topped out at where there was a layer of snow/ice on the ground was about 25mph as and when.

I caught a snow plough up which was driving from Andoversford to Seven Springs (well it was a newish tractor with plough on the front), and followed it at a sensible distance all at about 20 mph (10 car lengths or a bit more). He did a good job of clearing the road and his speed was consistent, so why would I want to overtake a snow plough or get too close to him, I have no idea what is in front of him (crashed cars, animals on the road etc) - and then somebody in one of these caught me up and then proceeded to sit about 10ft off my bumper for about 2 miles.

Honestly, I swear that some people have got more money than brains. Sure he has 4wd, but I very much doubt his tyres have anywhere near the grip levels of All terrains, and worse than that, it doesn't matter what you drive, you have mass which takes a lot of stopping when on a slippery surface. You have to respect that as if you do get caught out, you better pray that nothing is in your way - and big BHP is wasted on a slippery surface unless you are driving with studded tyres. Whatever you drive, you need to be able to stop, and not load up your tyres so much that you break traction on cornering because you are going too fast for the conditions.

There are 4x4's and there are 4x4's, and there are people who own them, and people who know how to drive them within their limitations.

I did a little bit of off road driver training a few years ago with an ex British champion rally driver (Colin Read), and his advice to me when driving around his off road course was 'always take the path of least resistance' - IE, if you do come up against a serious obstacle, can you go around it in the first instance ?

 

[Leedsbusdriver]

It's been great these last couple of days.Seeing all these BMW and four rings of cock drivers sliding all over the place whilst applying all 500bhp through their wheels,while me in my bus just cruise past them

 

[col]

It's been great these last couple of days.Seeing all these BMW and four rings of cock drivers sliding all over the place whilst applying all 500bhp through their wheels,while me in my bus just cruise past them

I was going to say mine handles well in the snow too, i didnt know there was another bus driver here?

 

[Peteaud]

It's been great these last couple of days.Seeing all these BMW and four rings of cock drivers sliding all over the place whilst applying all 500bhp through their wheels,while me in my bus just cruise past them

 

[GrasB]

Who dips the clutch when braking,

A larger number of people actually. Witness the number of cars sliding down slight gradients with 4 locked wheels today.

He was obviously a cockwomble but there are also cockwombles who are totally incompetent at driving in those conditions so crawl along at a snails pace when they shouldn't be on the roads at all.

Or maybe they actually are applying some judgment on how fast they can really go & have full control of their vehicle. The speeds often are much much slower that the average driver thinks. Today I did a sprint race, it was a 'swept' tarmac course without any gritting over it. The standard of driving I exhibited if seen on public roads would have been down right dangerous. I was taking all kinds of risks on the route because I knew it was a closed circuit with loads of run off space & lined with straw bails. I was over a minute faster than the next car at an average speed of 23.8mph. There were times traveling to & from the event there where 15mph was a little too fast & I was having to be very careful bring the car & trailer under full control again.

Linford, depends what you're trying to achieve. Wide tyres are needed to travel on top of the snow & maintain grip where you don't have a hard grippy/textured surface underneath then wide tyres work well. If you have a textured surface to get into then a narrow winter tyre works really well at cutting through the snow down to the textured surface & then grips it with harder edges of rubber on the tyre.

 

[HovR]

but the notion that thin wheels/tyres combinations help grip in poor conditions, is to me a bit of a bogus one. If this were actually true, they would have equipped Helen Skelton with a Roadie shod with 23c tyres than what she actually did the polar challenge on.

Likewise, when Clarkson and co went to the magnetic north pole in a car, they took this and as you can see from the tyres in this pic, they are running virtually flat to give as much grip as possible on a very low traction surface (these tyres actually have very soft compounds so flexible in low temperatures unlike a regular tyre, and are 'siped' with cuts in the tread blocks so they spread out more easily under the weight of the vehicle to give more of a surface area)

The difference, I believe is, between driving in polar conditions (multiple feet of snow) and the UK snow conditions (a few inches, maybe a foot). With thin tires in UK snow conditions, they cut through the relatively shallow snow and meet tarmac - Whereas if you were to try this in polar conditions, it is likely you could cut through the snow.. to meet more snow, until your vehicle bottomed out!

 

[Red Light]

Or maybe they actually are applying some judgment on how fast they can really go & have full control of their vehicle.

I differentiate between those who know what they are doing and are driving appropriately for the conditions and those who don't know what they are doing and so crawl along far slower than in necessary.

 

[MarkF]

It's 4x4 day today, where everyone with a ridiculously oversized 4x4 gets to justify (in their own tiny mind) their vehicle for the next 364 days because of a bit of snow for 1 day.

You know everyone? I use mine for work when it's needed and my house is down an unmade (unadopted road) track. Best £750 I ever spent, the neighbours think so too because every snow day I have to tow out 4 other cars. BTW the Jeep is shorter and narrower than the Mondeo it replaced.

 

[brokenflipflop]

Update: Not had any issues driving in this weather in my Audi Q7 4.2 DTI Quattro S-Line - it's got normal tyres too and it's been fine. Only one snag is that some daft cow who doesn't know how to drive her Nissan Note in this weather nearly hit me. Other than female drivers in not so capable vehicles nearly hitting my pride and joy....it's been a blast

 

[Leedsbusdriver]

This is how to save a skid

 

[Linford]

Linford, depends what you're trying to achieve. Wide tyres are needed to travel on top of the snow & maintain grip where you don't have a hard grippy/textured surface underneath then wide tyres work well. If you have a textured surface to get into then a narrow winter tyre works really well at cutting through the snow down to the textured surface & then grips it with harder edges of rubber on the tyre.

There is something to be said for rocking the steering wheel from side to side when really stuck in the trench to help the tread on the side walls of the tyres bite into it for a bit of extra grip.

The problem with the idea of going digging for a solid surface with narrow rims is the reality that the bottom of the vehicle will ground out before you find it. To properly go off road in my car on the green lanes (where legal), I have to remove the tow bar and drop plate off the back of it as this bit turns into a plough. I've seen people ripping the back of their monocoque 4x4's off along with the tow bar subframe when they've not considered this and gone ploughing into a rutted stretch of lane.

Many years ago (82) we had some serious snow on the hills around here and a couple of mates went up on their mx bikes. Well I say that, but one was a Gilera 50cc moped in an enduro style with semi knobbly tyres just like this one

and the other was full blown motorcross bike - Bultaco 370 - it was very powerful and a fire breathing monster

I cadged a lift on the back of the Bultaco until we got to a common area and the roads were totally impassable - drifts were up to 6ft in places on the roads in front of us. The Bultaco just dug in and got about 100 yards up the lane before the rider admitted defeat, but the Gilera rider managed to get all the way to the end of the lane about 300 yards further up as there was a MX practice track up there (what were we thinking lol)

The light weight of the 50cc road legal moped allowed the rider to carry over the surface whilst the full blown competition machine just couldn't cope with it at all.

I can see the parallel between the 2cv/4x4 argument and this, but it is a combination of things like the moped rider being able to get off and walk beside whilst the bigger bike was just a big heavy lump and couldn't dig down far enough to actually grip the tarmac.

A lot of cars claiming to be 4x4's aren't really up to it (the soft roaders). They give up too much utility functionality to give their owners a car with good road manners but that isn't what you want when negotiating harsh conditions. Mine is great in poor conditions, but poor as a regular road car in great conditions.

 

[col]

This is how to save a skid

I see your wipers are as good as ours too.

 

[col]

That Gilera takes me back, remember the Garelli tiger cross?

 

[jonesy]

I differentiate between those who know what they are doing and are driving appropriately for the conditions and those who don't know what they are doing and so crawl along far slower than in necessary.

Well I'd prefer people erred on the side of caution. Ideally by not going out on the roads at all under snowy conditions, but if they have to then I prefer the ones going unnecessarily slow to those going too fast. The reality is that the last two or three years have been very unusual, for most of my life learning to drive in snow isn't something most people have ever had any need for, there have been hardly any opportunities to practice so I don't really think it is reasonable to expect the majority of drivers to suddenly become skilled at it. Those who want compulsory skid pan training etc, I'm afraid that is largely pointless. Skills based driver training hasn't been shown to be a particularly effective road safety intervention, not least because it doesn't deal with attitudes and can lead to risk-compensation (as a recently returned forummer from Cheltenham will no doubt recall from previous discussions on P&L ).

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Yamaha DT125's and DT175's still rule the roost in sub-Saharan Africa. Genuine go-anywhere off-roaders. At work we buy and ship container loads. Give me an SP370 anyday.