[Closed] 4 x 4 FAIL in the snow.

Back on topic 😀

Everyone one missed the fact that said tit in 4 x 4 then had turned up in another 4 x 4, and parked it on a 90 degree up hill bed !! 😈

thus making it dangerous for anyone to get passed.

I always found my MX5 great fun in the snow..

Year before last I saw a Bugatti Veyron on that road,

I saw a lad in his 20s put about £20 of petrol in one a couple of years ago. Couldn't have got very far on that.

straight road - deep powder snow , just got the speed up and went drift bashing using the nudge bar to its full potential- rangey following behind- every drift i hit would result in powder flying over the windows and roof + slow the car down a few mph. Great fun. started off at 50mph and by the end of the dirt track- about a mile was strugling to do 20mph with the wheels just spinning but JUST keeping forward motion

That all very well and good until the snow jams up around the pulleys/fanbelts etc and you are stuffed. after spending a winter driving in -40 and snow in the USA in 4-4 pickups. you dont go snow ploughing unless you have a plough

😆 Reminds me of the RR that tried following me on the closed road over the tops to Hebden. They got stuck. I bet mr giant snowplow coming the other way was pissed off

it was bought as the cheapest thing i could find that wasnt iminantly dying a horrible slow death.

It wears both Vauxhall and Frontera badges, isn't that a good enough indication of impending doom?

I just got back from bimbling around the Alps on snow-covered roads and the winter driving out there is something to behold.

My favourite episode was the French guy in the beaten up little van who saw that he was sliding towards the front of our somewhat bigger vehicle at a fair old lick, and decided he'd better do something about it. He used one hand to put it into full lock away from us and then booted it as hard as he could towards a convenient snowdrift, which he ricocheted off down the road, allowing him to carry on the animated conversation he was having on the phone held in his other hand without so much as pausing to think. Quite impressive.

I do love, though, at this time of year that you can get up to, ooh, 5mph and get VERY sideways. As long as you've planned your run-off area, there's pretty much zero chance of causing much danger, and it's great fun. Even in an AWD car with winter tyres I can get the back end out quite nicely; my mate in a BMW (with winter tyres) can spin it at 5mph.

This is another one of those "I'm an awesome driver and everyone else is an idiot" smug OPs, isn't it?

I'm an awesome driver. Or I thought I was until yesterday... Seven years driving for a living through some bloody bad winters in Aberdeenshire too.

On the main drag from Aberdeen to Dundee, slushy snow all over the road, winter tyres fitted to the Volvo (not for sale). I was using cruise control set to 55mph. Had to slow behind an Audi doing 30 in the outside lane.

When he pulled in, I just forgot to match my speed to the 55mph cruise control - pressed the button and the engine immediately started accelerating back up to 55 as quickly as possible, causing the front end to swing left. After a lifetime of fishtailing over two lanes, I got control back and saw the faces of the drivers behind me with extreme clarity.

Stopped at the next services, walked round the car and found the probable cause - rear nearside tyre was almost flat. The garage air machine read 12psi!

Now I drive a Discovery 4 every day at work. They're astonshingly good in the snow(or mud, or rutted woodland tracks, or on tarmac... they're just good), but in the last load of snow a couple of weeks ago I used a Freelander to ferry a few members of staff home.

It was the most basic model without the settings of the top of the range models and it was on road tyres. With a little encouragement it was great. However, in the middle of the night when I had to get myself home I had just my trusty old Volvo 850 estate and a set of these:

http://www.autosock.co.uk/autosock-for-cars/

I will now say that I have [b][u]NEVER[/u][/b] been as impressed with anything in my life ever. They are simply amazing. It should be compulsory to carry these in the winter months if there's any chance of snow. I could get my car up steeper inclines than the Freelander I'd been driving that night. It was 3am and my tiring journey home turned into a game of Challenge the Volvo. It would go anywhere without any problem whatosever.

mildred - Member

I will now say that I have NEVER been as impressed with anything in my life ever. They are simply amazing. It should be compulsory to carry these in the winter months if there's any chance of snow.

They're alright, but not a patch on proper winter tyres, so making them compulsory wouldn't make much sense tbh.

first rule of off road - know your vehicle and know that the single belt on it is high mounted for the high mounted alternator. Fans are twin electric off a switch on the dash and id already turned them off

steering/sump guards and plastic/foam nudge bars do their job well anyhoo

like you say -40 and middle of USA id probably not have done it but at less than a mile from my house in -5 with propper provisions i figured it was a safe enough bet.

compared to yesterday where on 2 occasions during a 400km drive across the turkmen desert my driver jumped a land cruiser prado fully off the ground - trust me when those things hit the deck they hit the deck hard , thought i was going to break my neck ! what a noise.

But did you get the Holy Grail back to base?

it was the life of brian and blockbuster had gone into admin by the time we got there anyway. 😀

didnt see the rush either , but my driver didnt speak very good english and certainly didnt understand slow down....

konabunny - Correct 🙂 I actually did say I is awesome too, well my car anyhow. I was hoping my smugness didn't come across too much though, but obviously I failed in proper STW forum member style!

They're alright, but not a patch on proper winter tyres, so making them compulsory wouldn't make much sense tbh.

I use proper winter tyres regularly and I can say that in the snow, snow socks are definitely better in terms of out and out traction.. The downsides are that they have to be put on, taken off etc. depending in the road surface, there's a speed limit of about 30mph, and if you accelerate too hard they can get shredded fairly quickly.

This thread is beginning to get a bit.....
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Judgemental lot on here...

Who's to say he hadn't swerved to miss an audi driver who had took the bend on the wrong side of the road.

Just saying.

Who's to say he hadn't swerved to miss an audi driver who had took the bend on the wrong side of the road

You mean the Audi Lane? Audi lanes are perfectly safe and its only the people who insist on driving on them in the opposite direction who make them dangerous.

On the 4X4 note, I was almost run off the road by someone in a Rangerover yesterday driving in the middle of the road to avoid putting their wheels in 1 inch deep remainders of snow on their carriage way, perfectly happy to send the FWD mondeo driving into the verge. No slowing down, no sign appology. </rage>

unklehomered - Member

On the 4X4 note, I was almost run off the road by someone in a Rangerover yesterday driving in the middle of the road to avoid putting their wheels in 1 inch deep remainders of snow on their carriage way, perfectly happy to send the FWD mondeo driving into the verge. No slowing down, no sign appology.

This seems to be pretty common tbh, driving around in singletrack roads the people in massive gleaming 4x4s never seem to put a wheel off the tarmac, leaving me bouncing through the field verges and ditches to get past (used to be a Focus, now a Mondeo, both fine offroading vehicles)

Which is fun! So I'm not that bothered personally, but it is absurd. For some reason Warriors seem to be the absolute worst.

Not even a single track road, plenty of space for two considerate drivers... Assuming the RR doesn't hog the middle of the road in fear of a little bit of slush.

I think it's because they don't know where the wheels are on the LHS, and perversly are terrified of them leaving the tarmac. But yes the irony would be amusing, if they weren't coming straight for you, at 30mph, in a bloody tank of a thing.

"its gripped"....."its sorted"......."lets off road"....!!!! 😯

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