**** me! just finished reading this and looked out the window - the snow's back on again and coming down hard (just north of Glasgow).
I was pretty pleased with the performance of the 02 Rav4 I picked up earlier in the year when the snow finally arrived this weekend. We were camping out over beside Dunoon - went to bed under a clear frosty sky, and woke up around 8am with the snow hammering down. By the time we'd packed up, cleaned up and got going, there was about 6-8" of snow lying on the forest track, but we made it out with relative ease, even up the steepish hill halfway along the trail. I'm planning on shoving on some winter tyres in the near future, so I reckon it will cope with our usual winter conditions with ease.
Time to put the mondeo away and fire up my Impreza for the winter. AWD, low ratio box and Michelin Alpin winter tyres for a trip to the lakes this week.
yeah man ditto here, the audis tucked away up the drive its now land rover time woohoo!
Any tips for DIY winter tires?
Do I just buy 1000 4" wood screws, and put them in the tyres from the inside?
What inner tube? Gaffa tape? Does stans work on r16 265s?
defenders are all very well.. but useless if the diesel freezes up like what was happening to them in aviemore last year.If they dont start then whats the point lol.
my snowtrack3 vredesteins are amazing. i was getting drifts around a roundabout in the middle of nowhere last night about 11.30pm.the front end just pulls you back to where you wanrt to go. I wasnt going daft,just trying to suss out what all was happening when it went sideways.something i have never really played about with.I recon i learnt a bit more than if i stayed at home sat on my arse.
Worst bit of my commute was getting into my drive - took 20 mins of digging 🙂
defenders are all very well.. but useless if the diesel freezes up like what was happening to them in aviemore last year.If they dont start then whats the point lol.
May I suggest that "them" are very thick then?
How do you think trucks operate in Alaska? Diesel clouds at minus ten. It freezes solid at about minus 100 - nowhere gets that cold. They just use additives to lower the freezing point. If they can operate trucks in Alaska, they can easily do so in Aviemore.
Not sure about diesel but when my sister in law lived oop norf in the USA they had heating elements in the sumps. You plugged your car in when they were in you garage and the car parks had power points that you plugged into when you were in town.
We used to plug the cars into a socket at my parking space as above in Norway. In Bosnia in the winter our diesel froze but we stuck a kerosene heater underneath the block and it kept it working but perhaps not the safest option 😉
THanks for all the advice re the XTrail I think better tyres and practice will be the key.
Any advice for tyres that allow good grip in snow but also have a fairly low rolling resistance? Or are the two mutually exclusive?
Best I driven were the Army petrol lightweights.
My best personal 4x4 was the Defender 90,fitted with MT tyres all year round.
My Disco was a great cruiser and climbed well in snow and ice, but was a mare downhill.
Drove Cossacks in France, really good vehicle.
Don't have a 4x4 now, don't need one any longer. That said a cheap Panda 4x4 would make an ace winter runaround.
What you really need if you have to get somewhere. Be it snow, across a lake of through the worst mud/sand is a BV206
I've got a [url= 
]BV202[/url] 8)
Absolutely nothing on wheels can match it on mud, soft sand or snow.
Once it's packed down to ice though, the BV202 will spin it's tracks where my 110 with studded tyres or chains will keep moving and, more importantly, stop.
Mango - a bit like MTB tyres, big grip off road (or on snow/ice) = cr4p rolling resistance. Something like General Grabber TRs or AT2s are a good compromise. Impressed with my TRs so far in the ice.
I've got a BV202
What the hell do you use it for? I'd love an excure to even own a 4x4, never mind one of those!
midlandtrailquestsgraham i was in a bv202 when we rolled it over down a hill in bosnia into a mine field ;-( we walked out not knowing it was a mine field and yomped to the nearest camp and tried to get the heli to lift it for us but they wouldnt before checking with the locals where the mines were.
of course they didnt know even tho they put them there.
needless to say before any thing was done about getting it out the locals pinched the engine and verious other bits from it without getting blown up lol
[url= http://www.jacksonsgarage.co.uk/page3.html ]Clicky here [/url]
Just what you need for the M25 when there is a dusting of the white stuff
defenders are all very well.. but useless if the diesel freezes up like what was happening to them in aviemore last year.If they dont start then whats the point lol.May I suggest that "them" are very thick then?
How do you think trucks operate in Alaska? Diesel clouds at minus ten. It freezes solid at about minus 100 - nowhere gets that cold. They just use additives to lower the freezing point. If they can operate trucks in Alaska, they can easily do so in Aviemore.
Might be wrong here, but FWIR an old truck driver told me that if you add a bit (c.10%) of petrol to you diesel it stops it freezing. I've run my diesel van with about a 30:70 petrol/diesel mix after the wife put petrol in by mistake 🙄 and despite it being a 'modern-type' common rail engine, it didn't miss a beat - so I'm guessing the old anvil engines that Land Rover fit will run on anything 😉
My dad uased to sling a gallon of petrol in his old vans in the good old days. Buying a newer VW caddy shafted him as we poined out that plastic fuel lines were not the best things to warm with a bit f burning newspaper
Just use a pour-point depressant and you'll be fine.
Kerosene thins the diesel down without the same issues as petrol, ez start for the tractors.
Our Land Rovers are running full mud tyres all year round, BFG, except the 130 on Michelins. The bumper is about the limit we found last year, occasionally have to back up and take a run-up if too much collects on the diffs or towbar.
Quad is fun as it doesn't sink or float, just sits somewhere in between.
[i]...also selected 1 in the auto box to limit her gear range but still felt the car running away down the slope... are there any techniques which would help?[/i]
My wife has an equivilent Freelander, she has a Hill-Descent button. Just press it and steer, keep feet away.
[i]In Bosnia in the winter our diesel froze but we stuck a kerosene heater underneath the block and it kept it working but perhaps not the safest option [/i]
I was working in the arse-end of Poland a few years ago, and my 'driver' turns up. Driving along I could smell burning. Turns out that as it wouldn't start he'd light a fire in a shovel and placed it under the engine to warm it...
I've used nylon webbing wrapped round wheels as temp snow chains - worked well and keep a couple of lengths in the boot
One tip re diesel waxing is to start the van and let it idle up to temp before driving, when I didnt do that and it waxed i had a blowtorch in the back to warm the lines.
Its also important to make sure your fuel filter is clean, water can collect in there and block lines.
I had to think after about -18 last year. Coped with -27 by our thermometer.
In really cold climes engines are heated electrically or left running
br it works tho doesnt it, just seems an odd thing to do 😉