volvosneverdie wrote:So, apart from tyres, do you mainland european hardcore snow drivers have any top tips?
Theres another week of this sh!t forecast, and I'll be lucky to get the car out of my street tomorrow.

No way am I a hardcore snow driver but ...

tyres, tyres, tyres ...

I had to drive our red 360 today on summer tyres and it was an absolute nightmare. Had problems on even the tiniest slopes. I've thinking of fitting some ancient 155 winter rubber from the nineties I've still got mouldering away in my cellar just for the rest of the snow spell.

Otherwise ... weight in the boot? A bag of sand in case you get stuck? Nah, forget it, get some winter tyres

Tom

hmmm, as I feared.
My bald, mismatched 15s seem to be the stumbling block.

The concept of 'winter tyres' seems so absolutley ridiculous to me as 'winter' in the NE is normally 8 days of snow, spread equally over about 4 cold dry months.
Then we go and get a blast of this propper snow and its like the end of the world. maybe i shouldnt have just given my spare wheels away.

Cheers Tom.

Low RPM, don't touch the throttle when you set off from lights, then gradually add more, back off immediately when wheels are slipping.

Don't drop the clutch, let it slip, at idle rpm it can take some abuse. Some even launch at 2nd gear slipping the clutch, but I think it is tad extreme.

If your handbrake is in perfect balance and working like a new, then you can use it as poor man's LSD, it requires some practising, but idea is to brake other side wheel just so much that other side starts to turn too.

Best is not to stop to uphill, slow down before lights and crawl forward, it is much easier that way, even tiny movement helps.

If got stuck, you can throw soft rubber mats from car to under rear tires and you might become unstuck. Practically any kind of wire mesh should work too, time to nick front grill from that chav's Nova or whetever they put those these days.

Add more weight to boot.

Snow is not bad, gravel is (floorpan is resting againt ground there, oilpan sunk already into gravel):


Tom, I have driven with such snowtires from 90's and it is not much of fun, my summer tires had more grip
I had serious problems with these tires, I will upload video demonstrating grip of those for all you to laugh at, but it takes time to upload it, also need to annotiate for best viewing comfort.

VND, it is not all about snow and ice, winter tires work better on cold weather, where summer tires are out of their operating temp range.

jtbo wrote:Low RPM, don't touch the throttle when you set off from lights, then gradually add more, back off immediately when wheels are slipping.

Best is not to stop to uphill, slow down before lights and crawl forward, it is much easier that way, even tiny movement helps.

If got stuck, you can throw soft rubber mats from car to under rear tires and you might become unstuck. Practically any kind of wire mesh should work too, time to nick front grill from that chav's Nova or whetever they put those these days.

Add more weight to boot.

.

yeah, id worked the 1st two points out for myself.
I was basicly moving at sub-20mph speeds from the revs from partial choke alone.
it still slid around on any change of direction, even trying to change lanes.

Good tip with the mats/other peoples propperty though dude. I never thought of that when I was stuck.
i threw my extra wheel in the boot this morning but that didnt seem to help. (apart from stealing more mpgs )

I think tyres will help a lot. but by the time i have the money, it will be summer.

Cheers dude.

Ok, here is video that shows bit of insight to what it was like driving with those 90's tires, constantly needed to be alerted because of wheelspin. But sure fun at low speed and low throttle, trying to find that limit of grip where one could get best acceleration
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ybsghnkk72o

At maximum I did use half of throttle, mostly less than 1/3rd, if I would of put pedal to floor thing would just hit the limiter and diff would of explode, also those tires were such that they gave up grip quite fast, very easy to spin and I really don't support that level of fun at public roads.

VND do you have any shops there that will sell gravel for gritting drive way or such? I used to have 40kg bag of gravel on boot.

jtbo wrote:
VND do you have any shops there that will sell gravel for gritting drive way or such? I used to have 40kg bag of gravel on boot.

Thats a very good idea.
To the builders merchants!

(as soon as the ice/snow melts)

Cool vid too mate.

Dude, you still got your 13's? 300's are much better if you can't get snow tyres on 175's than they are on widers (he says, still with 7" wide things on Fake)

Chris_C wrote:Dude, you still got your 13's? 300's are much better if you can't get snow tyres on 175's than they are on widers (he says, still with 7" wide things on Fake)

I literally just gave them away to macplaxton as im due to move house to a shedless, garageless abode. Where storage will be at a minimum. Poor timing indeed.

Buy a Jeep.

Don't seem to have a problem in the snow with mine.

sven360 wrote:Buy a Jeep.

Don't seem to have a problem in the snow with mine.

Evening stranger.
If i could afford a winter and a summer car, id have my mates hopped up 4.1millioncc Wrangler on lpg.
cant stretch though.
And the tax on a jeep all year round would kill me.
And although more practical one cold quarter of the year, the fun factor of 300s tips the ballance well over dude.
I'll have to struggle on regardless.

Hows frozenfinger lamp-planting treating you man? (shudders )

jtbo wrote:Tom, I have driven with such snowtires from 90's and it is not much of fun, my summer tires had more grip

Just checked those mouldy old cellar tyres. Two are of the same make and from 1994 Another one is from 2000 and another from 2004, both from different (no-name) makes. Not much good I guess ...

Tom

trabitom99 wrote: Just checked those mouldy old cellar tyres. Two are of the same make and from 1994 Another one is from 2000 and another from 2004, both from different (no-name) makes. Not much good I guess ...

Tom

Could be similar to my video then, any gear wheelspin

VND if your 360 is your only mode of transport have a gander on Gumtree, i had a look on the London section lastnight and there were quite a few sets of winter tyres people had dug out from the back of their garage for around 30-40 notes, might be worth looking into?

Tbh i don't even bothr getting mine off the Driveway in this weather, My Yoko's are the WORST tyres in snow ever, if you just lift the clutch slowly on idle it spins up even on the flat gound, 2nd fairs no better.

Was thinking of boshing my old skinny steels on the back but when i can pinch my mums Toyota Rav4 Soft roader i see no need .

My mate got stuck outside my house earlier in his works Focus, parked almost nose to nose to a car outside facing down hill, bit silly really, had to shovel up the ice to give him a runway but it's all fun and games.

As mentioned before, it's all about tires. However, if you only have a few days of wet snow, there's no need for expensive studded tires. Just get some part worn studless ones. They will not be great, but they will be cheap and way better than summer tires.

If you can't get snow tires, get some narrow summer tires with lots of thread and slice them with a carpet knife. It's not a great solution, but it's better than bold 15" summer tires...

Make them look like this:

RWD really sucks in snow, even with the transaxle setup of the 300s, there's still not enough weight over the driven wheels to make it work properly so you can get embarrassingly passed by little KA's/Citroens etc etc. The solution is to pile as much heavy junk as you can in the boot (yeah and winter tyres too ) Get at least 50Kg in there and it will make a difference. I did that last winter and although I still wasn't as good as the FWD cars on the hills I was at least not as embarrassingly bad

This year I got winter tyres and in the snow its a lot more fun. You still lose grip but in a much more predictable and controlled way. I still put heavy weight in the boot though. [BTW with this setup you'll even be going round the 4x4s on their summer tyres ]