Just a bit of fun... What's best in snow?

The tyres will decide..... the first time we had snow for ages (round about 2001) I had put brand new front tyres on the Scenic on the evening that the snow started to fall (pure coincidence). The next morning I was able to drive to work and straight back home when they closed the site as there was no way of clearing the snow from the car parks on the business park.

The current Kuga has AWD and I have a photo somewhere of it being the only car in the work car park as everyone else had 2WD and couldn't or wouldn't attempt to drive into the car park. I don't fancy trying to drive in snow in the Fiesta, it has the optional 17" wheels and liquorice-thin tyre sidewalls; I fitted crossclimate tyres to the Captur a few years back and my wife didn't have issues driving in the admittedly minimal levels of snow we had at the time

When we lived in California, all of our 4wd cars had M&S tyres on them. It’s the law there that they have to be fitted.
They make a huge difference but, I noticed that the new tyres I got on the Mondeo are great in the snow too.
When I had the 325, the directional tyres I had were a disaster in the snow. I could only drive the car uphill after throwing a few bags of coal in the boot!

So defining fun in the snow, for slidy things, the 325.
For making progress, I loved my RX300. 200bhp and tyres that were the right size for snow with about 10” of ground clearance could go anywhere. It wasn’t fast, just competent, and had a great heating system which included the seats. Great in 6000’ altitudes and minus temperatures.
I can also confirm that the ECT Snow Mode worked for anyone who remembers Ravi’s post many years ago!

My X5 was fine but the tyre/wheel combination was not the most suitable 20” wheels by 8” at the front. But that said, it didn’t put a door wrong.

Ha!

Funny that I forgot I had a Boxster but I remember Ravi's post being a running joke 

Actually I do remember driving my Elise in snow but only to and from Skelton which was one of the places I worked. It was sh!t   Mine had the earlier aluminium and ceramic brakes which were just awful when they got wet and in fact they just stopped working. I think they changed them later, hopefully for better ones.

Tyres and tyres make most difference. With tyres helping too.

Decades ago we had a family holiday in Scotland and it snowed so badly we had no power for two days, those days being Christmas and Boxing Day. When we went out on Boxing Day lots of cars (like all of them) were struggling to make progress. We were in a W124 300E. With winter tyres and black steel wheels. It drove normally.

When holidaying in Kazakhstan my then GF had a Toyota Land Cruiser Prado but as above I suppose it was the tyres that had the desired effect. The winters and the snow and ice there are pretty epic.

These were on her sisters Lexus.

This was fun.



I've had the TVR out in snow. That wasn't as horrible as it sounds. It had enough torque not to use the throttle.

I've got the same type tyres I had on the Defender on my pickup and that is also decent in the snow.

I haven't had the Discovery out yet.

My GR Yaris was pretty good in the snow a couple of Sundays ago. If I had been in any other car that I have ever owned, I think I would have had to abandon the car and walk home. It was still very sketchy indeed on its PS4S tyres but at least I was able to get where I needed to go. Possibly the most hair-raising drive of my life.

Terrible cars in the snow? My E90 M3 is comfortably the worst but the Caymans aren't much better. But I've never fitted any of them with winter tyres.

Surprisingly effective in the snow? My VX220 Turbo, and to a lesser extent the E46 M3 that I had back in 2003-05. But on those occasions it wasn't icy, just snowy. A boggo FWD hatchback would be much more effective, if a bit less fun - although I think 'fun' is stretching it when you're 100% focused on not crashing...

Almost right. It was the 156 GTA that I drove to Moscow and back, twice. I had Nokian winter tyres on that (studless) and never got stuck.

However, I did also drive the Z1 to St Moritz one year, on winter tyres (Pirelli I think). That was lots of fun.

I tend to the camp that thinks winter tyres worth having. Plus where my wife is from in Italy and we have a place, winter tyres are obligatory between November and April and we normally drive down every Christmas/NYE, so I have a set for my 440i. That said, as we weren’t taking it to Italy this Christmas, I didn’t bother changing its wheels and then of course ended up having to drive it to a very snowy Stansted and back on the Monday of the big freeze 10 days or so ago. It was fine, although I did drive in a pretty circumspect manner, given that at one point I saw -6 on the M11. That could be down to the fact that the tyres were new earlier this year.

Also, I then drove the Mini down to Italy on its normal Goodyear Eagle tyres last weekend in even more frigid conditions - I saw -13 on the motorway passing Strasbourg at only around 7pm - and it was absolutely fine. I even encountered some lying snow on mercifully horizontal roads and it was again fine, albeit that I drove very carefully and again that set of tyres was barely run in. It’s now had winter tyres fitted (as mentioned they are obligatory here and we are also driving up to the Alps next week for a few days skiing with friends over NYE).

So, arguably if you drive carefully on recent tyres and don’t have to navigate particularly steep roads, perhaps winter tyres aren’t a necessity. But from recent experience, I can say that you do feel much more secure on the winters, and from past experience, even my powerful rear-drove BMW can go up steep snowy roads on its Pirelli Sottozeros with an ease you’d scarcely credit.

You would find steering limited and it would try to understeer quite badly if you used it. On the road the electronics should sort it out in most conditions unless it is a rear axle locker.

I don't remember any issues at all when I had a Midget. That was a long time ago so I could have just forgotten the fun or frights I had in it   but I do remember it as being the best car in the snow I've had.

This popped up in my suggested videos a short while ago, quite interesting and instructive: