driving in snow

I doubt the UK will _ever_ require 'serious' snow work. Studs are fine in the worst of circumstances so long as you're 'on road'. In Kiruna (200Km inside the Arctic Circle) our taxi driver was merrily trundling along at somewhere in the region of 90Kph in thick snow whilst chatting to us and changing the radio station. We were rather quiet... On roads, under the snow is invariably ice. The same goes for a slight covering of snow followed by another snowfall. The first layer will either melt, or partially melt - forming ice under the fresh fall - which can be worse than driving on a sheet of pure ice.

Off road is different, as you can never tell what is under the snow anyway, so essentially, it doesn't matter what tyres you have IMO.

Martyn

In Kiruna (200Km inside the Arctic

I lived on Speyside for many years and it was quite normal to drive at 40mph on packed snow which is virtually ice. Everything is fine so long as you don't change speed suddenly! Snow is not particularly slippery at low temperatures (but don't rely on that!).

Tyre pressure creates heat which melts the ice. It is this layer of water that causes the slides. Friction also creates heat so sudden acceleration or decelleration (cornering, braking, etc.) will help melt the snow and create that layer of water which acts as a lubricant. If ambient temperature is near or above freezing, that water layer is easily formed -- hence "the wrong type of snow" on railway lines.

Derry

Or "snow".

I do, indeed. It's one of my favourite driving surfaces.

Coincidentally, I have also found (through several years of green-laning experience in all sorts of different conditions), that the Pirelli muds perform better than the BFG A/Ts in "snow", as well as "mud".

I wouldn't be at all suprised. I would really have liked to have fitted BFG M/Ts. However, the Pirelli's were £58 a piece and the BFG's were rather considerably more (like, three times the price at the time).

I certainly wouldn't take it personally. However, I'd always think twice about relying on the advice of a professional whose experience differs so considerably from my own.

Regards,

On or around Sat, 24 Jan 2004 22:04:46 -0000, "StaffBull" enlightened us thusly:

you'll be lucky. 's all full of tourists and youth hostels.

There's a chap runs green lane events in north wales somewhere, was in a recent LRO mag.

Thanks Andy.

Richard

But didn't he use tires with 'dubbar' small mangane steel spikes? They are great on snow and ice, prohibited outside Scandinavia though..

As narrow as possible and soft rubber compound, as probably said here before.

Jurjen

A little bit of snow and the UK panics, considering on thery is that we will have a climate like newfoundland in the future if the gulf stream turns off, we need to lern how to drive on snow and get used to it.

Larry

The point is if it snows tommorow I am not going to be pissing about changing tyres I shall just use the AT tyres that are there already, any set of tyres is better than no tyres and a landie is an advantage over the 2WD standard road tyres that everyone else will be dealing with.

Mine (new V70) took a rear ding without so much as a chip in the bumper, but only at low speed. On the whole it didn't feel as solid as it could have. Made in Belgium oddly enough.

Although, thinking about it, it came off reasonably well wedged between an Army 110 and a dry stone wall, so it couldn't have been that bad!

David

No man is an island; but then, no man is a potato salad either.

I object to that! And it's Mr Potato Salad to you! :D

Living in a country where snow isn´t something very unusual (austria) ;-) I can tell you, that I, speaking for me personally) drive with normal Pirelli All Terrains on the Range Rover and they take me basically everywhere. I also experimented with the 109 with Michelin XS-F which nearly miss negative profile at all and they also worked surprisingly well.

Nevertheless, real winter tyres would be the best idea. The real ones usually have something with "winter" or "snow" in their names. M&S is not enough because there is no standard for the tyre makers which alles or forbids the usage of the term "M&S".

Raoul

Been there, Donne that.

It's time to confess (it's meant to be good for the soul, after all) that I've been considering a set of snow tyres for my Punto ...

So far I've managed to resist, largely due to the reflection on the fact that we get about one day of snow a year in Berkshire (and may well miss out on it this time).

What snow ?

I am really disapointed there aint none in Coventry :(

in article sayQb.10034$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfep4-glfd.server.ntli.net, Lee_D at snipped-for-privacy@ntlworld.com wrote on 24/1/04 5:44 pm:

I came upon an unexpected ice rink in a car park one morning a couple of years ago, in the Discovery. Couldn't do anything about it and slid very sedately across the car park and stopped just short of a wall.

I hate snow. I hate being cold.

Emigrate to somewhere warmer.

Like sunny Melbourne (not)

It's suppose to be summer and it's a pitiful 18C at least it's not snowing.

Come to think of it a bit of the white stuff might be fun.

Get your hubby to explain how the heater controls work and how to read the road surface and you can fix both quite easily. . . . . .