View Full Version : Snow and ascending / descending hills
Got caught out in the snow today (6.5 hours from Welwyn Garden City back to Dunstable....via St Albans and any other road I could find open!)
The Sat Nav decided it would send me down a country road... (yes...I didnt have to take it, but by then I had totally had enough of sitting still) which was fine whilst it weaved its way through from Redbourn thru Flamstead....but things took a turn for the worse when it went into the wilds and a few climbs / descents
The climbs not a problem, in a diesel, so 1st gear, let it idle and it pulled itself through.....the descent, ummmmmmmmmm, scary!
1st gear, let it roll itself down whilst covering the brakes, but.....it picked up speed and a dab of the brakes (not ABS) didnt help matters (yes...I was cadence breaking) and I ended up a little tooooo close to hedges / trees (on 3 occasions)
So....for future reference, what the hell did I do wrong? Lets just say I nearly took up smoking for those few miles!!
Justsomebloke
18-12-2010, 23:12
;D
This is the problem i have when trying to stop a 2 ton truck riding on road slippers with an auto box & nowt but a fat brake pedal to stop. :shocked:
Keep with the cadence braking & steer out of trouble mainly but to be honest you/we :o should be going at slower speeds in the first place.
I should get my knobblys fitted Monday so they will help. :cool: You are ****** though. ;D
should be going at slower speeds in the first place.
I should get my knobblys fitted Monday so they will help. :cool: You are ****** though. ;D
LOL - I had stopped, whilst popping out the car for a look, so I wasnt going fast when I started going down hill....just the angle of the road made the car speed up (even with my feet off the accelerator) - either that or I have really **** tyres!! Ive never been in a position where Ive thought, thats it.....im going in and I cant do anything
Need to get myself on an off road course I think!
semi-pro waster
18-12-2010, 23:21
The limits of my knowledge here extends to keep the speed low, keep the revs lower and steer into the skid should it start. At least that's what I did on the way home today - picked up my car from the garage and had to get back through the snow and incompetent drivers, it's certainly a lot more interesting in a RWD car than it ever used to be with any of the FWD cars I've driven.
Justsomebloke
18-12-2010, 23:28
Mines an Auto V6 3 litre it literally Pushes you along when you start sliding. :D
I have already made my mind up to head for the gap & go off road to avoid any cars/pedestrians etc
Same as IainB as well we are literally talking walking speed here.
Thankfully I was in my uber boring (and very basic) Fiesta.....thankfully my Merc estate is off the road till next year, as with that being an Auto I would still have been out there...somewhere!!
If anything this has proven to me that im not as good at driving as I thought I was ;D (though the person following me through did say at the end that he went and played in a hedge :evil: - maybe next time he wont be driving like a loon behind me and if I hadnt moved forward after the first descent, he would have been in my boot!)
Oh....and some of the people Ive seen driving today.....holy mother of all things err unholy, if they got cars home in one piece I would have been very suprised!!
Lets move off with about a million revs and let it spin and spin and spin.....then jump on the brakes and skiddddddd :confused:
Justsomebloke
18-12-2010, 23:40
I'm going out early in the morning for a cruise in me jeep to have a play & to see if there are any earners to be had pulling folk out. :cool:
That's a good plan, though make sure you've got a good tow rope. :cool:
Some kind soul happened by in a pickup and pulled me (in a taxi, of all things) out of a hole back in Jan. Driver hadn't spotted the kerb while coming to pick me up and got one wheel stuck the wrong side. We were well stuck - it took several failed attempts on our own and three attempts with the pickup (one of which broke the end off the rather puny tow rope) to get us out of there. Didn't want any money for it either but I insisted.
What is Cadence breaking?
BB x
semi-pro waster
19-12-2010, 10:32
Mines an Auto V6 3 litre it literally Pushes you along when you start sliding. :D
I have already made my mind up to head for the gap & go off road to avoid any cars/pedestrians etc
Same as IainB as well we are literally talking walking speed here.
I'm sure you're both much more competent drivers than me, the comment was really about the amount of people here who seem unable to drive at all in the snow. I don't have huge amounts of experience with it but do know that just pinning the throttle and hoping that you'll move with that is usually not a good plan.
What is Cadence breaking?
BB x
Cadence braking is a technique where you are fairly rapidly and deliberately pumping the brakes to cause the wheels to lock and unlock, this is supposed to be allow you to still maintain some steering control. However it's almost entirely redundant in a modern car as ABS do it quicker and more effectively than a human can manage. I think your car is new enough that you've probably got ABS although I don't know for certain - when you stamp on the brakes hard do you sometimes feel a slight stutter in the pedal and loud clunks or similar from the brakes? If you do then ABS is almost certainly present.
Piggymon
19-12-2010, 11:14
Oh how it's fun driving in the snow in Barney.. NOT !!
Driving in 2nd gear with traction control off and I seem to get somewhere very slowly ;D
TinkerBell
19-12-2010, 11:24
I hate driving in the snow. I am dreading driving 66 miles to get home today when there is 6 inches of snow at home! No ABS here to help! Nice
I love driving in the snow, but not with other road users about...
I love driving in the snow, but not with other road users about...
It took me an hour to get from Banbury police station to home last night, about a mile as the crow flies and a mile and a half according to Google maps.
I did stop for nearly 20 mins and have a rant on the phone to Lom about all the other halfwits on the road.
I walked in tonight and had to help push some old codger who, despite looking like Santa, knew eff all about travelling in snow. "NO! SECOND GEAR, KEEP THE REVS DOWN!!!!!!!!!!"
I live at the bottom of a steep hill. On Saturday it wasn't bad but by Saturday evening it was bad. I just about got the car up the hill. We left the car at the top now. No point trying to get up n down it.
Getting down's alright, it's getting up that's the problem!
Oh, and stopping at the bottom...
Getting down's alright, it's getting up that's the problem!
Oh, and stopping at the bottom...
Stopping is the issue as the River Mersey is at the bottom of the hill. Its a very dodgy hill.
Stopping is the issue as the River Mersey is at the bottom of the hill. Its a very dodgy hill.
And it's a bit cold for swimming, no? ;)
I'll just shut up now...
http://www.boomspeed.com/bofh1968/boatdrinks/snowy_drive.wmv
I have found that the entire idea behind driving on snow/ice is drive like there's a full champagne glass sitting on the dash and you're trying desperately not to spill any.
I wondered how long it'd take. ;D
That said, I can't think of anyone better (save an expert) to take advice from. :)
How fast is that truck going?!!! :eek:
volospian
22-12-2010, 10:54
Downhill I have no real option than to put the car into 2nd and keep my foot on the brake to maintain a slow crawl down. I'm relying on the subzero temps and gentle braking to keep the brakes from boiling, although the brakes are hugely impressive and do seem to be able to take a lot of abuse before they start to fade (unlike the Alfa 155 I took to Italy via the alpine passes... thankfully it was a manual and so judicious use of 1st gear stopped me from hitting the armco when the brakes decided to give up half way down a series of switchbacks. The interesting thing though was that the steering fluid boiled over too. I checked the engine oil later that day and everything was covered in PAS fluid, lol). However, if somebody does something stupid, (including myself) which causes me to begin a slide on a hill, there's very little I can do to stop it. I can perhaps hold it and hope to exploit any increase in grip I can find, but very wide sports tyres, mixed with an autobox, serious low down torque and savage brakes mean that both acceleration and braking are often, no matter how gentle I try to be, still more powerful than the available traction.
As for going uphill, it's a case of switching the TC off and trying to gain momentum before you go up. TC does nothing to assist, it's too sudden to cut the power, so intead of it helping to retain traction by smoothing out spikes in the revs, it often actually causes you to go backwards as the car suddenly loses power and rocks backwards. With TC on I have sat on my hill with the car rocking back and forth, slowly slipping backwards down the hill as it rocks back after each sharp cut of the throttle, and with it off, I have sat there perfectly still with the car in 2nd, my feet off the pedals and the rear wheels still slowly creeping round as they don't even find enough traction to overcome the autobox creep.
So last night....I had to go home to get some clean clothes (as im staying closer to work at the minute) and decided, in my infinite wisdom, to go my normal route between 2 A roads.....along a country lane with a climb and descent :dunno:
Totally aced it ;D and even went past a couple of cars that were slowing down / spinning / stopped - no worries at all, so my confidence has been slightly restored ;)
Saying that....still dont want to go anywhere near where I had the 'offs' on Saturday until the snow has totally gone!!
Winter tires are a winner, too. I've been against them for years but after living in Finland and now Denmark (not much 'regular' snow, but still nearing -20 this morning), I can't recommend them enough. You can really tell who has their 'normal' tires and who has their winter tires. It's not legislation here, but everyone still does it. Most homes have a summer/winter set tucked away.
How fast is that truck going?!!! :eek:
You didn't recognize what I was driving? ;D
Not sure which is worse : a loaded tractor/trailer doing 70+mph in a blizzard on an ice covered two lane road (yes, there was 2 inches of solid ice on that road)? Or me in this hunk of **** (without the wood load, of course)?
http://www.boomspeed.com/bofh1968/chevy/load2.jpg
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