Need a "normal" car for icy hill next winter.

ramellous1

We have house onto an estate which is on the top of a windey steep hill. This last week has been murder trying to get up through the snow it in our old shape Megane. Wife has a petrol Zafira which flies up no problem. I am going to be trading the megane in this year so need a car that can manage this hill. I am not getting a L Rover or 4x4 etc. I have noticed the cars that get up are "snub nose" types like clios, focuss etc which must have more weight on the front wheels. Has anyone any good ideas or cars to avoid?

mollycat

Did you ever watch WACKY RACES??

!!!!!! Dastardly had a car that once morphed from wheels to skis, excellent for you i think.

On the downside his car also appeared to run out of petrol pretty frequently and without warning....usually 2 inches from the finishing line allowing the Arkansas Chuggabug to steal first place.

Hope this helps!

ciano125

Dont be so sure that weight over the front helps, my 2.0 TDI Audi A4 is rubbish in the snow whereas my neighbours' Peugeot 306 Estate flew straight up the hill near us.

My dad used to have a Fiat Panda which he said was the best car he had ever had in the snow and the Peugeot 306 CC he has now is terrible.

If you aren't going to have four wheel drive, I think its pretty much hit and miss whether or not a car is good in the snow or not, although the new Panda does come in 4x4 guise!

mikey72

ramellous1 wrote: »

We have house onto an estate which is on the top of a windey steep hill. This last week has been murder trying to get up through the snow it in our old shape Megane. Wife has a petrol Zafira which flies up no problem. I am going to be trading the megane in this year so need a car that can manage this hill. I am not getting a L Rover or 4x4 etc. I have noticed the cars that get up are "snub nose" types like clios, focuss etc which must have more weight on the front wheels. Has anyone any good ideas or cars to avoid?

What tyres are on the Zafira, mines poor on hills, on Michelin Energys.

littleredhen

i agree re tyres - we now have michelins on our alhambra and they are too hard for snow and ice - we have never had a problem until this year when we got the" better" tyres this summer - they will have good wear but not for this weather

naijapower

All i can say in contribution is that my ford mondeo 1.8LX 2007 Reg is crap in the snow.
Wouldnt even go up the smallest hill. A huge embarassment considering how smaller toy cars fly thru

Petree

the fiat panda 4x4 is more versatile than a mountain goat! The ski rescue people still use the original ones, why.... because they are light, agile and nippy.

You've got two ways of getting up a hill essentially, slow and steady with torque and careful power delivery, like in a range rover, the issue is the huge weight of these vehicles means you stop on an uphill you often start sliding back down, or can't stop, and even when they get grip for a few seconds you're doing 2mph against 2 tons so it doesn't achieve much.

My old renault 5 automatic (so french, automatic and with a carb) was amazing on hills when all the signs said it should be rubbish, you simply gave it some power and whoosh the wheels happily spun round but being so light when it caught 1 time out of 10 it pushed it up nicely because the wheels were doing 20mph against 750Kg.

I'm guessing since you say the Zafira is petrol, the megane is diesel, so both are likely a similar weight, and prob bhp, the difference is one is going up using the second whizzy method, the first slow and steady.

Most cars are roughly 60/40 weight on front and rear (Premium cars get to 50/50), snub nose or not the weight of the driver forwards is largely on the front, and vice versa so its overall weight that makes the difference (RWD cars excepted as they need some weight on the drive wheels, hence people carrying bags of sand/salt in their boots)

To make the hill in the diesel you need to get the wheels moving fast so higher revs and lower gears when moving, but pull away in 2nd with enough revs to cope.

If you are determined to change it then go for something petrol and reasonably light, if you have no other reason to change it save yourself a few grand and buy some steel wheels with winter tyres.

motorguy

Winter grip is all down to tyres.

You need to buy a set of rims for your car out of a scrapyard and get proper winter tyres fitted to them, then swap them over come the worst of next winter (or this one).

Even a landrover wont make it up a snowy hill if its on road tyres.

littleredhen

thanks pgilc have tried to source winter tyres but my local garage can't get any - can order online but will need one of us to take a day off to accept delivery - dh going to scrap yard at weekend i hope

hewhoisnotintheknow

ft skinnier winter tyres

neil1965

Would agree with the above posts about choice of tyres. used to have a renault 4 van with kleber mud and snow tyres ( for running around a farm). would go anywhere! Would advise seeing what size wheels you could get from a scrappyard ( the narrower the better) and then get some mud and snow tyres to fit Not sure if kleber still make the mud and snow tyre. but vredestein do a good snow tyre think its called the snowtrack. sure there are lots of other makes though.

regards Neil.