Why aren't BMWs limited to Winter tyres and 75 BHP

Jackmydad

Nebulous2 wrote: »

I had a big metal drum from a fishing boat winch, which weighed over 2 cwt in the boot of my marina. I was staying in a block of tenement flats at the time and dumped it out the back in the summer. A new owner took offence at the mess of the place and was trying to tidy it up. He had a friend helping and they struggled to move it between them. Anyway, they had no knowledge of fishing boats and thought it was a wheel! I was remarkably amused listening in as they were blown away by the weight of it and were speculating what kind of vehicle it must have come from.

When I had the old Mark 1 Cortina I used to just bung a couple of bags of sand in the boot.
All those old "ordinary" RWD cars were a bit light on the back end IIRC.

highet

had a couple of capris in the 80s and you certainly didnt drive around happily in the snow - live rear axle made them the most tail slide happy cars ive ever owned

Joe_Horner

Was stuck in my wife's Mundano today because mine decided it didn't want to play & wa easier than jumping it. Still got to have fun on the way home though

https://www.facebook.com/joe.horner.3/videos/1602127416541465/

custardy

Saw an M5 the other day struggling to get into the B&Q car park. Went in,did my shoppingand saw had managed to get out of the car park.
Then found him stuck on the roundabout leaving B&Q.,requiring a tow to get up the hill.
I was driving our C4 Picasso on relativly cheap non winter tyres.
On the way to work I picked up a coworker who could get neither of his flash beemers off his drive and had warned me to 'not go near his road as it was impossible to drive'
I picked him up at his house.
IMO poor driver skills/experience with wrong tyres and some elctronic 'aids' not helping.Picasso has switchable ESP.

NBLondon

daveyjp wrote: »

Even the xdrive BMWs are useless if they have large wheels and performance tyres.

On the basis of what I saw on Friday afternoon - Porsche Cayennes are no better. There's a lot of Range Rover Evoques in my neighbourhood but I didn't see a single one actually being driven in the snow. I think there might be a correlation between driver ability and cars being purchased for image over function.

IanMSpencer

Never used to have that much trouble in the snow. I think the fundamental change was to very wide tyres. My first car was a Citroen GS and that has 2CVesque super narrow tyres. Wet and snow didn't phase it.

It also had a twin choke carburettor, where the first 2/3s of the accelerator travel gave fine control over the first carburettor, and then there was a sort of kick down where the second carburettor opened and it was basically a loud or louder setting (about 90bhp out of 1222cc air cooled IRCC - it could do about 95mph happily).

1999 Merc C Class was undriveable until I put all season tyres on.

In Germany and Austria, drivers are obliged to put on winter tyres by law, so it is a bit of a clue as to the solution that the owners of BMWs, Audis and Mercs continue to buy these "undriveable" cars when they have much worse conditions.

It is one of the great mysteries of the British car industry that the standard tyre that cars are sold with are sub-optimal for about 80% of the year (rain, cold and snow). Buyers seem to be tempted by marketing aimed at performance optimised for hot, dry track days rather than safe, all year round performance. As more all season tyres are coming into use it is becoming more obvious in bad weather.

Worse are the people driving their over-worn rock solid ditchfinders around the place, bemoaning the lack of gritting and skidding all over the place.

neilmcl

IanMSpencer wrote: »

Never used to have that much trouble in the snow. I think the fundamental change was to very wide tyres. My first car was a Citroen GS and that has 2CVesque super narrow tyres. Wet and snow didn't phase it.

It also had a twin choke carburettor, where the first 2/3s of the accelerator travel gave fine control over the first carburettor, and then there was a sort of kick down where the second carburettor opened and it was basically a loud or louder setting (about 90bhp out of 1222cc air cooled IRCC - it could do about 95mph happily).

1999 Merc C Class was undriveable until I put all season tyres on.

In Germany and Austria, drivers are obliged to put on winter tyres by law, so it is a bit of a clue as to the solution that the owners of BMWs, Audis and Mercs continue to buy these "undriveable" cars when they have much worse conditions.

It is one of the great mysteries of the British car industry that the standard tyre that cars are sold with are sub-optimal for about 80% of the year (rain, cold and snow). Buyers seem to be tempted by marketing aimed at performance optimised for hot, dry track days rather than safe, all year round performance. As more all season tyres are coming into use it is becoming more obvious in bad weather.

Worse are the people driving their over-worn rock solid ditchfinders around the place, bemoaning the lack of gritting and skidding all over the place.

I wouldn't have said so. If you really look at the weather statistics you'd probably find it to be the opposite, ie, temperature being in excess of 7 degrees for the majority of the year in most places and so the use of standard "summer" tyres being more than optimal.

I totally agree though that there should be more encouragement for the use of winter tyres.

Gloomendoom

IanMSpencer wrote: »

Never used to have that much trouble in the snow. I think the fundamental change was to very wide tyres. My first car was a Citroen GS and that has 2CVesque super narrow tyres. Wet and snow didn't phase it.

It also had a twin choke carburettor, where the first 2/3s of the accelerator travel gave fine control over the first carburettor, and then there was a sort of kick down where the second carburettor opened and it was basically a loud or louder setting (about 90bhp out of 1222cc air cooled IRCC - it could do about 95mph happily).

I had a couple of those. The power output was closer to 60 bhp than 90 and they really struggled on hills with full load of passengers. I had a set of chains for mine which really helped when it (snow, not struggling on hills) got really bad.

IanMSpencer

neilmcl wrote: »

I wouldn't have said so. If you really look at the weather statistics you'd probably find it to be the opposite, ie, temperature being in excess of 7 degrees for the majority of the year in most places and so the use of standard "summer" tyres being more than optimal.

I totally agree though that there should be more encouragement for the use of winter tyres.

I think what you have to remember about temperature is when are cars being driven - one of the main times is around 7-8 in the morning which is the coldest part of the day. Then how much of the summer were the roads wet?

Yes, 80% is an exaggeration, but the cross over point for all seasons is not the fabled 7 degrees where the rubber does not work properly, but higher than that - plenty of cool days where all season are still the perfect choice and summer tyres are sub-optimal.

My main reasoning is that as I do not drive on the limit of the handling of my car, the extra 10% or so of an already short braking distance in optimal summer conditions is highly unlikely to make a difference to me, where as the extreme differences in the cold and wet will make a significant difference (after all we are talking here about the situation where cars are literally undriveable simply due to tyre choice).

neilmcl

Again I wouldn't say "summer" tyres are sub-optimal, even in cooler (above 7 degrees) and wetter conditions. To me all-seasons are a compromise rather than the best of both worlds, they have their place but I'd rather be driving on the best tyre for the conditions and that is a good, standard tyre for most of the year and a set of winters during the 3 or 4 colder months.

Having said that I neglected to fit my winters this year and apart from this previous week, where I wasn't needed to drive anywhere anyway, there's been no issues.