Snow fall

[Hybrid21]

RAV4 ready for some snow action this morning.

 

[Grumpy stumpy]

Be interested to see how it goes, we had the beast from the east few years back, best we get in Suffolk but I had a 2014 double cab hilux that was awesome . Have the AWD Rav now so hopefully will be as good but hard act to follow.

[flash22]

12 degrees down south, damp and miserable

[TonyHSD]

Beautiful snow ❄️ 

Not much though, it won’t be a challenge even for a FWD hybrid.
Good tyres, set at correct pressures and gentle accelerator and stopping, that’s all.  
AWD cars are better on uphill starts mostly as the mass of the vehicle !Removed! to the rear axle. You won’t have any problems. If me I will enjoy driving on snow all night long, it is so relaxing. 👌

[Hybrid21]

Hi all, just went to the supermarket, but she handled the road conditions with ease.

Felt solid and predictable 👍

Unlike me as I've not been feeling too great and decided to take a test ☹️

 

[ernieb]

34 minutes ago, Hybrid21 said:

Hi all, just went to the supermarket, but she handled the road conditions with ease.

Felt solid and predictable 👍

Unlike me as I've not been feeling too great and decided to take a test ☹️

 

Oh dear, my son had it recently there seems to be more of it about again?

[Cyker]

TBH it's never really gone away, but with everyone concentrating in shopping centres and retail parks before xmas, and now for sales, it has jumped up a bit.

For most people it's just another flu to add to the pile, now that pretty much everyone's had it at least once and has the anti-bodies to deal with it.

Hope you get well soon!

[Roy124]

Went to an outlet centre yesterday.   Wife declared car park too busy so we went to another that was even more crowded,  go figure.  I sat in the car.

THEY went again today while I did more shopping.  You can't beat Amazon and friendly postman picked up 3 parcels. 

Then I went out with the dog for an hour, saw 4 people and 10 dogs.   Much better. 

[alan.rochester]

On 12/30/2023 at 2:43 PM, Hybrid21 said:

RAV4 ready for some snow action this morning.

 

Not sure how everyone is doing in the snow, wife have a bit of difficulty with the box in Auto mode and antilock seems to be very sensitive, are many using the box like a manual during the bad weather - 2022 EXEL AWD

[philip42h]

5 minutes ago, alan.rochester said:

Not sure how everyone is doing in the snow, wife have a bit of difficulty with the box in Auto mode and antilock seems to be very sensitive, are many using the box like a manual during the bad weather - 2022 EXEL AWD

I don't imagine that I could do better than the automatic mode of the CVT - and we don't have a real manual mode in any case. Just drive with a very light foot to give the car the best chance.

What tyre are you running on? A reasonably worn set of summer tyres won't help at all in this weather ...

[alan.rochester]

Just now, philip42h said:

I don't imagine that I could do better than the automatic mode of the CVT - and we don't have a real manual mode in any case. Just drive with a very light foot to give the car the best chance.

What tyre are you running on? A reasonably worn set of summer tyres won't help at all in this weather ...

Running the standard Bridgestones that it came on 10,000ms wear. unable to find the tyre on the Bridgestone website to see what kind it is , ie all weather etc

u

[philip42h]

5 minutes ago, alan.rochester said:

Running the standard Bridgestones that it came on 10,000ms wear. unable to find the tyre on the Bridgestone website to see what kind it is , ie all weather etc

u

The OEM tyres tend to be relatively hard wearing, summer tyres. I believe they have been using Bridgestone Alenza tyres - you could pop out and look but I'd forgive you if you'd rather not! 😉

At 10k miles they probably have a decent amount of tread left, but they are far from 'new' and won't work so well in the cold weather. I don't know what a normal Shetland winter is like - i.e. how much you benefit from being an island despite being so far north - but you would probably do well to switch to at least All Season tyres when you get the chance.

[alan.rochester]

40 minutes ago, philip42h said:

The OEM tyres tend to be relatively hard wearing, summer tyres. I believe they have been using Bridgestone Alenza tyres - you could pop out and look but I'd forgive you if you'd rather not! 😉

At 10k miles they probably have a decent amount of tread left, but they are far from 'new' and won't work so well in the cold weather. I don't know what a normal Shetland winter is like - i.e. how much you benefit from being an island despite being so far north - but you would probably do well to switch to at least All Season tyres when you get the chance.

Thanks, they are the Alenza, winters up here tend not to have been so bad lately, but at the moment have had a lot of snow and poor driving conditions, the ploughs and gritters are doing the best, had BF Goodrich Urban Terrain on the last Rav which worked really well. Not sure what to go for this time, quite like the look of the Yokohama Blue Earth.

[Hybrid21]

1 hour ago, alan.rochester said:

Not sure how everyone is doing in the snow, wife have a bit of difficulty with the box in Auto mode and antilock seems to be very sensitive, are many using the box like a manual during the bad weather - 2022 EXEL AWD

Hi Alan, I just leave mine in auto, using normal mode, if the snow was very deep I'd probably put it in trail mode, but would only use at very slow speeds.

[Rav Rob]

When I had my Outlander PHEV it was a stark lesson in physics, the effect of a large mass. Getting going was not an issue, stopping sometimes was, big time!
Makes me wonder with a lot of very heavy EV's on the roads now, how they will they do or are we going to see more braking accidents.

[Cyker]

I'm already getting SUVs get uncomfortably close to me under braking, and that's just because of slightly reduced braking due to the incredible amount of gritting and salt put on the roads!

(I think the local council got badly caught out last time, and they're overcompensating now to make up for it! It's not snowed or even forecast to rain any time soon but they've put down so much grit it's almost as slippery in places!  )

[Auris James]

Winter tyres make a massive difference when under 7 degrees.

I have a 1996 Volvo 940 rear wheel drive automatic estate. On Michelin energy savers Summer tyres it would barely move on a slight incline.

Around 2017 I bought a set of used Volvo 940 alloy wheels £40 and fitted 4 x new Goodyear ultragrip 9 winter tyres, £50 each. The difference was/is incredible. Grip, cornering, braking transformed.

Went out in the Beast from the east to play and grip excellent. Could actually pull away on steep hills!

2 of the tyres are the original and other 2 are new but old stock as one worn on edge and one got punctured! Will replace the older ones one day and buy 9+. Original fronts have 4-5mm. Newer ones I had put on the rear.  

James.

 

[GBgraham]

On 1/17/2024 at 12:04 PM, alan.rochester said:

Thanks, they are the Alenza, winters up here tend not to have been so bad lately, but at the moment have had a lot of snow and poor driving conditions, the ploughs and gritters are doing the best, had BF Goodrich Urban Terrain on the last Rav which worked really well. Not sure what to go for this time, quite like the look of the Yokohama Blue Earth.

Mine came with Yokohama Avid GT Blue Earth fitted and they seem to be wearing well but no snow experience. Although I see plenty snow at higher levels but very rarely need to drive in it at my levels. 

I think I saw some earlier posts where some were slagging these tyres🤔

[Mike2222]

I similarly have the yokohama avid GTs. I recs previous discussions were that they seemed slightly more capable than might be expected of an OEM tyre in inclement weather/temps, but not to the standard of a proper all season or winter variant. 

 

I haven't really had any problems with them for a little under 2 years, but I had a slightly scarey moment this morning with abs kicking in for a not especially sudden braking for a lights change from about 35-40mph. ABS kicked in again on pulling away, which also surprised. Could indeed have been over-gritting, as there didn't seem to be much ice/standing water etc to explain. Seems a shame to ditch them when plenty of tread life left, but anymore similar shenanigans, and I'll start browsing blackcircles again, methinks! Hard to recover from a loss of confidence in such an integral safety component of the vehicle. 

[philip42h]

12 minutes ago, GBgraham said:

On 1/17/2024 at 10:04 AM, alan.rochester said:

... Not sure what to go for this time, quite like the look of the Yokohama Blue Earth.

Mine came with Yokohama Avid GT Blue Earth fitted and they seem to be wearing well but no snow experience. Although I see plenty snow at higher levels but very rarely need to drive in it at my levels. 

I think I saw some earlier posts where some were slagging these tyres🤔

"Yokohama BluEarth" defines a family of tyres rather than a specific model. You can get Yokohama BluEarth in Summer, Winter and All Season variants. For an All Season tyre you'd want to be looking at Yokohama BluEarth-4S AW21 ...

I suspect that the Avids are a summer tyre comparable with the Dunlop Grandtrek and Bridgestone Alenza otherwise fitted as OEM.

[ernieb]

7 hours ago, Mike2222 said:

I similarly have the yokohama avid GTs. I recs previous discussions were that they seemed slightly more capable than might be expected of an OEM tyre in inclement weather/temps, but not to the standard of a proper all season or winter variant. 

I have them on the ‘21 PHEV and have had some experience in snow, ice and general cold weather when we were up in Derbyshire. They coped significantly better than I expected. I’d allotted money to replace them when I bought the car however as they coped very well I decided to live with them until they started to wear.