BMW in the snow

[Phil]

Are BMWs the worlds worst cars in the snow?
Left work in Coventry last night and there was some snow - not much - in fact the road had a small layer of slush.
Slight incline - no grip -- stuck in the middle of the road. Let everything come past me and then a kind young man offered to give me a push
50 yards further - stuck again. Got out to shovel the snow away and there wasnt any - same layer of slush. Let everyone past again and eventually managed to get some traction and got to the top of the hill.
Took two and a half hours to get home but any slight incline and the cars absolutely useless. Was following a 1 series in one queue and that was squirming all over the place.

[Nick]

Are BMWs the worlds worst cars in the snow?

I had an old mini that seemed to be able to scrabble anywhere, worst car was a Mercedes. My Z3 could get stuck on a blade of wet grass. The Porsche Cayman even on fat summer tyres seems pretty good but they say below 5 degrees I should be on winter tyres.

Nick

[PeteH]

I've switched to winter tyres this year and it has made the world of difference. The car is actually 'good' in the snow now and easily tackled some very snow bound and icey hills that it would have certain death on summer tyres!

[Roadster]

Since the Z4 is my daily drive, I've had winter tyres for the last 5 years.

The winter tyres do make the difference between getting somewhere and getting stuck hopelessly.
Since these tyres do have grip in winter conditions like snow, slush, cold wet roads, ... it is actually good fun to do some controlled drifting

Since this winter had so much "fun" on the roads, some of my colleages at work are also going to order winter tyres for next season (read: had "damaged bodywork" as the main reason).

[pvr]

Winter tyres ...

I have them on the X5 and just got back from a 1100 Km journey from the French Alps. We had some serious, serious snow on the roads there and the X5 with Hill Descent and Winter tyres did marvellous. No snow chains required, and managed to drive around the cars all over the road that had stopped to fit snow chains.

Even pure ice hills up to the underground car park of the house we rented was no problem, was extremely impressed. The X5 on summer (M+S) tyres was absolutely hopeless in the snow, but it transformed to a proper 4x4 with the tyres ...

[Muppet]

I used the Zed3 all winter, when it got very bad I turned off the traction control( it could not handle all the wheel spin) and with help from the LSD I got there.. not always with the car pointing in the direction I was going , but with gentle inputs to pedals and wheel, the radio off to hear what is happening I survived. No winter wheels which i think would have helped just blind self belief

[dodgyken]

The Alpina came out for a play today on the snow-free roads. But otherwise it stays tucked up in the garage.

Winter tyres make a huge difference - I thought it was a load of crap - but then the first year I was here I put them on and never looked back.

I used to live on a hill - and one November the snow came down - only a cm or 2 - but I still had the summer tyres on. Driving up the hill anything more than feather like control had the back end weaving. 2 weeks later the winter tyres were on and the same weather conditions were present - even with a very heavy right foot the back end stayed straight.

So what was the car that on summer tyres would dance bolero as good as Torville and Dean?

It was a 1987 Volvo 740 2.0GL - which came out of the factory with 121ps - and probably lost a few in the intervening 19 years.