Strange grinding noise could have been anti lock working. In some conditions its possible to stop in a shorter distance without the anti lock. Did you have brakes full on as on snow/ice you would tend to slide not steer How worn are your tyres now ?

As for fiesta, it had skinney tires so would cut through snow/ ice as opposed to wide tires you have that would Aquaplane. Look at the Rally cars on Snow, they only have narrow tyres.

Hope this helps

I find my 328 a real handfull in snow. The 225 tyres really do it no favours. Goodyear eagle F1s are performance tyres and will be rubbish in the snow. If you look on the Mytyres website they have reviews and most high performance sports tyres get 1 out of 6 for grip in snow.

The grinding noise may be the ABS. It might be worth getting the traction control and the ABS checked though.

Another thought, is this the first RWD car you have driven. They require a different approach to FWD cars and demand a bit more respect.

Final thoughts, IMO 40 mph is too fast for driving on a snow covered road. I was driving in similar conditions today and I stuck to 30mph. The 360 spin could have been due to oil on the road. Like I said RWD cars can catch you out in low grip situations. 

The idea of ABS is that you can give full brakes without locking the wheels thus full brake and steer at the same time, be wary tho as another thing which can cause a car to slide is weight transfer, even on a car with ABS you will still get the effects of the pendulem when you slam on the brakes say mid corner for example, this alone "could" induce the **** end to start sliding, simple rule of thumb, never rely on the ABS, always revert to it when you really have no other choice and about to die or crash , same is true with traction control btw, it "WONT" stop weight transfer induced rear end sliding, and of course weight transfer is so much more prevelant in snowy or icey conditions as the grip is so low.

Its entirely possible that maybe your rear wheel sensors for the braking /ABS system "could" be dirty or not working correct causing an abnormal amount of rear brake bias ?, im not a mechanic tho so just a theory ;)

Mark.

sil328 wrote: Actually the AA van that arrived parked up behind me on the verge, then couldn't get out and had to call another recovery truck to pull him out! So you can see that conditions were not good at all.

Reminds me of the picture of the hiab-truck lifting a car out of the sea from a pier, it tipples over, they have to get a bigger crane, that does the same, so an even bigger crane is needed.

If anyones got the picture, please post it ... for those of you who havent the foggiest idea of what im talking about ... sorry, but if you saw it you'd understand.

Im sure it was Irish too   <gets flameproof suit ready>

An easy bit of advice if you think your car is skittery in the snow:  Buy a second set of wheels and put winter tyres on.  Eagle F1's are good in the dry, and okay in the wet, but like most other Summer tyres, will be rubish in the snow!

In Germany, it is law to have a set of winter wheels and tyres for just that reason.  It's also a good idea from a saving your alloys from the salt point of view!

I drove from Northumberland to Heathrow and back, yesterday, in my 318is. It also has 225 tyres and enough power to break traction even in slight damp. I don't have traction control. I also have a set of budget tyres (Eurotour, £65 a corner).

Despite the weather being atrocious, I had absolutely no problems, even overtaking lorries on the snow covered A1(M).

I make sure that whenever we get a fall of snow, I find an empty car park and remind myself how to handle the car in a skid in the snow.

neileg wrote: Despite the weather being atrocious, I had absolutely no problems, even overtaking lorries on the snow covered A1(M). I make sure that whenever we get a fall of snow, I find an empty car park and remind myself how to handle the car in a skid in the snow.

No disrespect intended Neil, but I think your mad  

Overtaking in the snow!  

The trouble is even if you know how to handle a skid there's seldom room on a busy road to do it safely, especially since a bit of snow tends to make the traffic more dense. Being able to catch an oversteering car is fine but if the roads very busy you still stand a chance of hitting someone. If your doing anything over about 30 on snow and you loose it you are really going to struggle to get the car back while staying between the lines.

IMO the best way is to drive very slowly and avoid skidding as much as possible. Unless of course the road is empty, then you can have some fun!!

Carl is right, winter tyres are the answer.

Here in Germany nearly everyone runs winter tyres from late Nov to Early March - it's not actually law except for on snow covered roads but just makes sense, particularly on larger, powerful, fast cars. I think the BMW engineers who designed your car would be very surprised to find you driving it on snow covered roads at all on summer tyres.

Tyre design is a matter of compromise. Summer tyres are designed for warm and dry roads, and can cope with some rain. Winter tyres are designed for cold (less than 7 degrees C), wet, ice and snow. They are thinner (most people switch to steel wheels two sizes smaller - eg 215 to 195, with big tyres maybe four sizes smaller), have different profiles/tread with more grooves and edges, and most importantly are made of a softer compound. Summer tyres get too hard in cold conditions. The disadvantage of winter tyres is they are usually a bit noisier and use more petrol.

I had never used winter tyres before moving to Germany, but having experienced how much more grip you get, not only on snow, but also on cold wet mornings, I only use winter tyres on all our cars from Nov to Mar. Plus I keep snowchains in the boot for when things get really nasty

Snowchains won't help until you're measuring the snow in inches. You need more grip on cold, wet, possibly icy roads. Your big fat summer tyres were never designed for those kinds of conditions.

Or buy a sledge. At least they usually slide in one direction rather than 360 degrees ! And cost less when they hit a tree sideways...

Well you live & learn.

When I learnt to drive there were more rear wheel drive cars around the fwd. You learnt to read the road & in bad conditions take it slow - even when driving a 72bhp Mk1 Escort Sport.

Face it, you ain't Colin McRae. Once you've hit the slide it's to late. BMW325TDS has the best advice to maximise your grip but excess speed still = accident.

My brother's a traffic cop with over 15years experience + he trains new traffic cops - I won't tell you what he called you!!!

In bad conditions, if you think you're going fast enough - slow down!

Paul, I'm not that mad! Although there was snow on the road, there were also clear ruts that HGVs had created. I was driving in those.

sil328, I agree that once you're in a slide, you need lots of road, lots of skill and lots of luck to get it back. The point I was illustrating is that I prefer to know how far I can go before a slide starts. Different cars give you different signals and if you ignore these you get into trouble. The start of this thread was about a slide without warning. I acknowledge that some cars are very bad at signalling what's happening but I want to know what these signals are so that when I get them, I don't ignore them.

I've been driving for over 30 years and I've not so far had an accident in bad weather. This may well be luck, and I don't think I'm fireproof. Equally, I invest time every year, reminding myself what to do when a skid starts and how to stop it becoming a slide. Because the right action can be counter-intuitive, and because I've driven loads of different cars, I need to be re-educated on a regular basis.

sil328--- some good advice given on your prob.

This time of year road surfaces, have got so much gunge on them, filling up the abrasive edges of the normal sharp surfaces , No rain to clean them out and they are polished.Mix in Diesel spillage which the Police say, is getting worse ALL the time and is widespread, and you have a lethal mix for disaster--You found it , do did hundreds of others.

I think you need to check out the noise, when you went out of control without warning---MUST be a reason.???

The biggest, easiest & cheapest help you can get is 2 x 25Kg bags of shingle in the luggage area.Amazing how it improves road holding. I had a CSL and a 3-0si which were a bit lively in the wet, in particular on my drives up the A1 in all conditions for a few years, you know about lorry traffic on this route, and slippy surfaces.No probs.

The easiest start to your Skidpan lesson, is to find a wet grass area, no speed req-just turn and power on and keep momentum going.

The grip the tyres have in bad conditions depends on the weight per surface area you have in contact. Increasing the weight over the wheel using shingle, cement, relatives etc increases the grip. It also increases the total weight of the car, increasing it's momentum and kinetic energy which just makes the whole problem of controlling the car with low grip even worse. BMW only say weight in the boot helps to get a car moving, not to control a moving car.

Decreasing the tyre size also increases the weight per surface area giving more without increasing the total momentum - that's why winter tyres are smaller than summer tyres.

Has anyone ever seen Colin McRae's support team chucking bags in the boot, or do they spent hours analysing weather reports, road conditions and then choosing tyres of the right size, profile and compound ? You can do much the same by investing in a set of M+S tyres - have a look in the tyre spec section of the user manual.

Judging by the BBC Weather web pages you guys are in for a bit of practice ! Whatever method you choose (skill, weight, tyres, abstinence) I wish you all safe journeys.

Nick

 Hi Nick DE, Your advice is welcome, as is BMW AG,s Tech" Like It Is--" Our problem is UK road Surfaces,If they were ALL like your Rhein-Neckar-Kries area,s  with our Suspensions set up For Your Road surfaces, we maybe dont have a problem.BUT--- due to OUR ****z UK roads, The AG thinking isnt so Good!!!!!!! So WE have problems. These probs are SO bad, that AG sent a Team of Suspension experts over to UK, to try to Re-Design the systems and Run Flat tyres(Should have done That FIRST eh!!!)

Colin McRae,s Support team come from the UK, so are very experienced with OUR prob Roads, they get their designs made for a choice of WORLD conditions for many different countries,  shame other Manufactorers dont Do the Same.--Yet.(BUT-I think YOU know All this already) German Winter road conditions are Not the same as Uk. Must give you a buzz the next time I come thru your area.

b318isp wrote: What no one has mentioned yet is the importance of heel and toeing on slippy roads.

While I see your point, how many drivers can heel and toe. I've tried but did not find it easy at all. It might be something that more skilled drivers can do to reduce chances of skidding, but it isn't really a solution for the average motorist.

I would suggest that changing from 4th to 2nd without slowing down a lot first is the problem. Engine braking is not recomended at all by the IAM, or at least it wasn't when I last did a defensive driving course.

I went out and had a play in mine yesterday, was expecting the stupid great 245's I have fitted to be more like sledges than tyres, truth is it was actualy pretty ok, one thing I did notice was the supreme use of the LSD, made sucha difference compared with other RWD cars I have driven in the snow without it fitted.

Mark.

been there - done that!

doesn't need to be snowy/wet/cold etc either, nice sunny june day, slot 5 into slot 3 coming into a bend and weeeeeee! backwards over the verge!

oops!

@B 7 VP

I find winter driving conditions here remarkably like UK conditions - cold mornings but usually no frost or ice, wet surfaces in the morning, usually drying out by midday. The only difference is that in the summer it becomes nice and warm and I can justify driving a Cabrio. Whereas in the UK in the summer it remains as cold mornings but usually no frost or ice, wet surfaces in the morning, usually drying out by midday. Come to think of it why doesn't the UK use winter tyres all year round ?. Obviously it's very different in the high altitude areas such as Schwarzwald, but that's what snowchains are for.

The road surfaces are not what they are cracked up to be. Due to the economic crisis they is no money left for the roads, and so potholes and temporary patches are becoming the norm

b318isp wrote: Peter Fenwick wrote: b318isp wrote: What no one has mentioned yet is the importance of heel and toeing on slippy roads. While I see your point, how many drivers can heel and toe. I've tried but did not find it easy at all. It might be something that more skilled drivers can do to reduce chances of skidding, but it isn't really a solution for the average motorist. I would suggest that changing from 4th to 2nd without slowing down a lot first is the problem. Engine braking is not recomended at all by the IAM, or at least it wasn't when I last did a defensive driving course. Yes it is tricky to master but it is fairly important for entusiastic RWD drivers! Even an abrupt downshift could cause a loss if control.

It's not always easy to find the time or space to practice, the roads are so busy these days that there's seldom room.

Correct me if I'm wrong but the theory is that while changing down and braking you simultaneously blip the throttle in a attempt to match the engine speed to the gear you are selecting. This is done by swivelling the foot that is on the brake pedal so that your to can also press the accelerator. Any tips would be appreciated because when I try I normally end up reving the nuts of the car or my foot slips of the pedals.

Heel & toeing is basically double-declutching whilst braking.

Until you're proficient it will generally get you into more trouble than the recognised procedure which is:-

1. brake to appropriate speed


2. select appropriate gear for corner & speed


3. turn corner.

Most people try to do all three steps at the same time & wonder why it all goes wrong!

The main purpose of heel & toeing is to ******** that you're a very talented driver in a fast car.

When my wife was looking for a new car I showed her the Autocar road test of the Skoda Fabia which they derided for being difficult to heel & toe !!! As if the average Fabia buyer would even know what it was let alone use it. Pretentious or what!!!

Practising road placement & learning to read the road ahead will be more beneficial.

neileg wrote: Hi Nick DE. I was over in Germany in December, as far east as Dresden. The big difference between Germany and the UK is the temperature. I loved the ice frosted trees. We get those in the UK but only one or two at a time. In Bavaria I saw about 250km of white trees! It's seriously cold, I guess about 10Celcius colder. we complain about the cold in the UK, but it's nothing like mid-European cold.

Yup, but we don't get so much of that in Rhein-Neckar-Kreis. The upper Rhine valley has it's own climate, making it a good wine growing area. And ideal Cabrio country

But we are having a cold spell now. Minus 10C at night, plus 2C in the afternoon. The drive to work yesterday was beautiful. The roads were bone dry, the fields were covered in snow, everything was blanketed in a thick white fog except for the roads (heat from cars ?) - everything was very peaceful. Plus, because of my winter tyres I had 100 Euros to buy acceleration or steering, not 10 Pounds