THE GUBBERMINT ALWAYS KNOWS BEST

[Richard]

The Volvo 740 does a fair job in the snow, the wheels spin up a bit but it keeps on trucking through. Heater is ace, wafting status is ace. High speed handling is NOT GR8 but at least you don’t get chronic understeer like a FWD barge would give you. High speed anything in this weather is unlikely, you can’t go far without coming up on someone doing 15mph.

 

I bought some new wipers which are shit. Should have gone for the Bosch ones for the extra tenner.

 

What tyres do you have on the back? Mine has the least traction I've ever experienced in 23 years of driving shit cars with the worst tyres available to humanity.

 

I'm not a fan of Bosch wipers, they tend to have a useful lifespan of about 1.5 sweeps. The Champion ones the MOT tester fitted to mine are excellent, completely silent and leave no streaks.

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

The Volvo 740 does a fair job in the snow, the wheels spin up a bit but it keeps on trucking through. Heater is ace, wafting status is ace. High speed handling is NOT GR8 but at least you don’t get chronic understeer like a FWD barge would give you. High speed anything in this weather is unlikely, you can’t go far without coming up on someone doing 15mph.

 

I bought some new wipers which are shit. Should have gone for the Bosch ones for the extra tenner.

 

What tyres do you have on the back? Mine has the least traction I've ever experienced in 23 years of driving shit cars with the worst tyres available to humanity.

 

You haven't driven anything fitted with Marangonis before.

[myglaren]

 

You haven't driven anything fitted with Marangonis before.

 

I presume that you are saying here that Marangoni's are crap, which is an interesting opinion.

I have never even seen any, let alone experienced them but every other mention of them has been positive.

May be just as well I couldn't get hold of any when I wanted some new tyres.

Have Yokohamas on the front, Kumhos on the back and they seem OK, certainly more capable than a lot of the stuff that I ease past.

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

They're probably alright, I haven't heard anything bad about them in general either, but I think the driven wheels on Richard's Volvo are fitted with the same Marangonis which were utterly awful on my Astra. It could barely move in the snow. I think the main problem is that they have no real aggressive directional pattern or sipes, just basic rings of tread like a commercial vehicle tyre.

 

I think these are the offenders.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

SEAT now equipped with SNOW PWNING Avon IceTouring M&S tyres now.

 

They are GR897668 4 not drifting. However, really they should be fitted on all four wheels rather than just the fronts as with regular tyres on the back and massively grippy ones on the front, if you are a little bit too quick on a roundabout it can get very exciting indeed

 

I too have learned this lesson with my Rover!!! The front half is capable of stuff the back has no chance of repeating.

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

You have to be pretty gentle with steering inputs otherwise it's OMG LIFT OFF OVERSTEER with winter tyres on the fronts only. You can still drive at 60MPH on virgin snow if you're careful though...

[Richard]

I've checked the tyres on the Volvo, no mean feat with mudflaps, a saggy arse (the car, not me) and a foot of snow, and they are indeed that pattern. They're getting a bit worn too, which won't help. I did wonder, because I don't remember the Sterling remoulds on our old 244 performing so badly.

 

I have to say the Marangonis perform perfectly well when it's not snowy or icy.

[barefoot]

The Scirocco is running on a set of Hankook Ice-bears and they are unbelievable.

 

 

but the tread doesn't seem overly aggressive, anyone know how they work?

 

on a sadder note, the Pioneer Radio/Cassette appears to have packed up in the Porsche

 

 

the ridiculously complex auto reverse cassette still functions perfectly, but the radio has become

very intermittent. It's neither a power or an aerial fault, it's something internal & presumably

very simple if you know what you are looking for.

Anyone know anyone who repairs this sort of 80's shite?

Although I have substituted it with a very flashy looking Sony device (Halfords - £60).

it can't stay like this because I have a classy looking cassette holder behind the gearlever.

 

 

.

[Negative Creep]

Just been out to clear the snow off the car - I'd say it was coming on 20cm covering it. Going to attempt to get to work tomorrow as two missed days would mean a loss of about 100 quid in wages. Since I should be going to pick up the MR2 next Saturday I need every penny!

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

The Scirocco is running on a set of Hankook Ice-bears and they are unbelievable.

 

 

but the tread doesn't seem overly aggressive, anyone know how they work?

 

They probably have a silica tread compound like most modern winter tyres. The Kingpin winter remoulds fitted to my 405 had quite an aggressive tread but a conventional compound, they weren't quite as good as the modern winter tyres fitted to my mum's car.

[gearoil]

Work, weather, tyre woes.

 

Pirelli Chronos on a '10 plate Sprinter = two of us taking an hour to dig the swine out of 4-5 inches of powdery snow. Pirellis web page list it as a four season tyre... what, spring - summer - autumn, but not any bad bits, summer.

 

I have been rolling on a set of one month old Hankooks on my van with no probs. Brilliant. About £90 a pop, and every bit as good as the Micheilns they replaced.

[seth]

The Scirocco is running on a set of Hankook Ice-bears and they are unbelievable.

 

As well as the compound, snow tyres are generally designed to hold on to the snow, as some snow sticks to more snow pretty well.

[CreepingJesus]

Mondeo gets 6 months tax, before the MOT runs out, in a day or two; thus earning itself a reprieve from the long arm of the scrappy. I'll have it up and running in the spring. For now, it's an auxiliary shed...

[barefoot]

 

As well as the compound, snow tyres are generally designed to hold on to the snow, as some snow sticks to more snow pretty well.

 

I noticed the other day, that my tyres were full of snow,

you could see the tread picked out in white.

all the other cars on the street had (comparatively) very black tyres

 

I find shite like this interesting - & I say again they are unbelievable - buy some*

 

 

 

*the only downside is that I have a pile of perfectly serviceable tyres in my garage.

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

I just half-heard a question in commons about winter tyres on R4's Today, the question mentioned their use at temperatures below minus 7 the answer was something like "winter tyres wear out much quicker than normal tyres, are only any good in countries with constant snow cover on the roads, and wear out tarmac roads" Give me strength.

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

http://ssl.delti.com/cgi-bin/rshop.pl?d ... sowigan=Wi

[dollywobbler]

I've got standard Hankooks on the BX. I'm bloody impressed as they're not expensive and the grip they offer is astonishing. Of course, 165 wide tyres pressed down by a huge lump of diesel motor helps too...

 

Fleet news update. BX wouldn't start this morning, so the 2CV got the four hour trip to Milton Keynes ruined only by dawdlers panicking because there was some snow in a field. Six miles away. 2CV was generally fine, but did spit its alternator nut at a BMW so the alternator is now flopping around a bit. My options tomorrow are:

 

1) Just carry on as normal. It got me about 60 miles without the nut so can't be too bad.

2) Remove a nut from the driveshafts to keep the alternator in place and hope the other driveshaft nuts and bolts prevent the thing coming lose and taking huge chunks out of everything when the brake disc suddenly turns into a big, solid angle grinder.

3) Remove the alternator altogether. This one probably isn't an option as I'll be driving home in the dark...

 

I did try buying a nut, but 2CVs have odd sizes on them that cause the people in motor factors to adopt very strange facial expressions. Couldn't find a nice, old tool shop or fastener seller for love nor money.

[Cavcraft]

Hey, talking of snow tyres they were chatting about them on Radio 2 today. Apparantly some insurance companies see them as a modification and won't insure people who use them.

The bloke from the AA (Edmund?) was saying how daft this was and was trying to take insurance companies to task over it.

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

I've read about this on a snowsports forum I lurk on, most haven't had any issues with insurers but a few have. What a nonsense - it's akin to changing the brand of your tyre really.

[Guest]

Christ, you'd think they'd be happy that less of their policyholders are skidding into things.

[Tayne]

.r

[Father Ted]

All this talk about winter tyres made me think of getting some for the Panda, but, they don't seem to be listed in a size that fits (155/80 13's) perhaps I'll buy snow chains instead, or, just stay home in bad weather like I did last year.

155/75/13T

Any good?

£26 each corner from my tyres.

[Lankytim]

The Audi has had a few niggly patches of grotty rot underneath that really needed doing before the salty roads turned them into massive holes and an uneconomic MOT repair job so I got it booked in and took it down to Jon Cedrics place in Shrewsbury. In no time at all he'd made an invisible blended repair to the middle of the drivers sill and replaced the passenger rear jacking point. Both areas had corroded around rubber bungs in the bodywork. Pah! Needless to say neither has a rubber bung hole anymore.

 

I also picked up an O/S/F caliper from GSF car parts in Stoke. On the shelf, fully refurbished. Lovely! Of course it was the wrong type so I had to take it back for a refund and the DO NOT DO the correct flavour. Also found out theres 0.1mm worth of wear left on the front discs. FUCKSOCKS!

[wuvvum]

All this talk about winter tyres made me think of getting some for the Panda, but, they don't seem to be listed in a size that fits (155/80 13's) perhaps I'll buy snow chains instead, or, just stay home in bad weather like I did last year.

 

[Cavcraft]

Kingpin probably do some in that size. They're on Wem Ind. Est, Wem, Shropshire.

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

Kingpins are FTW

 

[barefoot]

Hey, talking of snow tyres they were chatting about them on Radio 2 today. Apparantly some insurance companies see them as a modification and won't insure people who use them.

The bloke from the AA (Edmund?) was saying how daft this was and was trying to take insurance companies to task over it.

 

 

Edmund King

 

The bloke that fitted my Hankooks said that he'd have to put a disclaimer on the invoice that I'd have to sign because I was down-grading from HR (130mph) tyres to TR (118mph) tyres.

So I paid cash, didn't get an invoice and phoned the charming MORE TH>N idiot* in India who thought about winter tyres (I didn't mention speed rating because I thought it would be too much for her) for a moment before making an executive decision that "it wasn't the sort of modification that would make my car go any faster"

Nonetheless she decreed that she would be making a note of it.

 

 

*I am not a misogynist or a racist - but for five minutes...

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I went down the garage tonight and stoked up my Cavalier properly after doing the head gasket. Its running supa sweet with a nice warm heater and fresh clean coolant. Marvellous!!!

[Tayne]

.

[wuvvum]

The Justy passed its MoT this morning, with just an advisory on slight corrosion to brake pipes (which I knew about anyway, and had replaced the worst one with a copper pipe - why manufacturers don't fit copper pipes from the factory is still a mystery to me, it's not that bloody expensive). It owes me a grand total of £168 including test fee, which I think is a bit of a bargain. I'm now torn between my original plan of keeping it to run through the winter and flogging it on to buy something more economical - the MoT place has a J-reg Charade turbo diesel for sale which I quite fancied the look of, and which should manage about 70mpg on the commute into Norwich.