Klemen
Member Since: 15 Sep 2006
Location: lJUBLJANA
Posts: 14
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| Handling in snow (on slippery terrain) |
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Hi!
My Disco is about 1 year old and just recently I had a chance to drive it on a slippery terrain - there was quite some snow. It was the first time for me to drive any 4x4 in such conditions - I had a regular front wheels drive before and I did a lot of driving in similar conditions with it - with chains mounted, of course.
Disco has a wonderful traction, it really goes and goes and goes. BUT the handling is dissapointing for me. In every curve the rear part tends not to follow the front part. I assume it's a typical 4x4 problem, but, frankly, it was a bit too much of it. Driving with my previous front wheels drive car would be way less exhausting.
I have a Scorpion Ice&Snow tyres mounted. And, yes, I had Gravel&SNow program on.
Can anybody share with me his experience in snowy conditions?
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 3rd Jan 2008 2:37 pm |
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espri
Member Since: 07 Nov 2005
Location: Tyrol, Austria
Posts: 387
  
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I've driven on snow this winter and the last couple of winters and never had anything to complain about or that I specially noticed. Always felt quite happy. However, I don't push that hard in these conditions (max maybe about 80kms/hrs), so I may not have tried to the limit.
I also have Pirelli Scorpion Ice&Snow.
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| 3rd Jan 2008 6:33 pm |
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ArcFro
Member Since: 30 Dec 2005
Location: Helsinki area
Posts: 74
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I've been driving now some 20 years in nordic winter quite a number of different kind of vehicles (front, rear and 4x4:s). On my humble personal opinion, D3 is best car I've ever driven - in slippery terrain - by far.
It is difficult to comment of your experience since I haven't seen your terrain conditions. I personally like a lot having possibility to controllable drifts with D3. It is such a logical car to drive in snow/ice conditions that only Audi A4 Quattro has been rival for D3 in my ranking. Having said this, it is always question of personal preferences though... 
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| 3rd Jan 2008 6:53 pm |
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Nigel Tracey
Member Since: 04 Nov 2006
Location: Lausanne
Posts: 395
  
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Also acn speak highly of D3 in snow/ice. Had a nice 5km drive through the forest on virgin snow about 6 weeks back. I managed about 50-80kmh with big drift but very predictable and controlable.
Dunlop Wrangler Ice & Snow tyres on plus GGS program Mrs Jones ? We've come for your Liver
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| 3rd Jan 2008 7:03 pm |
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Klemen
Member Since: 15 Sep 2006
Location: lJUBLJANA
Posts: 14
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Well, it was rather narrow road there and I was fearing not to lose control over the car to extent where I would slip off the road down the hill. Therefore there was no way to enyoj the drive drifting around the corners. The speed was all the time 5 - 10km/h.
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| 4th Jan 2008 12:52 pm |
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ArcFro
Member Since: 30 Dec 2005
Location: Helsinki area
Posts: 74
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Right, that makes sense to me then. I wasn't enjoying my ride either with Nissan Pathfinder ('07) in Lanzarote this fall when driving dirt track where margins were less than 1m to fall in to abyss and floods had destroyed track. It wasn't nice feeling at all to cope with number of different challenges riding in strange car to me (with quite little of offroad experience). Point here what I'm trying to make is that it is not the car but the conditions and equipment that you're coping with.
Another point I want to make; I'm 100% confident that 9 out 10 situations would not have been any problem to D3 in that track. I missed my D3 on that track veeery much 
This was a bit of  and it is not ment to be offensive to anyone but I think we have to put things into their framework to have understanding what we are talking about.
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| 4th Jan 2008 8:48 pm |
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Klemen
Member Since: 15 Sep 2006
Location: lJUBLJANA
Posts: 14
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The worst moment was when at certain curve I had to stop because the car started to lose the traction and I was all fo a sudden turned right angle to the driving direction and there was not much room at between the rear wheels and road margin. What surprised me at that moment that if I pushed a throttle a bit to get away from the margin (there was more room in front) I had the feeling that the front wheels started to spin in snow with no traction while the rear wheel that had better grip didn't help get me out, which is against what I expected - the momentum to be transferred to the wheel with best grip. Strange.
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| 4th Jan 2008 9:05 pm |
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90BHP
Member Since: 18 Oct 2006
Location: Half way along the road on the right
Posts: 3706
 
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You will get an expert reason in a minute from (not me !) But my understanding is that in a loss of traction situation, you actually need to increase the revs slightly in order for the D3 to see the loss of traction and transfer power to a wheel with better grip / traction.
You see exactly the same thing happening when on a rock crawl or when a wheel leaves the ground, Initially it spins and then traction is "moved" to another wheel. "To finish first, one first has to finish ...."
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| 4th Jan 2008 10:17 pm |
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simon
Member Since: 11 Jan 2005
Location: Shropshire
Posts: 18296
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As long as GENTLE power is kept on, the D3 will assume you are not going where the steering wheel is pointed and DSC will work correctly. If you lift off completely the system cannot add power / brake wheels to help keep herself on the road.
Thats how I've experienced it to work anyway.
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| 4th Jan 2008 10:33 pm |
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razzle
Member Since: 18 Jul 2006
Location: Tas
Posts: 170
 
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I wonder if DSC is coming into play.
From a few different topics on this forum, people have experienced unusual vehicle response in particular situations where the vehicle experienced excessive Roll, pitch yaw. In these situations power/braking will be applied to individual wheels to bring things back under control.
I must admit that extended ice/snow driving is a little foreign to some of us in Oz, but one forum member reported having problems driving in deep snow until he turned the DSC off, After this he could not stop the Disco and left a well know jap brand in his wake. Trust me, what could go wrong?
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| 4th Jan 2008 10:56 pm |
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simon
Member Since: 11 Jan 2005
Location: Shropshire
Posts: 18296
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In deep snow / like deep sand, you would deselect DSC. You need the power.
On slippery and icy surfaces where you cannot build up enough grip or debris under the tyre to assist traction - it will save your life.
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| 4th Jan 2008 11:06 pm |
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stapldm
Member Since: 11 Sep 2006
Location: Swine Town
Posts: 2330
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Like Simon, 90BHP etc say, the car needs you to provide it with some power - the car can decide for itself if there's too much and cut it back, but it can't decide it needs more and give itself a little tickle of gas.
I discovered this the nearly hard way (not my car 8) ) whilst driving on slick clay at Eastnor : Gentle gas, car goes where I point it up a side slope like a mountain goat. Let go of gas (should have listened harder to the instructor), car suddenly starts sliding sideways towards a gnarly tree like it's got ice skates on. Dr. Ian Malcolm:
"Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."
Transgenic tomato anyone?
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| 4th Jan 2008 11:51 pm |
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DiscoDunc
Member Since: 08 May 2006
Location: Bristol
Posts: 16390
 
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Agree with Stapldm and Simon above. My first exeprinece of this was last feb at the lakes meet when we drove up honister slate mine. Sheet ice and snow. Keeping gentle power on and the D3 went straight and tru.
This was more noticable down hill. If I left hill decent do the work the rear of the car stepped out and wanted to drag me off the edge of the cliff, by applying a little power with DSC on the car went straight and was perfect.
it all boils down to having faith in the car and keeping the power on.
looking forward to experiencing this all over again in Croisiere in a couple of weeks  Duncan
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| 5th Jan 2008 9:45 am |
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razzle
Member Since: 18 Jul 2006
Location: Tas
Posts: 170
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How much snow was on the road?
Klemen wrote:The worst moment was when at certain curve I had to stop because the car started to lose the traction and I was all fo a sudden turned right angle to the driving direction and there was not much room at between the rear wheels and road margin.
Did you brake before ending up at Right angles in the curve or was this just one motion?
Klemen wrote:What surprised me at that moment that if I pushed a throttle a bit to get away from the margin (there was more room in front) I had the feeling that the front wheels started to spin in snow with no traction while the rear wheel that had better grip didn't help get me out, which is against what I expected - the momentum to be transferred to the wheel with best grip. Strange.
This is strange, and as you said opposite to what you would expect, it would of been interesting to turn DSC off to make sure big brother is not interfering with delivery of power to all 4 wheels.
Any chance you will be heading back to this area soon.
I have noticed that a USA forum member has a post on roughly the same topic. ( As you will see, some of our more poorly endowed members have not been very helpful) Trust me, what could go wrong?
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| 5th Jan 2008 12:28 pm |
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Klemen
Member Since: 15 Sep 2006
Location: lJUBLJANA
Posts: 14
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stapldm wrote: Let go of gas (should have listened harder to the instructor), car suddenly starts sliding sideways towards a gnarly tree like it's got ice skates on.
That's the best explanation what happened to me and how I got turned around - right at the curve I slowed down because it was narrow (and a bit scary) and I started sliding as the road was "hanging" sideways. As the rear part of a car was sliding toward the outer margin of a curve a bit more and faster than the front part the car was all of a sudden turned 90 degrees to driving direction.
I was switching DSC on, off, on, off,... Frankly I don't know what position it was when I finally got out 
Sorry for poor explanation of exact situation - poor language skills 
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| 8th Jan 2008 7:08 pm |
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