 Poster: A snowHead
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| Raceplate wrote: |
| Raceplate wrote: |
| if your car is 2WD, it's highly likely you will have to turn it off to maintain momentum. |
I know this from first hand experience, learning the lesson the hard way. I worked in the car industry for 30+ years and had a brand new Mondeo as my company car in 1994. The car had traction control, a first at the time. In some light snow and faced with trying to go up a not particularly steep hill on summer tyres (no-one knew what winter tyres were in the UK then), I thought, "Great, my cutting edge car's got TC, get up here no problem." Er, no. It just cut the power and stalled, time after time. So I turned it off, span the wheels and went up the hill old school style. Lesson learned! |
Slipping the clutch slightly so the engine doesn't die can sometimes keep up the momentum and get you through. Did this once up to the a car park of a mountain top hotel.
This place, although it was much smaller and less fancy 20 years ago.
https://www.pacheiner.at/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI8PuOgcnY_AIVDgGLCh2IxwNkEAAYASAAEgKt_fD_BwE,
We overtook many stranded cars and reached the car park (the girlfriend was driving I was giving instructions to drop the clutch but keep on the gas). It was a FWD car and people were amazed that a woman driver could get up a road that had failed so many men. On getting out of the car the girlfriend did ask "what's that burning smell?" I replied "oh that's nothing". 
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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My current car is an automatic - first one I've had. I really like it, but suddenly felt lost yesterday when I drove through quite a deep ford in the New Forest. I was taught to slip the clutch through the water and rev the engine to keep up the output through the exhaust. I also always disengaged the clutch going across the numerous cattle grids on the roads (a tip from a police driver who gave a lecture at Swansea Uni more than half a century ago). Both quite likely quite mistaken but such an automatic thing to me that I suddenly felt lost at the loss of a clutch!
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| pam w wrote: |
| My current car is an automatic - first one I've had. I really like it, but suddenly felt lost yesterday when I drove through quite a deep ford in the New Forest. I was taught to slip the clutch through the water and rev the engine to keep up the output through the exhaust. I also always disengaged the clutch going across the numerous cattle grids on the roads (a tip from a police driver who gave a lecture at Swansea Uni more than half a century ago). Both quite likely quite mistaken but such an automatic thing to me that I suddenly felt lost at the loss of a clutch! |
I'm in a similar position, new car is an automatic. I'm used to slipping the clutch on the way up and using the clutch to control engine braking on the way down. (staying off the brakes as much as possible). It's a mild hybrid so at least the electric motors at the front will slow it down a bit without touching the brake pedal. Thankfully it has a normal handbrake so I can apply the rear brakes slightly on step mountain descents too to control the speed.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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I've had an auto for many years, but it's only recently that I researched how to get it to do certain things that I was trained to do in a manual, albeit only used rarely.
The first relates to putting a car with the engine off into neutral, either for being pulled out of a snowdrift (or ditch / sand etc.) or being towed up onto a flatbed recovery vehicle. Most autos switch to [P] when the engine is switched off. Many physically lock the drivetrain in this situation. On my current car, there's a fairly simple - but not intuitive- sequence of actions you take to leave the car in [N] with the engine off. It lasts 15 minutes before it switches back to [P] so it's no use for towing the driven wheels but fine for the above scenarios. And it still needs the car to have electrical power available - if there's no power for some reason, then the auto is locked. There is a physical button you can depress to unlock the auto lock but that's on the side of the box itself and pretty inaccessible (fine if it's up on a hoist, not so much when it's on the road, or in a snowdrift).
The second is how to dictate a gear unequivocally - so it either hits the rev limiter in that gear and stays there, or changes down if it would otherwise stall. You might want to do this, for example, if you have to negotiate an icy/snowy access road or similar with bends in it where you don't want the car changing-up/down at just the wrong point.
Worth reading your owners manual to see if these are described in it.
Last edited by You need to Login to know who's really who. on Sat 21-01-23 16:53; edited 5 times in total
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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@LaForet, at least with an electric car they will be able to slide/drag it on a snowy road
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