Remind me

Never to bring the Z4 up the old military road between Grantown on Spey and Forres in reasonably deep snow and below zero temperatures ever again!

To be fair, despite the back end having a *complete* mind of its own at speeds no higher than 25mph for around 20 miles, made it without serious incident (and seeing other cars either crashed or stuck in the snow).

My arse was actually gripping the seat the whole way.

Not something I would ever aim to repeat or recommend, but the car actually coped well in the circumstances.

Some nice winter or all season tyres and you are good to go….

Had them on my E89 when I needed the ability to get out come what may….was quite happy in 6” snow apart from the snow piling up against the lower part of the front spoiler…

Enjoy

Having said that ..great road in the dry… :driving:

Strong buttocks have there place.

I used to rather enjoy the morning commute in the snow in my old 3.0si once I got the Quaife ATB fitted.

The Security guard at work did however get rather upset with me as I embarked on my fourth consecutive lap of the business park central circular road on the lockstops :lol:

He emailed my manager, who burst out laughing and read the email out loud "I'm not sure what I found more offensive, his driving or his salmon pink chinos when he got out of his car" :roll:

I was living on Exmoor during the “Beast from the East” and I was called into work for an emergency (a Portuguese man who had come a cropper on a sand dune whilst using his surf board as a snow board).
My RS4 performed impeccably on the unblemished, fresh snow that covered the relatively level road for the first 30m of my journey. There after, I joined the main road through the village, which was the start of a 300m decent over 10km into town. Here, the powder had been compressed into ice by tractors and other farm machinery that had been using the road since dawn.
Unfortunately, the complex engineering in my high performance 4wd car was no match for the conditions, being utterly useless on summer tyres. Within the first few metres on the main road, I realised that moving the steering wheel simply selected which window I would be looking through whilst sliding down the hill. The throttle was an effective device for generating a louder V8 growl to garner more attention for my plight, whilst applying the brakes simply removed what little directional control I had. The road levelled out slightly in front of a row of houses and I was able to slither to a halt somewhere near the curb without any ill consequences.
My friend (whose parents live in Switzerland and had taught him a valuable lesson about winter tyres) nonchalantly drove up the hill from town in his Subaru Forester and collected me. Somewhat pleasingly, clean scrubs are plentiful in the hospitals.

Removing the snow was easy - I just removed the theatre drapes from the car:


Negotiating this road was easy:


This road, less so:

:lol: the Europeans do have it properly worked out though - legal requirement to have winter tyres between certain months. It's bloody sensible.

https://www.europe-consommateurs.eu/en/travelling-motor-vehicles/motor-vehicles/winter-tires-in-europe.html

Only in a few, very wintery, countries.

Winter tyres make a huge difference. Whilst I was waiting for my mate to collect me, a Discovery with a poverty of traction that made my car look like I’d carefully parallel parked slid into the curb and bounced off into a parked car. I’m sure the driver had presumed his Land Rover would be unstoppable over any terrain…he was almost correct in that assumption

I do love how people with 4wd think they have no issues on snow and ice. Winter tyres make a huge difference!

Problem is, in London I would only need them for 1 week a year so not worth it for me.

Saying that I’m going to France in a few weeks and I’m hoping that French car rentals come with winter tyres.

Glad you made it home OK.

I leave my Z4 at home in that sort of weather!

A couple of weeks before the Beast from the East in 2018 I had just bought a 325i that had winter tyres fitted and was amazed how capable it was. Since then I've put winter tyres on my 3 Series every year, although living in Surrey I haven't really needed them yet.