Wow! Took the car out for an hour in the snow tonight, would say it's about 6 inches deep in places.
Incredible, I only managed to get the car stuck twice and one of those occasions was when I drove into an undisturbed car park and attempted to donut the car. I didn't realise that the snow was deeper than elsewhere and she promptly slid sideways and dug some nice deep compressed ice ruts for the tyres to sit on.
A little bit of rocking back and forth and some revs and she the soon ripped through the ice, bit the tarmac and we were off again. 
I came across a queue of cars trapped at the bottom of an icy bank in Seaham, they were all stuck behind a woman who was trying in vain to climb the slope. I checked the road was clear ahead and took a calculated risk, pulled out and drove past the queue of cars whilst offering prayers to the god of motoring that I wouldn't get stuck and look like a plonker! I didn't and I suspect there are about 6 or 7 drivers in Seaham tonight wondering how a Z4 managed to sail past them all when they couldn't get shifted :wink:
I also has a minor victory in Sunderland city centre when I climbed the bank to Tunstall Road roundabout, previously about 5 cars were stuck on it, some made it off but when I got there one Astra was still trying in vain to climb it, again I was able to have an inner smile as I drove around him and carried on up the hill
Grip in a straight line was generally excellent, I tested a few emergency stops to evaluate the grip and was suitably impressed, obviously the ABS kicked in but the car slowed much more quickly than any other car I've owned.
Cornering was interesting as you could still quite easily provoke some tail slide but it was controllable if travelling at a sensible speed.
After trial and error I've figured that the best setting for me was DTS OFF, Traction Control ON. This allowed reasonably quick pull aways at lights (a Clio driver decided that if I could do it he could too, he couldn't ) and still gave good control once moving.
Overall, very, very impressed. They're worth every penny I spent on them. If you're considering buying some but are undecided, do it, they really will make the difference between being able to use the car and not in the bad weather. They also make it grip much better in general wet weather as I've already discovered.
A few shots from the evening:-
On arrival at my folks-
20 minutes later:-
Spot the difference
One of the roads through Seaham:-
Incredible, I only managed to get the car stuck twice and one of those occasions was when I drove into an undisturbed car park and attempted to donut the car. I didn't realise that the snow was deeper than elsewhere and she promptly slid sideways and dug some nice deep compressed ice ruts for the tyres to sit on.
A little bit of rocking back and forth and some revs and she the soon ripped through the ice, bit the tarmac and we were off again. I came across a queue of cars trapped at the bottom of an icy bank in Seaham, they were all stuck behind a woman who was trying in vain to climb the slope. I checked the road was clear ahead and took a calculated risk, pulled out and drove past the queue of cars whilst offering prayers to the god of motoring that I wouldn't get stuck and look like a plonker! I didn't and I suspect there are about 6 or 7 drivers in Seaham tonight wondering how a Z4 managed to sail past them all when they couldn't get shifted :wink:
I also has a minor victory in Sunderland city centre when I climbed the bank to Tunstall Road roundabout, previously about 5 cars were stuck on it, some made it off but when I got there one Astra was still trying in vain to climb it, again I was able to have an inner smile as I drove around him and carried on up the hill
Grip in a straight line was generally excellent, I tested a few emergency stops to evaluate the grip and was suitably impressed, obviously the ABS kicked in but the car slowed much more quickly than any other car I've owned.
Cornering was interesting as you could still quite easily provoke some tail slide but it was controllable if travelling at a sensible speed.
After trial and error I've figured that the best setting for me was DTS OFF, Traction Control ON. This allowed reasonably quick pull aways at lights (a Clio driver decided that if I could do it he could too, he couldn't
) and still gave good control once moving.Overall, very, very impressed. They're worth every penny I spent on them. If you're considering buying some but are undecided, do it, they really will make the difference between being able to use the car and not in the bad weather. They also make it grip much better in general wet weather as I've already discovered.
A few shots from the evening:-
On arrival at my folks-
20 minutes later:-
Spot the difference
One of the roads through Seaham:-
