4 x 4 Estate car

[timoth27]

winter tyres

Hello this i my first post

i enquired at my local dealer for some winter tyres for my smart ( cheltenham and gloucester merc have been great, bought a smart and a slk in the last 6 months) and he told me that in about 3 weeks merc are releasing a winter tyre option for the whole merc/smart range and the tyres come on steel rims. i will post some prices for the smart as soon as i have them. oh and the GLK is comming in the spring.

Thanks

Tim

 

[bpsorrel]

A big thumbs up for winter tyres! My Nissan in Russia is transformed with good winter tyres and despite being a humble FWD car it copes excellently with the deep snow, ice and slush that it has to contend with in Russia every winter. Around November, everyone swaps their nice alloys and summer tyres for a set of steel wheels with winters. It's almost a religion!

 

[Darrell]

We need a 4X4 for the winters here and also a skiing trip to the mainland in January.

I thought about a Cherokee but the cost of fuel here is astronomical so an Outback or a Legacy could be ideal. I have seen them on E-bay and there are a good few in the 1500-2000 pounds range.

Any thoughts on the pro's and con's of these cars?

 

[Neiltodd]

Had 5 Legacys & 1 Outback in a row over 15 years,think that says it all.

 

[grober]

We need a 4X4 for the winters here and also a skiing trip to the mainland in January.

I thought about a Cherokee but the cost of fuel here is astronomical so an Outback or a Legacy could be ideal. I have seen them on E-bay and there are a good few in the 1500-2000 pounds range.

Any thoughts on the pro's and con's of these cars?

They like a drink! Pretty tough well engineered vehicles - Cylinder head gasket problems on some of the 2.5 4 cylinder engines. Parts outlets are rare and can be expensive thro dealers. Their engineering is sufficiently unusual that lots of garages are wary of attempting any major work-e.g. engines or gearbox- best left to a local Subaru specialist familiar with these cars.
Australians love em.

 

[A1GSS]

W... so an Outback or a Legacy could be ideal ... Any thoughts on the pro's and con's of these cars?

Personal view - we did look at various Subarus after several people n this thread recommended them.... but...

All a matter of personal opinion of course - and without wanting in any way to inflame others - but we thought them cramped, noisy and ugly. Nasty plasticky interiors remiscent of a 1970's Datsun.

Ended up with a Discovery. Agreeably ugly, but none of the other things...

 

[Meldrew2]

Ended up with a Discovery. Agreeably ugly, but none of the other things...

Nobody seems to have mentioned the Freelander......

Is it another case of R-class-itis?

 

[A1GSS]

Nobody seems to have mentioned the Freelander....

Good reason for that... it's not a nice thing. Big, but a small boot, only 5 seats and crappy Ford trim. Base cars very poorly equipped. Noisy 4-cyl diesel, slow, but only 30MPG ... and it costs 30 grand. Wobbly blancmange ride, like a Volvo XC90.

Doesn't feel safe. We've had several of them as loan cars, not a thing I'd want.

The Disco is genius though, I love it - but it's sluggish and I'm really worried about LR's legendary reliability. Needs way more power and some Oriental engineering in a few key areas....

 

[compress ignite]

Toyota

You cannot get one of these for Love or Money over here (STUPID EPA!)

BUT this Chassis,with the 3.0 D4D Diesel Engine will run rings around
everything else out there in Snow, Sleet, and Black Icing.

UNLESS,you're willing to be seen behind the wheel of a Unimog or a Zetros.

 

[muhandis89]

4x4 Estate

I am informed that Audi are selling a good number of Quatros in UK now.Unless Merc and BMW do not want to lose market share,in this segment,they may well have to offer 4x4 estates/saloons here.

I reckon with BMW bringing back their xDrive models starting this year Mercedes will follow soon enough.

BMW sell me 4WD cars than any other Euro manufacturer, and BMW UK have decided they now want a slice of the action, they didn't push them in the 80s as they had spent millions on advertising the sporty benefits of RWD and thought it would slow sales down if anything.
But so many people asked about them after the winter this year they decided they would bring them back, starting with the 530XD GT, then the 730xd and the 530xd Touring at the end of the year.


But as everyone else says, just use winter tyres and buy the car you want, I had winter tyres on my A6 Quattro avant and our 123d M-Sport auto and they were both fine in deep snow, in fact I had to use the 1 series during the first 3 days of heavy snow as I hadn't put the winter tyres on the Quattro and it was useless.

There is a good video on youtube done by Edmunds showing the difference between RWD vs AWD and all season vs winter tyres and the RWD car on winters is far better than the AWD on all seasons. They use a Merc E class RWD and 4Matic as well so worth having a search.

 

[Maynard]

Hi the glk is not coming in the spring. It will come to the uk when the current c class changes in around 2014. It will only be 2 wheel drive for the uk Market I understand.