In previous years I found that all my older Mercs are really excellent in the snow - everything from the Ponton on its tall , skinny 6.70x13 tyres and huge ground clearance , through the W114/5's , the W123's , W124's , W116 , W201's and W126 ( especially the 500 with its LSD ) , none of them ever got me stuck anywhere , nor did I ever crash into anything .
Incidentally , we have Astravans at work and my opinions of them , along with all FWD vehicles is that they are pretty useless since they easily lose traction due to weight transference away from the driving wheels when trying to move off ; my Mercs are easily better in the snow and go up hills past people stuck in such vehicles with wheels spinning . In some cases due to a lack of driving ability , but mostly due to shortcomings in the vehicles themselves - I know this is contrary to popular opinion , but it is my experience .
Having just got the W203 , I had read all the scare stories about how useless it would be , but never got the chance to find out until Friday night since we had escaped the snow until then . Having left work in Hamilton at 4 pm , I found myself in a traffic jam on the A737 dual carriageway about 40 minutes later , with local radio reporting problems due to weather conditions further on . I sat without moving for almost an hour before eventually deciding that any other route had to be worth trying . Eventually , I managed to get up the last exit road from the DC , and since the left turn at the top was completely jammed with queuing traffic , I turned right into Kilbarchan . By this time the snow was falling heavily with something like 4-6" lying on top of parked cars and a mixture compacted snow and slush on the road surface which looked to have been salted some time earlier . My car is on new Bridgestone Turanza T001 205/55 16's which I just put on a couple of weeks back - these are standard tyres , not winter ones , I opted for the narrowest and tallest size specified for the car since I am more interested in comfort and refinement than ultimate dry grip . Up a moderately steep Main Street , out into country roads , over to Bridge of Weir where traffic in both directions had stopped for no apparent reason , then followed signs for Houston in an attempt to find my way back to the M8 and down the Clyde coast . The road between Bridge of Weir and Houston was untreated with hard packed snow which had been polished in places by those who spin their wheels . At one point , I crested a hill , proceeding carefully and saw traffic stopped a couple of hundred yards ahead ; on feathering the brakes , the ABS cut in and I had to slip into neutral to stop the transmission working against the brakes . A Passat coming the opposite way was having to be pushed up this hill , front wheels spinning furiously , with the occupants of several other vehicles lined up along his boot .
I so dislike this modern autobox with its nudge left/right for manual gear selection - much prefer the PRNDSL boxes with the zigzag gate I have been driving for 40 odd years ( which is also better and more intuitive for fast road driving in good weather ) .
Once the road ahead cleared of traffic , I was able to progress again , following a Land Rover Defender until he turned off onto a farm track , then found myself behind a newish ML until we came to a roundabout .By this time all the other traffic had gone other ways and I found myself on an empty , snow covered road . I drove for about 10 miles on unfamiliar country roads with a mixture of virgin and compacted snow , just driving sensibly , manually selecting intermediate gears to descend hills , and apart from the one instance of activating ABS on a polished surface , never had any problems with traction or stopping , never once had any warning lights on the dash and never got into any kind of trouble .
It was still a pretty horrendous journey , driving in the dark , on unlit roads with falling snow reflecting like flak in the headlights and my normal one hour journey home took just shy of four hours .
I have to say I was surprised at how well the car performed as I had fully expected all the electronic systems to cut in ( I know they work because I had provoked them on wet roads when I first got the car with its bald rear tyres ) , but driven sensibly it is actually very capable .
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