While on the subject of 4x4 vehicles, when driving up to the boat on Sunday, I noticed that the only car we saw that had left the road involuntarily was a large 4x4.
It had gone down a deep bank on the Oban road just outside of Tyndrum, leaving the two guys with the Lix Toll Garage low loader apparently puzzling, as we drove past, how get the thing back up. Struck me as odd; I'd assumed that the 4x4 cloak of invincibility would have worked.
[dead boring mode]I wondered whether the wide tyres that so many of them have (wear?) distributes the car's weight too widely across the tyre/road surface area, hence not gripping well through snow/ice/slush.[/dead boring mode]
Yup, skinny tyres were the way to get through to the black stuff a few years ago when I had to get somewhere ASAP. The other bonus was that as we progressed to more modern cars with fatter, flashier, alloys, the old chains still fitted the winter jobs ( which came from scrappies at very low cost, so you could kerb-slide without crying).
It was easier to carry a pair of wheels already chained up, than try to add the chains once it was obvious they were needed - a bit like reefing really.
http://trooncruisingclub.org/ 20' - 30' Berths available, Clyde.
Cruising, racing, maintenance facilities. Go take a look, you know you want to.
When I lived in Shetland during the early oil years, and long periods were spent driving on rutted ice in the winter, many people took the idea of pre-chained wheels to the next level with a complete winter car. Few tears were shed when it inevitably landed in a ditch and the bodywork could be restored to something like it's original shape with a pinch bar and a 4lb hammer when required.
I remember my old Range Rover (one of a pre-production run without power steering) was brilliant accelerating & cornering in all sorts of slippy conditions, but once you applied the brakes, it became a 2 ton sledge. The trick was to always have the correct gear engaged in plenty of time & just slow down with the wheels still being driven, albeit slowly.
I think the Invivncibility Cloaking device simply lures the d!ckheads that drive 'em into a state of false security.
"I think the Invivncibility Cloaking device simply lures the d!ckheads that drive 'em into a state of false security"
Nicely put sir
Dave from my local Landie garage recounts a recent experience having just pulled a customer's Defender out of a ditch:
" I wasn't going too fast" claimed the driver
"the evidence would indicate otherwise" observed Dave