© Text and Photo: Frode H. Haaland
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© Text and Photo: Frode H. Haaland |
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(Offroad)Driving on snow! |
| With the worlds greatest offroader, you are now entering a grand offroading season. Driving in and through snow is very rewarding, and if there's enough snow, it will give you challenges even driving plain ordinary roads. Driving in snow is not like any usual drive, and you need to be shod for the job. This article give you a few hints on how to get the most out of your Discovery driving snow. |
Tyres again...Tyres do matter. All-terrain, mud terrain or road tyres will not perform well in the winter, and no all season tyre will be able to give you safe transport if there's icy and snowy conditions in your area. Dedicated winter tyres, studded or not, are necessary - at least for road use. Main issue for winter performance is the softness of the rubber, the sipings and tread pattern - and of course studs will help on ice if your tyres have them (but are of no help on snow). |
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In fact, driving in snow is easier than driving on icy roads. A sufficiently open thread tyre (like AT or MT) will usually perform quite well on snow - but not on roads covered with ice or with icy patches. Driving on snow is usually quite safe if driving slow (as on lonely mountain tracks), and will usually not do any harm if you get stuck. |
Snow chains and tools to bring |
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The vehicle will haul up (or down) even quite steep slopes if you fit snow chains. But these are not made for high speed driving. Fit them to get the extra traction, and then remove them. They are no substitute for good tyres. Chains do not give good performance in all conditions, though. The chains will break the surface of the snow, making the tyres dig into the snow, rather than driving over it. Driving over snow, means the snow gets packed - and the rear wheels get improved grip over the front ones. In deep, soft snow, chains are often to no use - but you will have to gain experience yourself to be able to judge whether or not to fit the chains. |
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Tyres get polluted from asphalt, oil, roadgrime etc. Cleaning the tyres before taking off in deep snow, will increase your traction. There's several proprietary tyre degreasers and traction-improvers available. They do work, but only for a shorter period. Letting out air will increase footprint, and improve traction - possibly even more so than in mud! When you're driving snow, you might easily belly your vehicle out, or drive into a snowdrift effectively stopping forward or rearwards motion. A spade will enable you to dig yourself out of trouble. Digging is a very effective means of recovery. |
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Winter is cold, and you might get very effectively stuck...so bring proper clothes, boots, gloves, food, coffee/tea, and preferably some blankets. During winter trips it is even more important to have enough fuel in your tank to enable not only a long recovery operation, but also running the engine to produce interior heat, and still having fuel to spare when you reach the next pump. Recovery gear is a must: Another vehicle to haul you out, shackles, ropes etc. Some wooden planks might be useful if you get stuck, and they're quite easy to dig into the snow. A mat from the vehicle under the wheels might also help. |
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4WD doubles traction - not braking...Four wheel drive means you spread your tractive forces on twice as many wheels as an ordinary estate. This means you will avoid spinning wheels when ordinary cars spin wildly. The use of centre difflock (at low speed only!) further enhances your abilities. But even if you double your available traction, you do not double the capacity for braking. Nor for turning... A certain amount of roadholding will be available for turning and braking, the tyres and your vehicles weight is what determines if you will be able to stop or turn. As a vehicle of greater mass than ordinary cars, in fact a Land Rover need better tyres or slower speed to keep safely on the road, brake and turn. |
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| As traction is not a problem on snowy roads, you do not get the early warnings as in ordinary cars. Your problem will be stopping and turning when driving at higher speeds. Offroading in snow, though, will present you with basically same issues as when driving mud. But there is no end to this "mud", no high speed blasting through is possible. So technique has to learned and mastered. |
Driving technique on snowYou'll be amazed you can safely drive ~40cm deep snow - that's really deep. But you'll also be amazed at how fast you will run out of traction! Driving snow is like driving mud, you perform quite well until a point where there's no more going forward (or rearward). This often happens if you: brake, increase speed, turn the steering wheel, the vehicle is tilted, or the snow changes character (wet spots are notorious). There's only a certain amount of traction available, and if this is tried spread over both forward motion and turning the steering wheel, the traction is fast lost. Be very careful turning steering wheel and pushing the accellerator (or brake) if traction is poor. The turning of the front wheel will fast loose these wheels traction, and the vehicle rams straight ahead until it goes to full stop. Momentum is key - forward speed will help going through difficult patches. But will also increase likelyhood of getting terribly stuck. On the road though, speed is very dangerous. At road speed on snowy roads, you will have to keep in mind the fact that braking and turning will be far worse than on dry roads. Snowdrifts can be rammed through, but is usually best done in several successive blows - or you might get terribly stuck. Successive trials, will pack snow, and helps driving thorugh difficult parts of your track. This makes sense on difficult patches, but only judgement can tell when speed and momentum is the way to come through. Like driving in mud, you will soon learn the shortcomings of the Land Rover open-axle-differential setup: it is quite easy to lose traction on one wheel, leading to the vehicle loosing traction also on the other axle - and you're effectively stuck. This crossaxling can easily happen when driving even minor sideslopes: the lost weight on high side of the slope leads them to spin effortlessly. In very deep snow, you easily get bellied out: The vehicles underside is hung high and the wheels doesn't reach the ground and spin... |
Motto for driving:
Motto when you loose traction:
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