Why Are Mercedes so Difficult to Drive In The Snow????

[Rappey69]

there are many cars with wide sporty tyres and therfore lack of grip.
took 5 hrs last night to cover 1 mile.
A place called titchfield hill.
Getting down one side was ok but getting up the other was a nightmare and no way around.
11pm and men in reflective jackets were going car to car telling everyone to leave their cars where they were as they were not getting up the other side.
I eventually got close enough to see a gap and decided to go for it anyway.
pulled away in 2nd on tickover and very slowly gathered speed being extremely carefull not to spin the wheels.
got 2/3 the way up until a group of do gooders stepped right out in front of me causing me to stop... Grrr.
Realising what had occured they pushed me and i finally made it where others had failed.
My lesson learnt was how gentle one has to be to with the acclerator !
I also learnt that stopping was easier shifting into neutral then braking.

 

[emsandjim]

Its Not Just Mercs!!

I shall add my tuppence....... Its not just Mercs.........

I have recently aquired a company Vauxhall which has every gadget imaginable (as does our E Class)

Even on the slightest incline the FWD car TC's itself into the side of the road.... or stalls due to the fact that the system keeps strangling the engine during the slightest slip.
Further to this, it has anti stall, which means you cannot get the engine below 1000 rpm in gear when trying to navigate icy downward slopes without keeping your foot on the brakes (which then activates the abs as well!)

Last week I managed to produce ABS, TC and ESP errors fighting the gadgets down a 2 mile long incline. The dash looked like a Christmas tree of flashing lights - and it all packed in - it was great to drive then Until I reset it :neutral:

So due to all the electronics I cannot get uphill as it stalls or downhill as it has a desire to race to the bottom where it won't stop!

Last time we had this kind of weather my company hack (laguna) and my own car (older 525is) had no gadgets and allowed me to drive them.... with no problem whatsoever!

That said I still prefer the Merc, although the wife said it was interesting to drive today

 

[Iain the gadget]

Ignore him , he knows everything there is to know about everything , attitude sucks also , just had him boring me on another simple post. Go play in the snow Iain and stop annoying people theres a good boy ! :Oops:

Are you still awake deanrc? I thought you had gone down for the afternoon.
People always spit and hiss when their wrong. Go and finish your nap if you haven't got anything useful to say:evil:

 

[Iain the gadget]

I resent the implied suggestion that I am a danger and a nuiscance to other road users, and my comments are made to raise a debate about the traction control system and rear diff setup rather than if i can drive in snow or not - assumptions are never clever.

I never implied that you was either a danger or a nuisance. You was at the side of the road were you not? Thus not impeding any vehicles that were able to gain traction. My point is that given the similar vehicles that we drive [Mercs]and similar conditions, why is it that some of us get stuck and others do not (traction control on or off). I think we all ought to better prepare ourselves and cars for the conditions that we drive in. In other words a quick risk assessment. st4 mentioned a full fuel load. Good advice on 2 counts. Some bags of sand in the boot. It's these sort of people that make significant progress in adverse conditions where others fail because they haven't taken a few simple steps. I know that fitting winter rubber is stepping up the ante a bit, but I didn't get stuck today as I am sure that many others in there Mercedes didn't.
My reply wasn't intended to offend you and if it did I apologise.
Perhaps when deanrc's mummy wakes him up he will also have something to say:lol:

 

[chris0161]

This is my first post in any of these 'snow' related threads, though i have read them all.

The reason for replying to this thread is that there seem to be a few more on here that have the same opinion as me.

In all the other posts most posters seem to presume that because 'if you have trouble driving your MB in the snow its your fault/you can't drive', even people who have never even driven in snow.

A few here have come to the same conclusion as me and even though we don't get conditions like this very often, if fact hardly ever, i don't see why i should have to buy extra equipment (winter tyres plus the extra set of wheels to put them on, snow socks, bags of gravel, flagstones etc., etc.) when i have already paid more than an equivalent mainstream car that would have no problems in the same conditions.

I have been using my daughters 10 year old Peugot 206 to get around because my 'superior' car cant even get off the drive.

What is so special about RWD anyway. Big, heavy diesel engine pushing the front wheels into the ground and big wide useless tyres trying to push it along. Its not like RWD is so useful the rest of the time, for me anyway. 90% of the time i'm sat at 70 on the M/Way. RWD, FWD really makes no difference to me.

All i wanted was a nice car with an auto box, i think this may be my first and last RWD of any make, maybe an Aud1 next, possibly a quattro.

I'll duck out of the firing line now.

 

[ncooper]

If you think a rear wheel drive car is easy in the snow,you could try an unladen artic.Fitted with traction control and a difflock.

It took me 30 seconds to get in and two hours to get out of my delivery point near Evesham this morning and if it hadn't been for a lot of shoveling and two all wheel drive Manitous,I would still be there now.

Mind you,the snow was up to the bottom of the fuel tanks

Even better,I'm back there tomorrow....

Regards,
Nick.

 

[Telviking]

If you think a rear wheel drive car is easy in the snow,you could try an unladen artic.Fitted with traction control and a difflock.

It took me 30 seconds to get in and two hours to get out of my delivery point near Evesham this morning and if it hadn't been for a lot of shoveling and two all wheel drive Manitous,I would still be there now.

Mind you,the snow was up to the bottom of the fuel tanks

Even better,I'm back there tomorrow....

Regards,
Nick.

I must admit I didn't rush to work this morning because there is usually a Jacknifed HGV blocking the road at The Green Man Inn on the A43 near Silverstone every time it snows!
Truckers are a different Breed and makes MB discussions about Snow Traction problems seem unimportant.

 

[emsandjim]

I must admit I didn't rush to work this morning because there is usually a Jacknifed HGV blocking the road at The Green Man Inn on the A43 near Silverstone every time it snows!
Truckers are a different Breed and makes MB discussions about Snow Traction problems seem unimportant.

Where do you work? We didn't open the office in Brackley today, as none of the admin staff could get in !!

 

[coxyhog]

My car stays in the drive until the snow has gone.The wife has a Micra which is a doddle to drive so I'm not going to struggle with mine.
In Montreal a few years ago,where it was -30 at times and the snow was in piles the size of buildings we had to go through an underpass every day to get to the school(I was on a course).Got there one day & the underpass was full of cars which had gone down but couldn't get up the other side.These were cars which presumably had all the right equipment and driven by people very experienced in the prevailing conditions.The cause was freezing rain.

 

[JEZ.S320L]

i have been driving for 25 years, i spent 15 years as a field service engineer driving all over the country on a daily basis, my merc is undoubtedly the worst car i have ever tried to drive in the snow, in fact it is useless, tc on or off it goes nowhere as soon as there is a slight incline in the road, it is an embarresment when every other car on the road glides past with ease and your traction controll decides that it will just deny you any power at all, i love my mercedes but i think its gonna have to be sold

In direct contrast to your experience. I have been driving for almost 46 years (got my first motorbike in '64). I have driven all types of vehicles in all types of weather - including knee-deep snow, in the Lake District, on the Wrynose Pass, on a motorbike.!!

February last, in Brighton, I was one of the VERY few cars to get up a long slippy/icey hill in the S-Class. Once I got a gentle push, I was away - with hardly any problems whatsoever. Much, much better than most of the previous vehicles I have owned (RR's excepted).

 

[roofless]

the wide tyres fitted to our cars are a compromise in that they are designed to work in dry-wet conditions & lower road noise hence the poor performance in the snow ? now if you drive a large car of any make it will tend to be fitted with wider tyres than a smaller car & in turn not be as good in the snow as some small cars. so a small car with narrow tyres is best for a few days a year but for the rest of the year [big is good ]

 

[RichardSmith]

I don't even bother taking my SLK out in the snow to be honest. And as for the 300zx twin turbo - forget it!!!

We also have a Rav-4 which, whilst it's no proper off roader, it makes safe progress in snow and ice. It's just so much less hassle to use that than the 2 RWD sports cars......

Richard

 

[47p2]

I bought my daughter a Rav4 during the autumn because she lives in the Highlands and she called me a couple of days ago to say it was the best car she's ever had and perfect for this weather

 

[Miffy]

Would an engine remap improve snow performance

 

[Celtic pride]

C'mon girls - just drive - gentle right foot, over ride the gearbox, use anticipation - bad workmen blame their tools - and yours is superb:lol:

 

[Telviking]

Where do you work? We didn't open the office in Brackley today, as none of the admin staff could get in !!

I live in Brackley and Work in Silverstone, it was very bad in the Highstreet and all the Estate roads, in fact when I came home at 5.45 I did not see any cars being driven around the estates I pass through so must have been bad.

 

[syncropaddy]

I live on a hill and decided I was not going out in the Merc this morning, I watched as the snow got packed down and cars were struggling like mad to get up it, I spent 2 hours digging my VW van out of the drive so that I could get the 4wd Mitsubishi out of the Garage...then it was Snow?.. what snow?

If your VW van was one of these you wouldnt need the Jap crap......

 

[deanrc]

Are you still awake deanrc? I thought you had gone down for the afternoon.
People always spit and hiss when their wrong. Go and finish your nap if you haven't got anything useful to say:evil:

Do you really have no life ?

I think you obviously had a really bad childhood !

Dont take it out or try to take it out on other people - you just sound like a pathetic idiot , trying to act a tough guy behind a keyboard - now like i said earlier " go play in the snow and build me a snow man ":lol:

 

[HERBIEMERCMAN]

yes, the conditions are bad, and some of our posters are as well.

my four peneth is like some other members have stated, small car FWD narrow tyres OK.
rear wheel drive wide tyres not OK, even with full tank and boot loaded, if the front end goes you are out of control, with FWD the drive works with the steering.

our big ones are in the garage and the little FWD is doing all the work without any problems.

it is also a fact that the best 4 wheel drives, with nobbly off road tyres are no good on solid ice. only studded tyres and chains work, not opinion, simple science. herbiemercman.

 

[syncropaddy]

it is also a fact that the best 4 wheel drives, with nobbly off road tyres are no good on solid ice. only studded tyres and chains work, not opinion, simple science. herbiemercman.

Not only nobbly tyres ........ most 4x4's with wide tyres are useless. I have just spent a day pulling 4x4 yahoos out of all sorts of places with that 20 year old van above ....... with thin nobbly tyres ......