petew0557 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 04, 2023 4:10 pm
Visited our static caravan in the lakes at the weekend to close it down for winter.
Saturday saw a scattering of snow, Sunday it was 4 inches deep and icy.
I don't have winter tyres, just 21 inch zeros.
The Macan was fantastic both days, was really impressed.
We were staying in the Langdale hotel. Over 8 inches fell in places and road getting to Elterwater was completely blocked. Nothing in or out. Abandoned cars everywhere.
Never seen snow come down like that for 20+ years. We ended up having to spend another night. Luckily the road was cleared and gritted so we could get out today.
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I can think of thousands of places worst to be stranded in than in the Langdales.
One of our favourite watering holes is up the road at the Old Dungeon Ghyll pub, just the place to stop on the way down from Harrison Stickle.
The quantity of snow does seem to have caught many by surprise our local news had full coverage.
I used to have to travel around The Lakes a lot, can be scary in Winter if one is not used to it. I used to ski so was well used to being prepared in Winter with the emergency bag in the boot and always a full tank of fuel.
Yeah, I booked the Friday & Saturday nights on the Thursday after checking the weather forecast. Few light sleet showers it said. Caught everyone out.
Nearly booked Saturday & Sunday nights. Pleased I didn't, as we'd have been caught up in it all getting there.
Hope it's not too serious or expensive getting your car sorted. Could have been a lot worse and someone trapped between car and wall.
I'm loving seeing all these snow pictures, so despite my car parked on my drive with winter wheels etc. I actually flew out to Doha Saturday for a few days on business!! So winter here and only 28DegC during the day, short sleeve shirts and lucky my hotel is licensed for alcohol so a few cool beers in the evening.
That said fly back to Scotland overnight tonight, so change of clothing type for sure.
Plyphon wrote: ↑Mon Dec 04, 2023 10:23 pm
Arg - heartbreaking! Glad no one was behind the car at the time. Nothing you could do - simply physics in play unfortunately.
Would winter tyres have stopped the slide or would full Nordic studs have been required?
I've been down steep (1 in 8?) hills of packed snow, where it has gone slightly transparent due to melt, with a new set of winters on my Macan and no sliding whatsoever. I did go down slowly though and went easy on the brakes! So my guess is that sliding down the drive wouldn't have happened on winters.
Also, last winter, I parked on a neighbour's steeply sloping drive. Stopped, got out of the car only to realise that it was too slippery to stand up! Clawed my way up with the door handles.
So there is a lot to be said for winter tyres. It is as much if not more about the stopping than the going. When your off the throttle and on the brakes, a Macan is no different to any two-wheeled drive car!
Diesel S - Dark Blue/Luxor Beige. http://www.porsche-code.com/PFRFZG58 Deposit 9/4/2014 Locked down 6/3/2015 Built 12/5/2015. Delivered 2/6/2015
Yikes - that's very unfortunate. You see those videos of cars sliding down hills unattended but never actually heard of it happening otherwise.
My Macan is actually the first car I've owned for ages for which I haven't had a set of winter wheels, largely because now that we have the Mini down in Italy (which does have winters), I'm not expecting to have to drive the Macan in snow (a rarity in central London, where in any event if it does snow, it's pretty flat and there are other transport options).
It's presumably also the weight as much as anything. I remember when I was young, my father always had Range Rovers (the original variety in those days) and a Fiat Panda 4x4 that he kept at his place in the Swiss Alps (still does). When we up there in winter, it didn't matter how knobbly the tyres fitted to the Rangie, at some point weight and gravity took over and you struggled on icy slopes, whereas the Panda (which weighed a fraction of the Rangie) wasn't fazed by anything and would keep going in conditions that would tax a mountain goat.
Wolands Advocate wrote: ↑Wed Dec 06, 2023 11:56 am
It's presumably also the weight as much as anything. I remember when I was young, my father always had Range Rovers (the original variety in those days) and a Fiat Panda 4x4 that he kept at his place in the Swiss Alps (still does). When we up there in winter, it didn't matter how knobbly the tyres fitted to the Rangie, at some point weight and gravity took over and you struggled on icy slopes, whereas the Panda (which weighed a fraction of the Rangie) wasn't fazed by anything and would keep going in conditions that would tax a mountain goat.
I've seen a couple of YouTube videos of Fiat Panda 4x4s in very deep snow. Amazing!
