Whats it like to drive an Impreza on snow and ice?

The reason i ask is that i am driving to Slovakia begining of December and will be spending several days driving in the mountains on snow and ice. The last time i did this i had a Skoda Felecia hire car with winter tyres on (not studded) and that was good fun!!!

BTW I have a MY01WRX wagon DBM.

 

Make sure you look after it....... Some well doggy geezers down those parts.

Be very alert,but have fun. Saw Skoda's betting 4x4 with normal tyres all day long in the Ski resorts. The skoda's had wintertyres on,they where also use to the conditions. buy a cheap set of winter tyres there or in germany. Dont do it on normal tyres ,you wont have fun.

 

Hiya Jo! not as good as you might think, on standarf tyres anyway, i love driving in snow, did 150 miles on snow packed roads in my scoob last year, you get both charecteristic understeer followed by oversteer, if you keep it balanced it stays nice, bt in tighter bends you have to do abit of throttle stamping and wheel manouvering to keep it on the straiight and narrow. the performance tyres loose efiencey in the freezing snow and ice. it doesent perform as well as my quattro 20v did, that had some good kit, diff locks if you got stuck and you coukld turn the abs off which is a god send in the snow, they stop quicker with the build up of snow under the wheels and the abs doesent get confused. IMHO i would take some chains for the front if your journey is to get a to b safely. then have a play where there is plenty of room! cheers Lee

 

Great fun to drive, but you have to get winter (snow) tyres, this is a must (The best are Conti wintercontact TS 790 or Pirelli snowsport 210!!)! Be carefull with your brakes (better to disconnect the ABS!)- if you don't, it would take forever and a bit more to stop the car on snow and ice. When you drive around the corner stay above 3500 rpm (car has to be on boost!), because if you don't, you will get too much understeer and the car would plunge straight into the snowbank! Try to use the "pendulum" technic to point the nose of the car into the bend, and then just accelerate out of the corner (and don't touch your brakes, except with your left foot if you know how to use it!). You will have a veeeeery gooood time!

Kristijan

 

Jo! you could always do the scandanavian flick if your feeing confident!!! Lee

 

Thanks for the advice Lee & KJT - looks like I'm in for some fun!!!

Can you get 17" Winter/Snow tyres to fit a MY01?
Where's the best place to buy chains?
How do u disable ABS is it a case of taking one fuse out?

 

If you'll have winter/snow tyres, you won't need snow chains!!

Yes, you can get some decent rubber (recomended Conti (790, H)or Pirelli (210 snowsport, 17'') anywhere.

The best way to disable the ABS is to take the fuse out (when you want to have some fun) and put it back in when you think you will need it.

Kristijan

 

Pirellis are £77 for studable 160+



[Email if req more info blah]

[Edited by Puff The Magic Wagon! - 10/30/2001 11:28:56 PM]

 

I found out the hard way....

Over bridges there is much more likely to be ice under the snow due not having protected ground underneath. The temperature drops much lower. I spun my Legacy whilst crawling over a narrow bridge. Fortunately nothing damaged - except a mudguard which got knocked off. It happily pullled itself out of the ditch at the side of the road but was a scary moment with wifey & 2 small sproglets on board

Mick