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New Mini in Snow

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R

RCL

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Basil's inquiry about mpg and responses from folks in the northern "lats" makes me wonder.... How do the new Minis handle in snow? What, if any, changes to the tires have you made for winter operations.

FYI...my summer car is a 71' Mini....my winter car is a 99 Audi (AWD) Avant which I might want to trade for a New Mini.

Rick

Pennsylvania
 
My sister-in-law has a 2003 MINI standard Cooper with the sport, winter, and premium pkg, with Sport performance tires. When we had a 12" snowfall, her husband drove his Volvo 240 to her workplace to see if she was able to get home, needless to say she had to stop and wait for him. They live in rural Illinois and the roads had yet to be plowed. He never followed her after that and she had no problem in our near record 28" total for the season. I opted for the all season performance tires for wet weather control, if the snow gets to deep, I've got two Land Rovers. I figure if you know winter driving you'll be fine. My winter slogan is "I can always get home, but going to work is another thing!
Larry
 
Can't say from direct experience, but I would reckon they should be good in winter, almost anything with front-wheel-drive should be good as a winter car. My front-wheel-drive has almost never gotten me stuck through eight Canadian winters.

I even know guys up here in Canada who use a classic Mini as a winter car and from all I've heard the older Mini's do well in general. The only problem you would likely run into is getting around when the snow on the road is really deep on the roads - but then anything that's not 4WD will have trouble those days.
 
I hate front wheel drive in the snow!! If you go to gear down, it locks up the front wheels!! Give me a MGB any day!!
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The best car I ever drove in the snow (barring 4WD of course) was a Citroen GS. Lots of ground clearance thanks to the adjustable ride-height, large-diameter skinny tyres, front-wheel drive....the thing was amazing. A Citroen Dyane ran it a good second. My old (classic) Mini was very good, but lacked ground-clearance. The MGB GT that I had was also pretty good.

How a car behaves in snow is often down to invividual driving technique, rather than the dynamics of the car itself. Tyres, I might add, are a huge factor, even if they are not snow tyres. The Michelins on my Passat are bloomin' awful!!!
 
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Steve:
The best car I ever drove in the snow (barring 4WD of course) was a Citroen GS.<hr></blockquote>

My roommate in college (35 yrs ago!) had a Citroen wagon which we'd drive up to the mountains. At the chain stop first there were the goggle-eyed stares from other motorists as we raised the car up on it's adjustable suspension, slipped in blocks and lowered the suspension, neatly raising the front wheels off the ground without use of a jack. Then there was the obligatory conversation with the Highway Patrol about why we were chaining the front wheels when the law said we had to chain the rears...
 
Minis/MINIs are a lot of fun, and like most other FWD cars are quite good in the snow.

But.....in the snow, nothing beats AWD. For a winter car, stick with your Audi.
 
I followed the link.
Wow!!! A V8 chain saw of all things.And I thought it was tight putting a 351W in an Alpine.Some neat work there shown on that site.
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