Went for a drive in some snow today.

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onlynik

Active member
Joined
Jan 14, 2016
Messages
39
Took delivery of a 4h on Friday. It had snowed a little, so we went to the hills to have some fun.

IMG_3956_zpskryugfrz.jpg


It performed well, though it did feel like it was struggling on the 20% climb.
 
Did you switch of Traction Control? (Assuming you were on 4WD Lock) That is usually the cause of the car struggling. It is mentioned in the manual.
 
jaapv said:
Did you switch of Traction Control? (Assuming you were on 4WD Lock) That is usually the cause of the car struggling. It is mentioned in the manual.


Didn't have 4WD lock on as the roads were OK, they'd been gritted and ploughed, it was just in "Normal" The car just felt like it was struggling.

greendwarf said:
Winter tyres?

No winter tyres, however I am going to invest in some as the performance today, on the Toyo's, in less than an inch of snow was woeful.
 
Well, next time switch 4WD lock on and Traction Control off, the car will be transformed into a very good performer.
The point about traction control is that it will slow a spinning wheel down by applying the brake. If it does that on several wheels in succession when on a slippery uphill slope, you'll find that the car will brake itself to a standstill in the end.
And yes, winter tyres are essential.
 
jaapv said:
Well, next time switch 4WD lock on and Traction Control off, the car will be transformed into a very good performer.
The point about traction control is that it will slow a spinning wheel down by applying the brake. If it does that on several wheels in succession when on a slippery uphill slope, you'll find that the car will brake itself to a standstill in the end.
And yes, winter tyres are essential.

Thanks, but I know how traction control works, and it wasn't engaging. FWIW, I driven this road in many different cars over the years, and the PHEV seemed to be struggling to provide power to go up, no slipping, no spinning wheels. As I said before the road was clear, gritted and ploughed, I just feel that it requires more power, my comments weren't related to snow or traction.

As for winter tyres, that comment was due to there being a cm or so of snow on the ground and the PHEV being pretty useless, which I blame the crappy tyres. My last vehicle had Pirellis (summer tyres at that) which were much better than the poxy Toyo tyres the PHEV has fitted. if only there was somewhere I could find proper details about them. I'm thinking about 16" with Nokian SUV WR 03.
 
Could it be it is a matter of 'getting used to' the feeling? It may not go fast, but it will go up. And it will not burn your clutch in the process.

I have done several consecutive standing starts on a 17% slope. Not quite 20%, but this was towing my 1500 kg caravan. I had two driving instructors with me in the car (these guys train people how to tow caravans in hills / mountains). First time, they were convinced I would't make it up there. But I did. Second and third time, they were somewhat more confident. Fourth time they said they never saw another car perform that trick four times in such short timespan, without a smoke trail of either burning tyre rubber or burning clutch padding.
 
onlynik said:
jaapv said:
Well, next time switch 4WD lock on and Traction Control off, the car will be transformed into a very good performer.
The point about traction control is that it will slow a spinning wheel down by applying the brake. If it does that on several wheels in succession when on a slippery uphill slope, you'll find that the car will brake itself to a standstill in the end.
And yes, winter tyres are essential.

Thanks, but I know how traction control works, and it wasn't engaging. FWIW, I driven this road in many different cars over the years, and the PHEV seemed to be struggling to provide power to go up, no slipping, no spinning wheels. As I said before the road was clear, gritted and ploughed, I just feel that it requires more power, my comments weren't related to snow or traction.

As for winter tyres, that comment was due to there being a cm or so of snow on the ground and the PHEV being pretty useless, which I blame the crappy tyres. My last vehicle had Pirellis (summer tyres at that) which were much better than the poxy Toyo tyres the PHEV has fitted. if only there was somewhere I could find proper details about them. I'm thinking about 16" with Nokian SUV WR 03.
I am perfectly happy with Hankook EVO2 18" winter tyres. :) For summer tyres I use Conti cross-contact UHP. I rejected the crappy Toyos when buying the car.
 
jaapv said:
I am perfectly happy with Hankook EVO2 18" winter tyres. :) For summer tyres I use Conti cross-contact UHP. I rejected the crappy Toyos when buying the car.

Thanks for the advice.

anko said:
Could it be it is a matter of 'getting used to' the feeling? It may not go fast, but it will go up. And it will not burn your clutch in the process.

You could be right, it was only day two of ownership.
 
They look good, but I do not see a winter-tyre symbol on them. That could cause legal trouble on the Continent.
 
They look more "all-terrain" tyres than road tyres...
I wouldn't buy them since I don't practise all-terrain too often, and my advice would be to buy some good M+S road tyres.
 
rennie said:
jaapv said:
They look good, but I do not see a winter-tyre symbol on them. That could cause legal trouble on the Continent.

M + S on tyre.
That should take care of the legal side, however real snow/ice tyres will have either a snowflake or a snowflake-mountain symbol on them.
 
In my past experience using all season tyres in snow I'll find it hard to believe true snow tyres would be any better.
Now on ice the winter one's have a softer compound so yes they will be better.

A shame General Grabber don't make one yet for the 18 inch wheel as these were just incredible in snow.
But the signs are good for the Yokohama's so far.

Here's the 16 inch General Grabber in action on the previous Outlander:

out2.jpg
 
After having the car fro two weeks, all I can say is it is horrendously under powered. It is no real use for travelling anywhere on single carriageways, as there is no power to overtake anything. Come up behind someone doing 45mph, see a gap, indicate, pull out and put your foot down and nothing happens.

Maybe I've been lucky enough to have proper cars before, but I doubt I'd be being a Mitsubishi again.
 
Can't say that it is my experience, I drive on single carriageways mostly and have had no trouble overtaking at a decent acceleration, not counted but I would tend to do that for say half a dozen cars on my way home each day (35 miles)
 
I'd be interested to see the acceleration times for 50-70.

Last car I had did 50-75 in 5.4 seconds, in a single gear. It did drink fuel though.

Maybe there is something wrong with my car, or I have grown accustom to faster cars.
 
onlynik said:
I'd be interested to see the acceleration times for 50-70.

Last car I had did 50-75 in 5.4 seconds, in a single gear. It did drink fuel though.

Maybe there is something wrong with my car, or I have grown accustom to faster cars.

I would say that the PHEV acceleration is quite good for the size, weight and style of car - but that does not mean that it will compete with high-end saloons. Our PHEV compares favourably with our 4.5 litre Landcruiser for performance and costs a fair bit less to run. It's not really fair to compare it with a Jag or BMW, is it?

One thought - do you let your battery run flat, or do you use Save to keep a reasonable level of charge in it? There is some discussion as to whether it is psychological or genuine, but quite a few users believe that the car is underpowered with a flat battery. Some, like jaapv, will tell you that the engine is capable of providing all the required power on its own and that the perception of being underpowered is simply down to the fact that a PHEV under heavy load with a flat battery runs the engine at very high revs. He may well be right - I'm not prepared to drive with my foot to the floorboards and the engine screaming like a banshee - so my perception of the car with a flat battery is that it is sluggish. I generally use Save to keep the battery above 50% most of the time. If I'm thinking about it carefully enough, I turn off Save when I'm five or ten miles from my destination and use up the charge, but I don't lose sleep if I arrive home with 50% charge left in the car. This does seem to make it a far more pleasant car to drive.
 
maby said:
onlynik said:
I'd be interested to see the acceleration times for 50-70.

Last car I had did 50-75 in 5.4 seconds, in a single gear. It did drink fuel though.

Maybe there is something wrong with my car, or I have grown accustom to faster cars.

I would say that the PHEV acceleration is quite good for the size, weight and style of car - but that does not mean that it will compete with high-end saloons. Our PHEV compares favourably with our 4.5 litre Landcruiser for performance and costs a fair bit less to run. It's not really fair to compare it with a Jag or BMW, is it?

I wasn't comparing it, here, to a saloon, it was an SUV, albeit a fast one. But you are right it is a different car. However I used to have a Toyota Hi-Lux, before it was cool to own one, and drive it off road, and it's performance was about the same.

FWIW, past (SUV) vehicles have been.

  • Porsche Cayenne Turbo 4.5 Litre, 450 bhp, 2355 kg = 191bhp per tonne
    BMW X3 2.5 litre, 189 bhp, 1740 KG = 108 bhp per tonne (to get any use out of this you needed to have the engine at over 4k rpm.)
    Toyota Hi-lux 2.4D 89 bhp, 1700 = 52 bhp per tonne.

Now I was, as you say, running with a flat battery, I was on my way home from the hills, and had not been able to charge it anywhere, however the spec for phev are 1.8 tonnes and 200 BHP, so it should be at least comparable to my previous BMW. It isn't. I'm not sure what the power output of the petrol engine itself is, but I'd like to find out. There is a dyno day being held locally, so I may get it tested there. It would be nice to see a graph of where the peak power is.
 
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