Mk3 Cavalier Owners Club | Vauxhall Cavalier Dot Com

Anyone else taken their Cav out in the snow today?
I'm always surprised at how good they are over snow and ice.

There is a long steep drive where we live and about 5 other cars had got stuck on it this morning. Cavalier sailed straight past them.

We had the tiniest smidge of snow at the weekend, but not enough to pose a challenge for any car.

Despite normally being the rainy city, Manchester has been experiencing dry cloudless skies bringing plunging temperatures at night and cold crisp sunny days.

We had some almost knee deep snow, and my Vectra being my daily driver I have no choice but to drive it.
I can't really say much about the traction because my tires are on their last legs and this will definitely be their last season. But it did manage to get up my snow covered driveway, though it did put up a little fight.
Ice is a different thing though, I can't keep it driving straight at any speed higher than ~40km/h. I do put full blame on the tires as they are basically trash and no better than a rubber band or electrical tape.

I agree, a lot is to do with tyre wear.
My Cav always had low-tread on the tyres when the 14" steelies were fitted.
I often found my ABS light coming on, disengaging the ABS unit due to excessive wheel-spinning on the icy roads.

When I fitted the 15" Fanblade alloys, I also bought a full set of new tyres, so plenty of tread left for the winter.

Oddly, we have not had a proper bad winter since 2013, when the whole estate got snowed in for three days.

Carefull I don't trigger a political ramble about global climate change...

We had an inch and a half of snow, nothing really, normally it would be gone in a couple of days but the freezing temperatures turned the un-gritted streets to ice.



The main routes were fine but I was surprised to find the council run crematorium (attended today) was untouched and had no grit bins, yet they cleared ten feet of footpath with no safe way to get to it

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An inch and a half is nothing (according to my missus :lol) and it didn't faze the cavalier.
I have 15" goodyear efficientgrip tyres with loads of tread (replaced after all my uniroyal rainexperts were slashed in mistaken identity ) and haven't had a problem.
In snow I usually run two pounds under recommended pressure to improve grip.
I drive the streets in 1st gear at very low revs, no pressure from cars behind . I'd like to do it in second but the engine isn't running smoothly enough for that .

Robsey wrote: ↑Mon Dec 12, 2022 11:33 pmOddly, we have not had a proper bad winter since 2013, when the whole estate got snowed in for three days.

I agree, I doubt my lowered and stiffened suspension would cope very well if there was deep snow.

Robsey wrote: ↑Mon Dec 12, 2022 11:33 pmCarefull I don't trigger a political ramble about global climate change...

...Couldn't possibly comment about something that's been happening for millions of years, there's so much misinformation online that I don't care anymore. I'll be dead and probably cremated using fossil fuel gas.
What's the alternative? Being baked in an electric oven

We had a vectra B auto 2.6, the traction control on that was quite surprising, it moved pretty quick on hard packed snow if you just floored it, no wheel spin. It really impressed me.

Had about 2 or 3cms of snow here (Southend area) and was watching 'drivers' sliding down a local hill - all wheels locked just going where the hill took them until stopped by kerb or lamp post or the cars that were already stopped!
They didn't have a clue.

Alan

It's quite frightening how many people seem to be totally clueless about driving on ice.
I know we don't get much practice these days as snow is getting rarer, but it is embarrassing how everything comes to a standstill with just a few inches of snow.
We could do with having a skid-pan section in our driving test.

I know it's a bit like the big kid in me, I usually try make the car slide on ice when no-one is around, pretending to be a real rally driver. I do miss the handbrake for real fun in modern cars, you cant make the backend step out on fwd without it.

James McGrath wrote: ↑Tue Dec 13, 2022 9:43 pm It's quite frightening how many people seem to be totally clueless about driving on ice.
I know we don't get much practice these days as snow is getting rarer, but it is embarrassing how everything comes to a standstill with just a few inches of snow.
We could do with having a skid-pan section in our driving test.

When the snow comes it's cue the usual full throttle wheel spin to try and get traction when the lightest touch of the gas pedal will do. I really can't get my head around this one, so many times I've got up a slippy hill by just feathering the throttle, and not making sudden changes in speed and direction, which is what everyone else seems to do!

cavalier1990 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 16, 2022 5:21 pm When the snow comes it's cue the usual full throttle wheel spin to try and get traction when the lightest touch of the gas pedal will do. I really can't get my head around this one, so many times I've got up a slippy hill by just feathering the throttle, and not making sudden changes in speed and direction, which is what everyone else seems to do!

Exactly!
There was a BMW the other day stuck on flat level ground in 1 inch of snow!
They were stuck because they kept revving it right up to the red line! What a moron!

That's odd...
Most brain-out wastes of space drive Audi's these days.

I would have thought that such a prestige car like a BMW would come with traction control as standard.

I saw a BMW a few years ago that everyone was giving a bodyswerve on a dual carriable way with with hard shoulder, wheels spinning in a slow wide fishtailling up this hill. The traffic had stopped and I was just hoping it moved again as he was slowly getting closer to me.

Robsey wrote: ↑Fri Dec 16, 2022 7:53 pm That's odd...
Most brain-out wastes of space drive Audi's these days.

I would have thought that such a prestige car like a BMW would come with traction control as standard.

They do but like beemers they also have indicators but have you ever seen them being used

James McGrath wrote: ↑Fri Dec 16, 2022 6:59 pm

cavalier1990 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 16, 2022 5:21 pm When the snow comes it's cue the usual full throttle wheel spin to try and get traction when the lightest touch of the gas pedal will do. I really can't get my head around this one, so many times I've got up a slippy hill by just feathering the throttle, and not making sudden changes in speed and direction, which is what everyone else seems to do!

Exactly!
There was a BMW the other day stuck on flat level ground in 1 inch of snow!
They were stuck because they kept revving it right up to the red line! What a moron!

Keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result doesn't seem to apply here! I used to be able to get up to my folks with a bit of gentle persuasion, it's a windy hill right up, there was 2 bits you would struggle as it was a tight corner at the start, and you couldn't get a run at it to get you going. once past that you would be fine.

The other trick I used one Year in the old orion was reversed right up, gave me so much traction with engine effectively at back over driving wheels!

Looks like it will be my turn for snow early next week.
Only expecting 7cm max, so nothing too tricky.

We had nothing of note last time. Mainly just sleet.

My Cavalier V6 came with traction control which automatically cuts the throttle if the driven wheels start to slip. When going up hill in snow this is actually not helpful because at the slightest sign of wheel slip engine power dies and you come to a halt. Then its much harder, if not impossible, to get going again and the only option is to reverse back down the hill, switch off traction control and try again. Traction control stopped working on my V6 a while back and I've not tried to fix it!

chrisp wrote: ↑Thu Jan 12, 2023 5:11 pm My Cavalier V6 came with traction control which automatically cuts the throttle if the driven wheels start to slip. When going up hill in snow this is actually not helpful because at the slightest sign of wheel slip engine power dies and you come to a halt. Then its much harder, if not impossible, to get going again and the only option is to reverse back down the hill, switch off traction control and try again. Traction control stopped working on my V6 a while back and I've not tried to fix it!

I always thought it was a surprisingly a good system.
It does help pulling way from junctions in the rain and doesn't cut the power too much in my experience.

I've never tried it in the snow however!

Always found the 1.6 to be the best in the snow; light weight, skinny 175 tyres, no ABS and hardly any torque. Perfect for icy weather!
The 2.0 is reasonably good, as long as it has good tyres.
Never actually taken the V6 out in the snow.

I think the traction control varied from model to model, I've read other saying the v6 would be quite severe at cutting the power. Where as the 2.6 was brilliant at controlling it.

It probably does vary from car to car.
It's only a simple air intake cut off valve.
I imagine that the condition of the servo would be a factor and of course the condition of the tyres would be a big factor.
My V6 is quite a late one. Registered in June 1995.

Personally, I would be in the brilliant camp.
When it activities, I don't even notice it.
I had to test it to make sure it was working.
When it's on, all you get is the flashing of the TC light on the dash to tell you that it has activated.
When off, the wheels spin in the same situation.