Driving in 4wd

I am a life member of the Birmingham University Motor Club and for a number of years I was involved in the organisation of two road rallies. One was local and usually Warwickshire or Leicestershire based and this was run in the summer. The other was based in Wales, it was called the Mermaid and it was run in the winter. We ran, usually, at high altitude so the weather was invariably bad with snow and ice usual. The only 4x4 ever entered was an army Lightweight Land Rover crewed by an officer driver with a corporal navigator. They gave up early and spent most of the night pulling other cars out of ditches etc. I was driving my MG 1300 as course opening car with the clerk of the course as my navigator. This was a fw drive car and to maintain rally speed you learn two things. Brakes are your enemy and you must accelerate through bends. Yes it's scary, but if you brake you will loose traction and go straight on - reread bit about lightweight above - accelerate and you pull the car through the bend.
So how does this relate to the original question. When driving on ice or snow - there called hazards - you must look way way ahead of you. Be prepared to take evasive action and if that is a parked car or anything in your path then be prepared to accelerate as you steer.

Roger

Lambert wrote: Don't forget that you don't have any more grip in 4x4 than you would in 4x2. What you have is more traction which means you can't stop any faster even though you can get going quicker. But if you are driving that fast in snow and ice that you need more traction then you are going to have problems. When it's that bad outside I look at 4x4 as a reserve, so for example if I have to climb a meaningful gradient on packed snow, not as a means of travelling at dry tarmac speed.

I know where you are coming from, but you should have better braking in 4wd on slippery surfaces vs 2wd. This is down to how the brake bias is setup on a road car. With 4wd the transfer box will give yoku 50:50 spilt bias which should give more effective braking and likely to induce ABS. Due to not having the weight transfer you'd normally get on a grippy surface. There are also benefits in cornering too with 4wd in low grip scenarios.

Barry silver SZ5 wrote: Still unsure what's best in the snow or ice,   I live at bottom of a steep narrow bendy village hill , when starting to go down should I engage 4 wheel drive ? High or low ratio or switch on the hill decent mode ,    A previous 2 wheel drive car I just slid down and I bashed car on a bank and once in a ditch, Brought an Audi with constant 4 wheel drive and no problems , so thought the new Jimny ideal replacement, but now snowing don't want to damage it.   I am not technically great but wanting to be in best settings to go down (or climb ) what can be a very slippery hill used by few drivers. Your wisdom appreciated.  

If you find you are going to slowly you can always speed up. In slippery conditions you can not normally easily slow down if going to fast.

You really need to judge the conditions at hand and make an informed judgement call. Brake test and feel how much grip there is and how easy the vehicle slides. This will let you know what sort of speed you can decend the hill safely at. If you need 4wd, select it before hand, don't wait until it is too late. Low range will give even more control if it is very steep and/or slippery.

Use engine braking (and HDC if you have it), but try to stay off the brake pedal and don't push the clutch in. In many ways it is no different to driving down a steep slippery muddy hill.

Another thing to consider is it's much cheaper to use 4wd and break something than to not use it and crash..
Experiment with it. Pay attention to the affects it has on the way the car drives, the feel of the steering, how the braking changes, the noises it makes. You should soon get an idea when it's happy and when it isn't.

Thank you yes l will.

lt's just that l am used to driving my Defender which is permanently in 4wd.

Permanent 4wd is definitely more surefooted and generally a better system for all terrain driving. I notice that, weight difference aside, our Defender does much less surface damage than the Jimny when travelling on sensitive ground. Wether in 2wd of 4wd the Jimny is always scrabbing a tiny bit where as the Defender leaves an unbroken footprint. But on soft ground the Jimny still can't be beaten. I'm sure you already know, but 4wd in the Jimny is equivalent to having the centre diff locked in a Defender.