My experience with a Sierra was that the handling was bloody awful in most conditions. On a bend it always seemed to want to go straight on, especially when it was damp and passing a lorry in a crosswind on the motorway was quite scary :eek:

Hatch or estate, and which year?

It is by far the worst car I have ever driven for cross wind problems. Yesterday on the M3 I took my eyes off the road for a second to alter the difficult to read temperature and was blown halfway across the other lane. The 50 miles became very tedious with having to make constant adjustments but at least I had something far superior for the return journey as I was travelling to a dealership to part-ex ....!

Hatch or estate, and which year?

It was a hatch, A reg, was that 1983?

It was a hatch, A reg, was that 1983?

Ah, it could be just old enough to have missed out on the "ears" then; a couple of small plastic strips that ran down the back edge of the rearmost side window, and stopped a cross-wind instability problem that you described.

For the last six years I have drievn my two Octavias in high winds here in Iceland, up to 150 km/hr wind speed. No particular problems. No worse than other cars I've had.

Had the same thing on the M5 last week.

Put me foot down and spiced up what is normally a boring drive before the road works kick in.

Feels about the same as an old caviler i had.

Enjoy motoring before before it gets clamped too much!!!!

Octavia vRS 53 plate.

Certainly not great in crosswinds and this is exacerbated by tyre wear and standing water. Has nothing directly linked to the "slab sidedness" of the car as the Audi TT had loads of issues and that's a relatively poncy slip-of-a-thing.

Try opening all the windows at the same time and ducking below the level of the wheel - should be much safer.

Not had any problems with my 51 TDi Estate in side winds, (apart from going over the Forth Road Bridge in 60Mph gusts with a Double Mattress strapped to the roof :eek: )

It's certainly more stable that SWMBO's Corsa!

So, it looks like the combi is OK with cross winds but not the hatch?

My hatch is spot on!

When driving the other night. I was following a 328 BMW he was all over the place.

I just thought he was drunk! After I made an example of him. I pulled over to get a can of red bull out of the boot. Got out the car and could barely stand up, the wind was awful.

I didn’t even notice the cross winds in the car.

This morning i thought a bearing had collapsed or something then i got behind tree cover and it was fine frightened the crap out of me for about 10 seconds though !!!!!