Any car with wide summer tyres will be rubbish in the snow. That's why many European countries mandate the use of winter tyres. I'm running a Fabia vRS with winter tyres (instead of the Goodyear F1's) and the difference is startling.

205 tyres aren't any different from most other factory cars on the road. I saw a Nissan 300zx infront of me today, with 255 tyres at the rear. NOW, that had problems!

I didn't mean 205 tyres were particularly wide in comparison to other cars, but that they are wide historically. Back in the 80's cars got through snow (and standing water without aquaplaning) on 165/175/ far better than most contemporary cars get through it on the wider rubber they have, despite the increased kerb weight of modern cars. Seems to be an irony in modern cars and their wider tyres, yes they grip better, as long as the weather is not bad.

Hot VRs,what winter tyres are you running?

Do you have 2 sets of alloy wheels or are the winter tyres on steel jobbies?

I was thinking of getting some myself.

Well, I live in Finland and we have both extreme cold and enough snow to spare for uk if anyone wants to fetch it?

With my 195 studless winter radials, I've found the vRS to be a fun little car to drive during the winter. Although, when temps hit below -15C, I always keep the Eberspächer auxiliary heating on or it'll get farking cold whilst driving the motorways.

On the traction part, I've got the ASR which I've found quite usefull for most of the time but not when it's extremely slippery or snowy. I've had to turn it off a couple of times on-the-go just to keep moving. Both times it was plenty of fresh snow on ice and fairly steep uphill at a low speed. When driving at motorway speeds, the ASR works a treat - as long as you remember it's on when you start thinking of over taking. It's just a good thing to remember, cuz at some situations it just might cut off the power while over taking to stop the wheels from starting to spin.

The go cart kind of experience the furby delivers is really nice during the winter. When it's not extremely slippery and with good tyres, the car will go where ever you want. It's all about good tyres and knowing your car and the limitations of the electric aids. After all, even the aids can't run all over gravity and G-forces

I'm personally running the car with 16 inch 195/55 Nokian Hakkapeliitta Q, studless winter radials. The tyres are made by a Finnish company and designed for the rather harsh Finnish winters. As mentioned before we get extreme colds and enough snow, like the past couple of weeks we've seen temps as low as -31,5C. Currently we have about 40cm of snow down south and at least a meter and a half up north. Temps can go from over -30C to -5C in just few hours, like over night. Imagine how slippery it gets when that happens....

So there's the reference points I have for furby in snow/icy conditions. And from my point of view, it's a good and capable car under these conditions.

Well, to follow up on my own last post, here are some recent episodes with the Fabia.. as recent as today! It was especially slippery today...

1) I was driving in a bit of hurry and running down a slope to a motorway. You know the 180 degrees steep'ish slopes that lead you down to motorway. Anyways, I was hitting it with plenty of speed and the Furby decided to oversteer. No worries, I gave it some opposite lock and more pedal - ended up doing a real nice & clean 4-wheel slide through the slope. Excellent!

2) The less funny situation was at the end of my commute from work. I was slowing down to a intersection. It had two lanes and then one of them fenced areas separating the different sides of the road. I had already lifted off the gas cuz it was slippery, but the right lane was clear so I wasn't too worried and went on slowing down with the engine. So one moron in a red Audi in front of me on the left lane just hit the brakes and curved right in front of me without using his indicator. Thank god I was paying attention!

So I hit the brakes, abs begging for mercy I decided to steer left to avoid collision. As soon as I started going left I noticed the car in front of the Audi had stopped as well - christ, I was about hit that! So I hit the brakes even more violently and steered further left. The furby went into a massive over steer (about 80 degrees or so) and I was sliding sideways towards the first post of the fence. I just kept my foot on the brake and threw in some opposite lock - and managed to pull out the furby from that massive over steering! I straightened the car and even avoided the fence post, ending up on the opposite traffic's lane. Luckily there was no traffic come down the other way!

Anyways, not a scratch on the car or any car nearby for that matter. What I'm trying to say is that if you keep your cool and react right - you can pull out of most situations with the furby as a winner. The car is very easy to drive! I can't even imagine what the improved suspension mods would do!

One thing still ****es me off though, the moron Audi driver went on like nothing had happened - didn't even stop to check wether I was ok or not! What an a-hole!

Older cars being lighter and with skinny tyres were probably better in the snow though

I drove a nissan micra before the furby, yunno the bubble gay ones *hangs head in shame*. anyhoo, it was fab in the snow, was a deisel and was great just lift the clutch in 1st (slowly) could take all feet off, it trundled throught the 14" of snow happily big bow wave infront lol no need to interfere with its work untill the bow wave needed clearing (not often either cos of the curved bumber). The furby aint bad tho, as for the ASR stuff, i just turn it off and whip out my trusty snow chains *rubs hands together and laughs* gets up a snowy hill easy, gone past some stuck 4x4s before lol.