V70 in Snow

I recently had my 1998 V70 (140000 miles) in upstate New York where
she balked at climbing a hill with about 3" of snow. We got up about
40% of the hill before it bogged down, and we had to back down.

A Subaru Forester took us up the hill and seemed to laugh at the snow.

Do any of you have experience driving the V70 XC on snowy hills and
how well did it behave? Would that be an appropriate replacement?

Thanks.

George

 

It's all in the tires, well that and driving technique. Put a good set
of snow tires and it should perform about the same as the Subaru.

Heck my RWD 240 will go just about anywhere with a set of four good
studded tires. I lost count of the number of stuck 4WD trucks and SUVs I
drove right past a couple winters ago when we got an unusual amount of
snow out here. 4WD is useless if none of those wheels can get any traction.

 

Just a footnote, We have had a bit of snow in the UK this winter, while
driving my 850 on snowy road the Tracs and ABS warning lights came on....I
put it down to snow clogging the ABS rotors and kept my fingers crossed it
was nothing more expensive and sure enough when the snow went so did the
warning lights. I would have thought for a car whos heritage was Sweden
(albeit a long time ago) there would have been better protection against
snow.

ttfn....Alistair

 

In an earlier contribution to this discussion, Alistair Ross

Ah, but they have a different type of snow in Sweden! <g>

 

I think that's pretty unlikely, the ABS sensors are magnetic and snow is
not, additionally they're close enough to the bearings that it would
have to be really cold for snow to build up on them. If they're clogged
with anything it's probably metallic brake dust, otherwise something
else is wrong.

 

You can not compare Subaru and Volvo AWD. Subaru is using much better and
solid technique and Volvo (and 99% of the cars) are using simple Visco

 

subaru's are fine...if ya like jap crap.....

 

GeorgeMS was thinking very hard :

After lots of research, I bought a BMW X3. Beautiful in the snow! No
problems. Wanted to buy another Volvo (I have an 88 245 with 328K
miles) but the reliability stats on the XC70's aren't nearly as good.

John

 

Quite the contrary. My Subaru Legacy had visco which was OK but would
not go if one side was glare ice. My Volvo XC70 has both front to back
limited slip as well as left to right limited slip. Much better.

Other factors are low torque and good tires are great. Winter Mode
gives the low torque and my Pirelli Scorpions provide the traction.