Ice Driving

[shropshireflying]

Hi All.
I need help with my V70 '06 diesel, 6 speed auto, model.
If it encounters ice the engine will not rev and I get a skid notice on the dash. It slowly comes to an almost stop and no progress is made. (Slight uphill)
It does this in normal and winter settings.
Please help, it's driving me nuts.

[GaryP]

Traction control isn't magic. If there isn't enough traction to get your car up the hill then you won't get up the hill. The only difference traction control will make is to stop the engine revving and the wheels spinning.

[oragex]

As above. By reading your post, we are (at least myself) under the impression you are climbing uphill and the tires don't grip enough causing the STC to cut the gas delivery.

Try pushing the STC (or DSTC) button for 2 seconds until the light goes off. It should deactivate the traction control, and let your tires spin without cutting the gas. I use this to move from deep snow, but I have quality winter tires. However if you are running all season tires, it won't make a big difference.

[Simon Jones]

Originally Posted by shropshireflying

Please help, it's driving me nuts.

I found my V70 auto was disappointing in snow so bought an XC70 instead. Problem solved

[SwissXC90]

Originally Posted by Simon Jones

I found my V70 auto was disappointing in snow so bought an XC70 instead. Problem solved

And I drive a XC90 with AWD and really good winter tyres. Stopped to watch a person struggle to turn their car around on a snow covered hill today after they couldn't proceed any further due to loss of front wheel drive traction.

Once they were safely past, I then accelerated away uphill from a standing start without any slippage whatsoever up the steep, snow covered hill. Fantastic.

[oragex]

Originally Posted by SwissXC90

And I drive a XC90 with AWD and really good winter tyres. Stopped to watch a person struggle to turn their car around on a snow covered hill today after they couldn't proceed any further due to loss of front wheel drive traction.

Once they were safely past, I then accelerated away uphill from a standing start without any slippage whatsoever up the steep, snow covered hill. Fantastic.

Assuming all cars have winter tires, an uphill road covered with wet snow (temperatures around 0C) is about the only the place when the AWD is clearly worth having. That and moving into very deep snow.

I drive a FWD with good winter tires and the only place where I get stuck is uphill with wet snow. I do climb it easily on 'dry' snow. When that road is covered with ice, no one is climbing it. In most driving conditions FWD is more than enough given the car has decent winter tires not too worn.

What really makes the difference between AWD with all season and FWD with snow tires is tire adherence. There is simply no comparison about braking distance on all season tires compared with snow tires. Our southern neighbors - Americans - mostly swear by AWD with all season tires. Not a good recipe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmUue_krVDY

[owyn]

I found you need to hit the DSTC button to have half a chance on slippery slopes and normal tyres.

In mine it used to hit the brakes so much you could end up stalling the car. Todays snowmaggedon resulted in about 3 flakes of snow that I could have handled in a pair of flip flops, the 4WD and winter tyres were a little overkill.

[gammakeith]

Originally Posted by owyn

I found you need to hit the DSTC button to have half a chance on slippery slopes and normal tyres.

In mine it used to hit the brakes so much you could end up stalling the car. Todays snowmaggedon resulted in about 3 flakes of snow that I could have handled in a pair of flip flops, the 4WD and winter tyres were a little overkill.

Ha ha. We got a bit more than that. My first bout of bad weather in the car and I'm seriously impressed despite leaving DSTC on and having normal tyres. Mind you, I'm used to a fwd diesel Alfa that was truly rubbish on snow. That would go nowhere on the hills with the (equivalent) of DSTC on. The XC just motored up the i in 8 hill near us with barely a twitch :-)

Keith

[Baxlin]

Originally Posted by SwissXC90

And I drive a XC90 with AWD and really good winter tyres. Stopped to watch a person struggle to turn their car around on a snow covered hill today after they couldn't proceed any further due to loss of front wheel drive traction.

Once they were safely past, I then accelerated away uphill from a standing start without any slippage whatsoever up the steep, snow covered hill. Fantastic.

Please don't take offence, but this post is not overly helpful to the OP.

[Brendan W]

I too have found our fwd manages better uphill in snow with the STC disabled.
We live on a small rural road in a hollow between two steep hills. Well one is steep the other is steeper. From time to time we get cars accumulating in the hollow in snowy weather.
On one such occasion a Latvian neighbour called to my door enquiring about my wood ash.
His ancient Transit was at the back of the queue and he had a job to get to. We ferried the ash to the road side in a bucket and he sprinkled the ash in two narrow strips about 100 metres up the hill. I was sure this was nonsense. How could a bucket of ash grit a hill. Nevertheless one by one the cars made it to the top with no drama. He followed in the van that had no right to manage either. I got the feeling he reckons we are a bunch of numpties in the miserable amount of snow we get.
I would be inclined to take the box out of full auto and use 1 or 2 and see if that improves things.