Model Railway Forum

Yes it is. Very useful I would imagine if you break down at night in the middle, or even just to one side, of nowhere.

Took my Merc into the garage the other week for a little TLC after three years of ownership and was astonished when the mechanic opened all the windows with the key fob before getting into the car and then closed them all at once by pressing the air recycle switch. The modern cars have so many tricks, lots I’ll never get to use. Even the power setting are eco, manual and sport I only use the eco and that as much as I can handle I’ve only used sport a couple of time and it was frightening. I sometimes wander why they don’t make a model with the luxury in and no gadgets to keep the price down.

They seem to think that the more gadgets something has the better it is.

I remain bewildered by the number of gizmos my car has, and the vast choice of what I can look at on the dash. I really need a full time systems operator riding shotgun so I can just hang onto the wheel and deal with the driving aspects.
There is even an app for my phone (if I could even use the phone to its potential) that allows me to check if the car is locked or not, tell me how much fuel is left, where the cheapest fuel is, when it needs servicing, open and close the windows, and all manner of other trivia that I can honestly live without.
I wanted a tow-bar to hang the bike carrier on but at £1780 it would be cheaper to courier the bikes to where I am going to ride them. Even an after-market Witter bar was almost exactly half that amount.

brian1951 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 11, 2019 7:17 pm I have just ordered a 2020 model Discovery Sport. Took 30 mins Steve.

Built at last, shipped from Hailwood and ready to collect on monday.

Don’t get it dirty in the snow and rain.

We will try our best Steve, its the third 4x4 in the family now, our carbon footprint is about to explode.

I drove back through some rather interesting conditions a couple of evenings ago. The lower parts of North Wales had some terrential rain with a few floods where one didn't see them until one was in them. It was a dark night. Hitting a flood at 50 to 60mph (I couldn't swerve as there weas a car coming the other way). Ok. It was only about a foot deep. It cleaned the car!
About 20 miles further on I saw three council workers frantically shovelling water from the top of a wall and into a drain below? Why not use sandbags or something to direct the water flow? Surely easier then fighting the losing battle with shovels? Uhmmm. It was interesting but couldn't see the logic.
Then I went up and over the mountains of Mid Wales to find snow, and the higher up I went, the deeper the snow... So climbing up past Cilcennen meant I reduced speeds to around 40mph and a little slower on sharp corners. Mitsi climbed it ok, though the downhills were a bit scary. I watched a sizeable lorry at the bottom of one of the hills as it was going the other way. Usually fixed wheelbase lorries climb well if rhey have weight, but this was articulated. It should be ok though as long as it could get grip, as in most places tarmac could be seen where the tyres go.
I did hoze off under the wheelarches when I got back because when I reached South Wales (Which was warmer) they had gritted everything! No grit seen in Mid Wales. While I hozed the wheelarches and the underneath, I found clumps of snow fall on the ground! I had driven a fair distance with no snow, so it was surprizing.
So though I did not really see much more then about 10 to 12 inches, and most of that had tyre tracks to follow in which were either on icy tarmac or shallow semi compacted snow, I was still impressed that the tyres seem to handle things ok. Certainly with no drama. So that was good.

It was an interesting evenings drive.

I was still impressed that the tyres seem to handle things ok.

Which begs the question - do any of the folk on here change over to winter tyres.

I have a friend who is religious about doing this, but I fail to see the advantage in UK, that apart from the added expense of another set of wheels and tyres cluttering the garage.

I have Winter tyres on all year. R-