It’s Valentine’s Day and in accordance with tradition my wife and I headed out to dinner. It was 48 degrees and the skies were relatively clear so we decided to take the little black cat (XK). We usually don’t take it out in the winter, but it’s such a nice day and we hadn’t had the car out in a while and we were headed a short way to a nice community of brick roadways, old style wrought iron lamps, lots of boutiques and windowed restaurants; the kind of place our cats like to visit.


We were seated in front of a large window on the corner near an intersection with a great view of the community. We ordered and punctuated the meal with laughs and smiles. At the end of dinner, we started talking about which movie to see and looked up and saw a blast of 30 mph wind coming down the intersection carrying more snow than I’ve ever seen riding the wind (and I’ve lived in Rochester). It hit the window and curled away in every direction including back up in to the sky. After a few seconds, it grew so thick that we couldn’t see the buildings on the other side of the narrow road.


With a little panic in her throat, my wife said “We’ve got to go home.” The sidewalk and the parking lot were already covered with half an inch and with the level of snow in the air; it looked to be piling up quickly. It was whipping on strong gusts in every direction and felt like we were standing the middle of a marriage between a blizzard and a tornado.


Out and around the corner we went and the black car was covered with a fine while layer of snow, a little thicker on the canvas top than the rest. We eased our way out of the lot and onto the highway with nary an issue. Up the hill we went without a problem and took a left at the top. As we wound down the hill and around a right bend, we heard a quiet squeak from the squiggly tire symbol, but there was no discernible tire slip. Along the bottom of the valley the road eased to the left and eased to the right, a beautiful drive in nice weather, but a little worrisome in these conditions.
As we started up the next hill and around another corner, the squigglies became more insistent. We went through the light at the top of the hill and along another corner, the wheels slipped a couple inches. This time the loudest alarm came from the passenger’s seat, but that’s not too unusual.


We made it the rest of the way not exceeding 25 mph with only two more tire slips. I wasn’t sure that the short drive up the driveway was going to be smooth and had some worries of wheel slip going in the garage and imagined bruised hips on the cat against the garage sides, but no problem.

After my wife dashed into the house, the car whispered with a wink “that was fun!”

 

 

Good story. Glad you got home safely.
I too have had that noise come from the passenger seat, not just in the XK but in our MB as well. And yet, the government has not issued a recall

 

I think there is a TSB calling for duct tape to fix that issue. I just turn the radio up to drown out the problem. That seems to make it quiet for maybe a week, Hahahaha

 

I put mine in Winter Mode a couple of weeks back, and I think I'll leave it there until temperatures rise a bit. It tames some of the twitchiness, especially when the tyres are cold (P-Zeros are not great in cold weather)

 

When everything is working and now with decent tires, turn off the traction control completely she does pretty well. Very well behaved and and forgiving.
I've tried driving her here with winter mode on and she will hardly move at all on slippy stuff, it doesn't allow enough wheel spin.

 

Hmm, interesting - I'll bear that in mind the next time I'm on snow (not that it happens often)

 

When I was a kid we had a fire red Firebird (RWD and similar engine) and drove it in Connecticut, Massachussets, and upstate New York in routinely horrible weather. Back then it was rare to find a FWD car and AWD was unheard of. I grew very accustomed to navigating snowy and icy roads, but my attitude now is "why take the risk", especially with our cars which are close to rolling artwork. I'd rather save it for sunny spring topless days.

 

^^

maybe ... but snow on the roads allows all kinds of hooliganism on wheels
which would normally earn you a ticket.

wheelspin and tail out is kind of expected.

 

My thoughts exactly PLUMS, I'd get questions all the time why I drove my old Porsche 911 C4 in snow my answer was always its more fun in the snow. I had to be over 120 in good weather on on ramps to even to have her feel slightly swirly and apart from a ticket I didn't like the idea of looking like a fool when I couldn't catch a tail happy car. In the snow 40 - 60 mph equaled a bring smile.
In fact its on the list to get another C4 purely for winter use may be 2 inch lift and some AL under plates !

 

"I put mine in Winter Mode a couple of weeks back, and I think I'll leave it there until temperatures rise a bit. It tames some of the twitchiness, especially when the tyres are cold (P-Zeros are not great in cold weather)"
Are you talking about the jag or the source of the noise coming from the passenger seat____lol?

 

The passenger was certainly a bit twitchy 2 weeks ago when we had a little sideways moment on the M11 - all I did was put my foot down a fraction too hard at 70, and the back just stepped right. That's when I decided discretion (Winter Mode) was the better part of valour.

 

I guess the caveat to my comment above is on the highways its probably a good idea to use winter mode or some level of traction. When driving on interesting roads you can stay engaged but I think every body on highways tends to not 100% focused so its too easy for something to start and get away from us before you wake up.
With my old C4 when I first had I'd leave the stability management on on the highway. when I got to understand the system I realized turning it off, turned the traction control off and only retarded the stability (differential braking). When I got confident with it I'd always turn it off unless I was tired.

 

Crash total in northern Va. exceeds 150, including fatality - WTOP

Glad I didn't take my cars out in it.