WinterKa

W

ith a torquey little engine, front wheel drive, and relatively skinny tyres as standard, the Ka is reasonably easy to handle in wintry conditions.

It’s not perfect – the Ka doesn’t have all wheel drive nor winter tyres as standard, so if you tackle a steep, slippery hill you will get stuck /cough/ and the power steering does rob it of a little sensitivity. But it doesn’t fare too badly, everything considered.

The Ka’s heater is very potent, but the LuxuryKa also benefits from a heated front windscreen, and heated door mirrors – which are useful little gadgets! Naturally, all Kas get a heated rear windscreen.

Whilst I’ll cover how to drive in wintry conditions, this document is also about the enjoyment I get from Kermit through driving in ice, frost, snow, and other winter morbidities.

There’s something magical about driving in snow. The car sounds different. It’s responses become even sharper than normal. But also unpredictable. The challenge is to master the unknown, and best of all, you can do this at modest speeds. But don’t try it at home. Sometimes, I have been known to get into a little bit of trouble (usually involving steep hills and VTS Optimism on Kermit’s hill climbing abilities!), and there’s a well documented example here.

There’s some discussion about ABS in wintry conditions here, including a link to a natty little Kermit video showing how ABS works in the snow!

I have a plan to take Kermit to the Arctic Circle in the winter of 2004, which you can read about here.

Useful General Tips: driving in snow

Firstly, the picture opposite is not an example of how to park in snow.

Driving in snow or ice can be quite good fun, if you’re in a large car park with no kerbs near by. You can learn a lot about the dynamics of your car by experimenting in snow. Basically, the car’s responses are greatly exaggerated when it’s slippery – and this means that everything happens at a much lower speed, so should you get it wrong, you’ve a better chance of getting off lightly.

However.

The road isn’t a good place to play on! Manoeuvres such as this hand brake turn left are best done somewhere quiet (in this case, a lonely car park in the middle of nowhere, very early one morning).

If you’re planning on doing something silly, and if you’re going to crash, it’s cheaper to crash just your own car and not take somebody else out with you!

Given that almost all cars in the UK have standard “all weather” tyres, great care is needed when driving in extreme conditions. Do not be lulled into a false sense of security when driving in the “tarmac ruts,” as shown here, since if (and when) you have to cross the snow, you’ll find that the car may well slip and slide all over the road. And if you’ve let your speed creep up, or if you see red and have to overtake the cautious old bean in the green Ka, this can cause some anxious moments, or you can lose control of the car – which is exactly what this unfortunate driver did about an hour before this photograph.

In case you’re wondering, I witnessed the accident – he snapped out to overtake me, and when he was pulling in, he lost the back end. From this point, I guess he was merely a passenger – especially when the front end snapped around too. And then he parked it rather neatly. Meanwhile, Dervy is having an anxious moment as he tries to avoid running into the car side on, but not stopping so suddenly that the car behind runs into him. This photograph was taken on our return trip. Fortunately, the driver of the car was okay, and the damage to the car didn’t look too bad because he missed all of the trees and the fence! A brownie point to anybody who recognises what the car is – contact me if you think you know!

As a side issue, I’m sure the police would be most interested to hear why he overtook over double white lines.

Driving slow isn’t the end of the tale: it’s important to be in the right gear for the speed and the conditions. This can mean being in a higher gear than normal – and the reason for this is that it reduces the chances of wheelspin. You remember all of those tips about nor labouring the engine in the fuel economy bit? Sometimes in very heavy snow, you have to labour the poor donk a little.

I’m in two minds with regard to the ideal engine for such conditions. A turbodiesel can be rather twitchy in these conditions, especially if the driver is not very sensitive with the accelerator pedal – it was easy to get Lucy to wheelspin in the lower three gears when the turbocharger comes “on song” if you’re not careful. Kermit’s Endura-E has lots of low down torque, which is advantageous when you are trying to climb hills, but can result in slippage at moderate speeds in the higher gears. Melissa’s rather weedy 900cc engine didn’t have much torque lower down, which was good for when you’re on the level, but made climbing hills rather difficult in the upper gears at low speeds.

Chase Jack Frost Away!

One of my personal hates involves those people too stupid to properly clear their windows before driving off, and trying to see where they’re going without opening the side windows and de-icing the front and rear windscreen.

There are various tips on how to prevent your car’s windows from getting frozen, and how to de-ice them in the morning. Some people put blankets over their windscreen, but this does not help keep the side windows clear! I’ve also seen a neighbour cover all of their car’s windows in newspaper, and then struggle to get the stuff off the next morning.

I’ve found that the best technique for most winters’ days (i.e. not in the far north, where it’s really cold) is to use lots of warm water. Not boiling, not lukewarm, and not even hand hot. Mix some hot and cold water from your domestic tap.

First, you need to start the car and set the interior to de-ice (if you have a heated front windscreen, set the vents to face level, close the centre vents, and point the outside vents at the sides, then switch the heated front screen on). Then you pour the water over the glass. One possible trouble with this technique is that the water can refreeze again if it is cold enough – so be careful with the door seals /cough/ and locks /cough/. Yeah, okay, so I’ve frozen both before through this technique, and I’ve learnt from it!

The advantage of this technique is that if you gently warm the glass up, you help prevent it from misting up on the inside as well as the outside.

Ice

In reality, it’s ice and not snow that makes driving in wintry conditions so hazardous. And to be technical, ice by itself isn’t a problem, it’s what happens to it when there’s water on the surface – and it’s water on ice that’s very slippery.

For the purposes of this document, there are two types of ice. There’s the stuff you can see – as illustrated here by Kermit, but surely any Muppet could spot it? – and there’s the stuff you can’t see. It’s both slippery stuff, but if you can see it you can at least try to avoid it, or be prepared for what may happen when you reach it.

Ice makes the car’s responses to accelerator, clutch, brake or steering wheel input erratic. As soon as a tyre starts to skid, the co-efficient of friction between the tyre and the road becomes less. In other words, it’s harder to stop skidding than it is to start. Your stopping distance becomes much greater: indeed, braking distances are not measured in feet or metres on sheet ice, but in miles or kilometres.

There is no secret to ice apart from expecting it when the weather is cold enough – especially on untreated roads. Be sensitive with the controls, and if you feel the car start to skid, you’re going too fast for the conditions . . . stop whatever control you were using . . . and hope that you hit something soft!

Useful Ka Tips: Frozen Windscreen Washer Nozzles

The Ka’s windscreen washer reservoir is tucked away at the back of the engine bay, and almost of the pipework is nice and snug under the bonnet. The system itself is quite safe from frost (providing you are using a proper windscreen wiper solution, that is), however the nozzles are vulnerable. These are not heated, either, not even in the LuxuryKa.

If you go to use the washers, and they are frozen over, don’t continue to try the system. Pull over and put some hot water on each nozzle (or on the one nozzle if you have an older Ka). Don’t be surprised if a little pellet of ice pops out when you do this!

Of course, the system may well freeze over again, despite it having warm windscreen washer fluid. Sadly, there’s nothing I can suggest for this at this stage – but I’m working on something, so check back . . .

Wiper Icing

Another weakness that I've noticed is that the wiper blades are vulnerable to icing in extreme conditions. This can happen in two ways: one is that the wiper rubber freezes, but the other - more serious - is that the wiper mechanism freezes. Both have similar symptoms, but it is much easier to thaw the wiper rubber.

To thaw the wiper rubber, you merely need to ensure that the windscreen is warm - either through using the heated front elements or (preferably for the longer term) via the heater.

Thawing the wiper mechanism is a little harder, and it is first useful to understand why they ice up. Ignoring the fact that snow can freeze on them, the main reason for the mechanism to freeze is because of the wind chill factor: basically, the wiper mechanism is exposed to the airflow as the car moves forward. Add in snow, or even moisture, and this forms a thin layer of ice, which rapidly builds up.

A partial solution is to park the blades away from the normal rest position, which helps the air slip past the blade.

To park the wipers just above the normal level, use the flick wipe control for just a moment. I find that you should let go of the wiper control just as soon as the wipers have started to move, and they should stop, in a slightly raised position, shown here.

The reason why you raise the blades slightly is that it allows the water to drain properly – when the blades are horizontal, water remains trapped at the blade with nowhere to run (one of the properties of water’s amazing surface tension). If you let gravity or wind help it, water will run off the blades, and so reduce the problem.