I generally back out of my garage and back up, uphill, up my long winding driveway. This morning, being icy and snowy up here in the wilds of massachusetts, I was wondering what most people find is better for traction or just better in general when going up a slippery driveway:

1) backing up uphill so there is more weight over the front wheels which are downhill giving even more weight over the driving wheels than just having the engine over them

or

2) driving uphill forwards where you still have the weight if the engine over the driving wheels and allows for easier driving and dealing with slippage since you are facing forwrds and can see what you are doing


note: I am an excellent backer-upper so the question mainly I guess is which way is better for traction...going uphill forwards or backwards.......any thoughts on this question?

 

Good question. I was thinking that if its fresh snow the front tires would have better traction the first time through. If they are following the rear tires possibly they have less traction on packed snow?

 

hey umberto, i'm actually from MA. too and I was just wondering on what kind of tires you use on the MINI and your opinion in the handling of the MINI in snow.

 

hi....we're in Milford, so not too far from Boston


I ordered the car with the 15" all season Continental 175/65 Conti-Touring Contacts (non-runflats).....I chose the skinniest tires as that is best in snow. I bought the car in january 4 years ago and went right out to play with it in a snowy parking lot..... but wasn't too much fun as it was hard to make a good 360 since the car handles great in the snow...

so I went through that first season and was very happy with the snow handling, but the next season I went out and bought 4 mounted snow tires from Tire Rack ( Snow Controls by Pirelli) and feel safer, but the regular non-runflats all-seasons really were fine, but I was just getting a little obsessive maybe

 

it's better to pull something then try to push it in snow

Meaning.... your drive wheels should be at the front. If this was a rear wheel drive car you'd drive it backwards. Being as it's front wheel drive then drive it forward.

Thats what I've always been told and have experienced.

 

my thinking was the drive wheels will have more weight on them if they are on the downhill side...ie, meaning going uphill backwards

 

I say you have better traction backing up. However the gear in reverse is usually lower, so that will work against you.

Snow tires are way better than all season tires (in the snow). Nothing obsessive about that. Just stay aware that most of the cars around you are on the ragged edge of the capability of both their tires and their cars.

 

The gear ratio in reverse is much different than going forward. You could end up spinning the tires very easily in reverse compared to a second gear start.
That alone will negate any benefit of the minimal weight difference ( I believe the Mini is fairly well balanced fore and aft).

 

The weight difference likely will be pretty significant, especially on a steep hill.

 

A good question - and one that you can test in your very oown driveway and report your findings back to us. From my past experiance, its by far better to drive a frontwheel car forwards than backwards - you want to pull the weight of the engine, not push it.

I had a 1989 Alante' - a V8 frontwheel drive (beutiful car btw). my driveway in NJ went up hill -- it was exceedingly better to drive the car forward on snowy days than backwards. But do your own tests with the Mini and let us know. I am very interested in hearing what oyu discover.

I am still waiting for my 08 JCW - I ordered it with Sport Tires and will be purchasing snow shoes if (that's a mighty big IF btw) I get the car any time soon....

 

FWIW - I'm running Dunlop Winter Sports on my MINI with stock sport suspension. Last season, it really didn't take much snow for the MINI to bottom out as compared to most normal cars. Once the MINI bottoms out it's toast. So you may find your MINI has similar issues regardless of going forward or in reverse.

In general with the dedicated snow tires, and wet/icy/slushy/snowy roads the MINI drives like a MINI (yahoo!), but if the snow's deep enough for it to bottom out the party's over.

 

I would say drive it forwards. I understand the thought behind backing it with the weight of the engine on the wheels, but so long as you aren't running summer tires that won't make a difference (FWIW I run Blizzaks). Have you ever driven a RWD car in the snow? (not so fun )

 

true..I remember driving RWD cars, but a RWD car does not have the weight of the engine over them......so, it still seems to me like it should be better in a FWD car backing up uphill so you'd have the most weight over the front wheels, but was wondering if there any tests on this, or more info from the experts out there


I googled this question and oddly enough the Mythbusters show posed this experiment but apparantly it was just on level slippery ground...their results, which makes sense to me, is that a FWD car drives with more traction in forwards than reverse....but would be interestingiftheir results would'vbe flip-flopped if the test were going up a steep hill

 

Not always true, a horse pushes a cart with it shoulders, through the harness, even though the cart is behind it.

But then you can't push a rope as easy as you can pull it

Mark