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A Winters Tale

macandsue

macandsue

PCGB Honorary Member
Member
ON the 20th of December Region 18 had its Christmas Lunch at Garstang in Lancashire. our Grandaughter and her boyfriend were coming up from Swindon in Wiltshire for it. She SENSIBLY has a 2005 Boxster 2.7 as her every day car and so it was the transport to get them here. You may well remember that day, the Northen winter had just started. It was sunny in Swindon. She ploughed through many inches of snow and single lane motorways to get here, 220 miles give or take. Five and a half hours later they arrived. She was appalled at the amount of vehicles stranded, the boxster never missed a beat and only had one "dodgy " moment when in her words "some pillock in a 4 wheel drive lost it and slithered toward me". She solved that problem with a swift blast of the horns, she said he looked quite shocked. Rob her trusting boyfriend nay , fiancee! slept through most of it .
They stayed here over night and next morning despite ice and snow set off for Bolton Abbey. "It was a bit slippy" she said . On Christmas Eve they headed back off to Swindon midst more chaos. Her take on it "Well it is Winter after all and it is a Porsche". That is a altogether a return journey of over 600 miles.
We had some no shows at our Party Lunch, mind you they would have had to come all the way from Manchester and ----wait for it ----Preston!!!!!
The final part of this tale will make you cringe though . She had her tyres checked for winter safety when she got home and they were below 3mm. AAARgh!!
I have a new respect for Boxsters and for that matter Lady drivers.

Mac

 
Good work! I couldn't get my Cayman out of its parking space in the snow, no grip at all (and more than 3mm on my tyres...).

Has anyone got any experience of winter tyres on a Boxter/Cayman? Think they are common in Germany and Austria. If this weather is going to be repeated I am going to think about getting some (or just give up and get my old Range Rover back on the road).
 
Hi Mark,
Pictures are coming, Jennifer is busily sliding back and forth to work at the moment but when she has a minute to spare she will send them to me. I don't know if my e mail will reach yours as I have been disconnected from all PCGB e mail addresses for months. We have not been able to post our Register report. I have recruited Paul McNulty to send one for us. I will try and will phone you first to let you know it is coming. You can use this post to do a report in your register column with pleasure . I noticed I have missed a couple of capitals you can edit it yourself though. She has replaced her tyres ,Continentals. Bloke came and did them at her workplace.
By the way does £6,000 sound too cheap for a 2000 Boxster about 55k on speedo,and pretty basic or is that normal nowadays
Cheers Mac
 
I got fed up of waiting for the gritters to arrive so took mine out in the snow and ice today. While it's true that they get a bit frisky when turning onto snow packed side roads, I found that they respond very well as long as you are gentle/progressive with the counter steering. But it's best to travel at appropriate speed and avoid using the brakes [:D]
 
The Boxster is the most dangerous piece of crap when on snow, my personal experience over the last 9 years and on a range of tyres is that it gets stuck far too easilly, indeed it is the worst car i have ever driven, it doesnt stop, doesnt steer, and trying to pull away on the lightest gradient results in wheel spin, sliding backwards or sitting on the spot until the tyres have cut through the snow to get going, I have sat at junctions with wheels spinning and moving at less than 1mph whilst impatient drivers behind simply pull out and drive by me without fuss.
I dont have a choice of cars so everyday i drive it whatever the weather, only got totally stuck once and that was last Februarys snowfall but the recent falls have been challenging - a white knuckle ride, in comparison the wifes Focus drives superbly through the snow - it doesnt feel dangerous - indeed its a bit of fun.
Hats off to your grandaughter for making such a journey, very brave and probably very lucky.
My first Boxster came with 16" wheels and that drove reasonably well in snow, with the 17s on it was terrible so when the snow came i always swapped the wheels, now i have 18s and it really is bad, although i get through to work each day i am not confident when i start each journey that i will get there - with the Focus I know i will get there whatever the depth of snow
 
The problem is it's got too big a footprint for its size, therefore there is less pressure being exerted by the tyre on the road, great when the road is dry. If you notice on rally cars they fit narrower wheels when driving on snow. I would guess that most large wheeled sports cars don't perform that well in the snow. I'm not sure you can have it both ways.
 
agree with you timbo2, perhaps having 4 emergency wheels would do the trick, very narrow and should cut through the snow
 
Why don't you get winter tyres ? Do you think these would make a difference - they do over in the continent Austria etc.
 
I used my boxster s throughout the snow from huddersfield to manchester everyday to work with no problems (I was shitting it!!)
Snow was over 1ft deep will post pictures once downloaded off mobile phone.

marc.
 
heres one of them, got out of this parking space no problems.

photo.jpg
 
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