OT - 4x4 automatic car.

[Huge]

4WD is an option on the Range Rover Evoque (spit).

My mother's Hyundai Santa Fe is 2WD.

[Peter Crosland]

Ignore the idiots who think they are better than you because they have a licence that includes manual gearboxes. In fact automatics mean the driver has more time to concentrate on the important aspects of driving. Be aware that 4WD does not mean you will be invincible in bad weather which is a trap many fall into. In the last two days I have encountered three 4WD vehicles stuck min snow because the drivers had no idea of how to drive on an icy road. Once you have your chosen vehicle go and get some professional tuition at an off road centre to learn how to get the best out of your vehicle. With the mileage you do choose a diesel if possible because the savings are significant. Good luck with your quest.

Peter Crosland

[sweetheart]

Exactly. I didnt set a budget. People seem to assume I cannot afford a lot of money. I can afford what it takes. Thats the budget.

[Dave Liquorice]

Correct but unless you have suffcient compacted snow depth to prevent contact between chain and road surface you shouldn't use 'em. You'll knacker your tyres and damage the road surafce. Constantly putting 'em on taking 'em off in 6" of snow and freezing cold would become a PITA after the first couple of occasions...

For the UK, with mainly treated roads and very rarely deep enough compacted snow to allow the use of chains, proper winter tyres are the best option. Ordinary "all season" ones aren't bad, but proper winter ones will do better. If your tyres don't have a goodly number of the narrow cuts (sipes) across the face of the blocks they aren't going to perform very well on snow. My winter set have wiggly sipes across the full width of the tread spaced every 5mm. They grip very well on snow far far better than the tyres that came with the car, very similar groove/block pattern but with virtually no sipes.

[Ian Dalziel]

later"

[sweetheart]

I know a) I want to change my other half's Scudo because it is its time. Its a good van but not what we need now and getting on a bit ( being a 54 reg). I always get him his cars. I always have. No issue there.

b) I had it in mind to get a 4x4 - manual or automatic, but automatic preferred for various reasons. I do not know anything about 4x4 vehicles I acknowledge that.

c) I know this will be my OH's birthday/ Christmas present - although when I will get it is a moveable feast between here and February.

d) I do not set budgets. I did set criteria - reliability being foremost and " economy" being a second, with size third as I prefer a smaller vehicle. Its not in stone that.

Other than that I was asking for suggestions for my list of possible makes of car to look at. I had hoped for practical and reasonable answers. But of course someone always has to add the joker in the pack. I accept that.

[Huge]

[sweetheart]

That was exactly what was said to me and precisely what I answered orginally.

[Huge]

Oh, indeed.

Quite. I have a set of chains, but I've never used them.

[Ian Dalziel]

Bothered?

[Bill]

We had 2 of the original 4WD Pandas, which were brilliant cars for the children to start driving on. They were manual, but unlike Suzuki etc were cheap to insure, and I was always told they were built at the gearbox factory (famous but I can't remember the name) in the Austrian Alps, which is why they were so great on snow and ice. They weren't terribly reliable, but they were old rusty and cheap. The "crawler" feature was particularly good on sand and for launching boats.

I don't know if the new one comes in an auto 4WD format.

Our auto diesel Disco is brilliant for general use although the tyres aren't the best for snow, You don't notice the second gear lever unless you need to use it.

I was always told that the other good thing about the Subaru Forester was that the bodywork had built in ductwork for running and tracing cables. Is this still true?

I don't like my current Skoda 2WD drive car. Too complicated and too clever by half like all modern cars. But it has space inside, a spare wheel and the possibility of fitting a proper flywheel when the DMF goes bang. With modern cars the details contain the devil.

[Roger Chapman]

My dislike of autos has its roots back in the days when autos didn't. At least with an overdrive (the closest to an auto I have driven for any length of time) the gear change was at your discretion and you lifted slightly to facilitate it. But what used to really worry me about autos was the notion that the could change gear when I didn't want to. The two scenarios that still come to mind are first when overtaking and finding yourself unexpectedly short of space having the gearbox change up on you when you really really wanted those higher revs in a lower gear and second having misjudged a corner and concentrating on getting round it in one piece the last thing you want is a gear change that could be the last straw as far as stability is concerned.

[sweetheart]

sized for the UK. Something that approached " normal". Please consider that it does have to be driven by a man - my husband - and will be his car. he is not a expert driver and I did say in my criteria , no big and blousy and no boys toys. I suspect the suggestion, whilst admirable lateral thinking is both.

[Roger Chapman]

Chauffeur?

[sweetheart]

Some posters seem to be. me? Do I look bothered? Face ;-) see, does it look bothered?

[sweetheart]

I prefer to drive myself but are you offering? Not the worlds best job - driving me to work in snow and then sitting and waiting all day on a car park ( 12 hours) until I finish and want to go home and then driving back again - every day.

[DavidR]

Another factor might be that it gets properly colder over there. Back in Britain us soft southerners usually have to deal with a film of water on top of our ice. And comparisons of our supposed incompetence doesn't allow for the fact that we rarelyget it more than one day at a time. We only ever see them after they've got beyond the second day.

[Roger Chapman]

Should pay quite well then. ;-)

But not for me thanks. I retired some considerable time ago and as I live in Yorkshire it is more than a bit too far to contemplate even if if such work was otherwise acceptable.

[bod]

Hmm, looks a bit like you have some trapped wind :)

[Steve Firth]

Yes, it's one of the better small 4x4s. It is front wheel drive only until a wheel slips then it transfers power to all four wheels.

for you the Sedici and the Panda are manual only.