#DRIVING AUTOMATIC HOW TO#
#DRIVING AUTOMATIC DRIVERS#
#DRIVING AUTOMATIC PATCH#

Winter or all-season tyres might well be expensive but they could save your life, or at the very least save you from getting stuck or having a very expensive accident. Depending on where you live in the UK, we’d advise considering winter tyres or possibly investing in all season tyres (picture below). These are designed to provide grip when temperatures fall beneath 7 degrees C. You might also consider getting winter tyres. The aim is to prevent you from spinning the wheels and force you to drive in an appropriate way for the conditions.

This is where the electronics control the gearbox and throttle pedal to reduce their sharpness. Modern automatic cars have what’s known as a ‘winter mode’. Driving in snow can be a chaotic experience… What is winter mode in an automatic car? Even so it can be lethal, not least because you’re not expecting it.Īs with snow, if you feel the car going into a skid on black ice, don’t brake, wait for the car to scrub off speed of its own accord. It gets its name because the ice is transparent so the black colour of the road surface is visible through it, making the slippery stuff very difficult to spot. In the winter, black ice can be a problem. If your car has Daytime Running Lights, don’t rely on them: they’re only on at the front and you don’t want someone to run into you from behind because they haven’t seen you. When snow is falling heavily, it’s similar to driving in fog so use dipped headlamps. Equally when going up a hill, take a run up and try not to stop until you’ve got to the top of the incline. You need to be able to stop before you hit them, or anything else.

#DRIVING AUTOMATIC PATCH#

Don’t go at the same speed as the car in front: if it hits an icy patch and skids, so will you. If you’re going down a hill, use a low gear and brake gently. That means your tyres will get more grip on fresh snow. This might be because the weight of traffic has caused the snow to melt and your tyres will be on tarmac.īut in very cold weather, the snow will simply have become compressed and it’s likely to be icy. If you’re driving on a snowy road, it might make sense to follow other drivers’ wheel tracks as you might on a soaking surface. This should prompt the car to come back into line. This will cause the wheels to slide on the snow – even with anti-lock braking – and momentum will carry you straight on. If you get to a corner and feel the car ploughing straight on, don’t panic and jump on the brake. Once you’re underway, for corners make sure you’ve done your braking before you start turning the steering wheel. Don’t yank the steering wheel or stamp on brakes. Try to make your inputs on all controls as gentle as possible so be very progressive with the accelerator pedal. Again, this is so that your wheels don’t spin. With an auto, you might want to do this manually.

#DRIVING AUTOMATIC HOW TO#

How to drive in snowĪs soon as you’ve got moving, if you’re in a manual car, select a higher gear. The fresh snow coating the on-coming carriageway is your friend: it might provide more grip.

#DRIVING AUTOMATIC DRIVERS#

Bear that in mind and don’t tailgate other drivers or you might end up getting to know them better than you wanted. There’s another reason for this: cars on regular, summer tyres require around 10 times as much time to stop on snow as they do on a dry road. This is where keeping your speed down will help. You want it to be in as low a gear as possible when you come to a halt or approach a bend. Doing either of these when driving an automatic in snow will reduce the revs and make your car’s wheels less likely to spin as the tyres try to grip the slippery surface.Īs you slow down, the automatic will probably change down the gears. If – and this is more likely on a modern auto – there’s a manual option, select 2 nd to pull away in. If your car doesn’t, does your car have an L or 2 on the gearshift? If so, put the car in 2. Some modern automatics have a winter mode. And when you slow down, you don’t want to lock the wheels and start a skid.īearing that in mind, first of all, get to know your car. The basic idea in any car is that when you accelerate, you don’t want to spin the driving wheels (usually at the front). How do you drive an automatic car on a slippery road? What is winter mode in an automatic car?.How do you drive an automatic car on a slippery road?.

Driving automatic