So, finally we get some snow down here in the South. Took the opportunity to find the steepest hill into the top car park on Holmbury Hill and found a Volvo XC90 that couldn't get up the access track (only about 40m long, but pretty steep and covered in snow). Weak effort by the Swede I think, but hey, that's what comes of driving 2.5 tonnes of panzer tank on summer tyres....

Panda scampered up the hill and I then tried to prove that my ELD button was doing something. Clearly it didn't need pressing to do what ever I tried, but I could get all 4 wheels spinning if I tried a very aggressive start on that snowy access track.

With ELD OFF - some wheels began to spin, the yellow ESC light flashed - and then we just took off like a stabbed rat!

With ELD ON - less wheelspin, flashing green ELD logo to say that some magic was happening - and then we took off like a stabbed rat....

So, it does do something, it clearly disables ESC/ASR and I could tell that the ABS setup was slightly different, in that it allowed a little more locking than before (probably to allow a build-up of mud/sand/snow in front of the wheels to help with the overall braking process).

But on these OEM Conti WinterContact tyres, it's clear that it will be unstoppable in the deepest of winters, if we ever get any of those in the South of the UK again....

Very happy though, regardless

Ace pic of the Panda in its natural habitat!

R1NGA said:

Panda scampered up the hill

Click to expand...

I love that description

I hit a little snow dusted road early Sunday morning.

After the first few bends I noticed the ESC flashing and the car pulling it's self out of the odd slip.

The confidence it instilled was amazing and it caused me to go a bit "odd" and start wondering how far I could push it.

On the next set of bends I was in full WRC attack mode and the ESC light was flashing like Blackpool illuminations!

I just couldn't get it to misbehave beyond the initial first minor slip, which it calmly sorted out.

By the time I got on to a private road which snaked up a hill I had to ease off as my trailer was swinging about wildly, which was a shame as I was desperate to try and give it the beans up the hill as there were plenty open space each side in case it gave up.

It was a lot of fun and at no point did it feel like it was going to let me down and spin off the road.
If it wasn't for the fear of smashing my trailer and bike up, I'm sure it would have tackled a full bore assault on that hill with easy.

Good to hear the Panda is performing as expected, R1NGA! I think fitting M+S tyres as standard is testament to how committed Fiat are to the off-road Pandas performing, rather than just being a styling exercise. I suspect the XC90 would have performed far better if it had been suitably shod in winter-boots (after all, the Scandinavians know a thing or two about snow!)
Laughing at Goudrons' comments - particularly that we don't find out until paragraph 6, of his description of his rally-style antics, that there is a trailer on the back! =0D
Good show, folks - alas, the fine dusting of snow we received in Essex on Friday night was never going to be a test for the Panda! However, the -5C start this morning necessitated 40mins of running with the heater on full before the rear door locks (not seals, locks!) thawed sufficiently to operate! Lifting a 4yr old and 1yr old in/out of car seats through the front doors and contorting to strap them in for the nursery run has left me wondering if I should send the chiropractors invoice to Fiat?!?!

Was awesome in the snow....