I live in the Southern California region, and snow is not a regular part of my weather vocabulary. I have pretty much zero experience driving in the snow. Yesterday I went off roading on what is normally a utility road that leads up to the top of a mountain in the Angeles National Forest. This is a single lane dirt road with a steep drop off on one side and mountain on the other. It does have a few deep ruts here and there, but when it's dry it's an easy uphill climb that the LR3 can handle in high range. Even though a large rainstorm had passed through two days prior, I only expected there to be occasional pockets of snow on the side of the road. As we drove higher up, I quickly discovered I was wrong; the snow covered the road. At the deepest part that we encountered, it was about a foot deep.

At first the driving was easy because there were already tracks in the snow that somebody had made. The snow got deeper as we went higher and then eventually the tracks stopped, so I had to make a path. I switched to low range and put the terrain response in Grass, Gravel, Snow. I could feel the truck about to lose traction numerous times, so I tried to increase speed to maintain momentum. This seemed to help, but given that we were on a windy mountain road, there was only so much throttle I was comfortable giving. On a couple of occasions I had a complete loss of forward movement and the tires were digging into the underlying muddy road. The vehicle was also doing its usual torque vectoring, which is not a pleasant sensation on a narrow mountain road. One time I was able to rock the vehicle back and forth and free myself. The other time three people hopped on the passenger side slider which helped the tires to find traction. There was another LR3 with me and it was having similar issues.

After making a quarter mile more of progress and reaching a height of 5500 feet, we decided to call it quits. There were children in our small caravan, and while it certainly would have been fun for the adults to blaze a trail up the mountain, I didn't want the kids to be miserable. None of us had eaten lunch yet, we still had 1.5 miles to drive, our pace was extremely slow, it was cold, and there were about two hours of sunlight left. While we did have plenty of warm clothing, we didn't have other winter gear such as boots and gloves because I had no idea that there would be this much snow.

We didn't air down and we didn't have chains. For those of you who live in snowy climates, what more could I have done? Would chains or airing down have helped? Would going slower have been better?

 

...biggest thing is tire selection. I saw KOs in the photo, those are fine. Nokians are incredible but single-purposed. That's a separate thread.

Here is what I do, and others will chime in, I'm sure: if I'm around town driving in packed snow & ice then Grass/Gravel/Snow is good. If I'm in the mountains as you described it's a different ballgame. I tend to go with Mud 'n Ruts, Low Range, with both DSC and HDC turned off. I keep the throttle steady and try to use momentum to my advantage, meaning I don't try to thwart every little slide, I'll lean into it and set up my next move. Not sure that's very clear...I just mean that I try to avoid stopping.

DSC is fine except for the power-reducing aspect of it. No thanks, I want to control the revs...kinda like in sand. HDC is great for torque-arresting and backing down a hill, but going down a steep snowy/icy hill....HDC can cause a spinout. I've done this myself. It's not purely an HDC thing, it's a target speed thing. The LR3 is geared pretty low. I have spun out going down a snowy hill in 4-Lo and 1st gear without HDC too...and learned that I should choose 2nd gear. My previous two vehicles would have certainly called for 1st gear.

Anyway...lots of info, hope it helps. Interesting discussion topic!

 

What he says ^^^

Tires tires tires. (And you could reduce the tire pressure a little). Regardless of how capable the vehicle is, it's not magic. If you take it to the wrong party with the wrong shoes it'll get messy. Fresh snow will pack hard into AT tires and reduce the grip to nil. With winter tires on you'd have been fine, I assure you. Sounds like you had a great day and the pic is great.

 

Tires make the most difference.

Other thing is shifting. I've driven through 12"+ snow plenty of times in mine and never gotten stuck. Using manual shift mode helps a lot too, let's you keep the RPMs up

 

My opinions, based on my experience -

1. Make sure that you have EVERYTHING you need to swap your spare tire, in deep snow. Including blocks for the other 3 wheels. And a big waterproof tarp to kneel on. It's a whole different experience changing a tire in a snowy field. Does your spare tire winch work properly?

2. Air down your Tires. I had mostly-worn Cooper Discoverer AT3 tires last year in some deep snow - zero grip, zero fun... I aired down quite aggressively, to about 13 psi I think, and it was a night and day difference. Lots of grip, and therefore lots of fun. Be prepared however to pop a bead, hence #1

3. The better tires you have, the less need there is to air down. I was in snow and mud and ice with a new set of BFG KO2 a month or 2 ago, and they performed amazingly. Couldn't believe how good they were.

4. Yes, definitely turn off the DSC, in deep mud and snow. You need some power to the wheels to keep some momentum. DSC is great on normal road conditions - I would NEVER turn it off on the highway. But I often turn it off when I'm off-roading.

5. I do like low-range manual gears 2 and 3.

Cheers, and Happy New Year !!

Simon
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Happy new year everybody, and thank you all for the words of advice! I thought it was neat how the thing consistently mentioned was the importance of good tires. Good tires are not cheap, but they truly are the first line of offense and defense for any vehicle.

It might be years before I drive in the snow again, but I feel like I now have a good basic set of LR3 instructions for not getting stuck in the snow.

Here is a shot of us halfway down the mountain. I was too caught up in the swirl of events to truly enjoy the view.

 

A lovely shot. Maybe take them from the front though!

 

If using the programs as intended the vehicle will take account of all settings. I will take another look at the detail in the use manual and workshop manual (there's a very detailed explanation about the settings) but I'm pretty certain that you shouldn't need to turn it off at all as the vehicle will select what's needed regardless. I think!

 

Yeah no....

The vehicle applies settings based on some assumptions, but those don't apply to everything. TR is designed for people to use generically but it is not an end-all be-all. More advanced users can and should "tune it" as appropriate. Hell, the manual advises to turn off DSC in sand.

 

@hell pie What road is that? Looks great.

I found myself coming down from Mt. Baldy during the big snow (big for So. California anyway) right after christmas. Tons of lifted Wrangler bro-dozers with mud terrains, lights, and tow points galore getting sideways into the ditch on the way down. Even the Highway Patrol's Explorer slid off the road. I used HDC and 4-lo, and kept a smooth, controlled-feeling descent at about 5-8 mph, though from the comments here, that might have been a foolish move.

I was on brand new Toyo Open Country snowflake A/Ts, and was positively impressed by them, for not being a true winter tire, and for how quiet they were on the highway. Had chains in the back, but didn't wind up fitting them. When I got to the hill everyone was having a really awful time getting up, we waited 2.5 hours for the plow to get through, and were finally advised by someone apparently from the county that we were ok to attempt the hill. 4-lo, 2nd gear in snow terrain mode, light throttle, and we crawled right up without issue. Photo attached of the hill in question, though as with anything.. it looked steeper in person, and as evidenced by the pile of sideways WRXs at the bottom who tried to make it up on all-season tires.


about 4" of snow in 30 minutes, got to about 10" on the ground in the time we were playing.

When the cars first stopped because of a logjam getting up the far hill, someone in a hi-vis vest walked by and said the plow was en-route and we should wait for clear asphalt in 20-30 minutes.

Three hours later into the logjam, just before someone from the county walked by to say actually plow might not make it for a while, and we should just go if we are capable.