How well do Cougars cope with the snow?

Burger28

Well-known user
Dec 2, 2010
220
12
Gloucestershire
It won't stop me buying one, I'm just wondering!

My V6 Hyundai is really useless in the snow! With ESP on or off it just can't get any traction on compacted snow... quite scary a couple of times last year but managed to get away with it (y)
 
The only time I had problems in the snow was when it was so deep my splitter was acting as a snowplough, which brought the car to a halt. With a heavy V6 engine over the front (driving) wheels, grip and traction are fairly good, if driven sensibly.
 
Oh boy... I was driving extremely slowly and the Coupe still managed to almost hit the centre of a r'bout before turning... that's me taking the FIRST exit on a THREE LANE r'bout :| The thing was perfect in the dry, perfect in the wet but the eagle F1s seem to do nothing useful in the snow!
 
Can't say I've ever found it any more difficult than any other car to drive in the snow. To be honest, I'd choose it in preference to our Fiesta as it seems to have more grip, probably because, as Stribo says, of that heavy V6. I think it mainly comes down to the person at the wheel though, a halfway decent driver will make a halfway decent job of things no matter what he or she is driving. Case in point: Last Thursday morning, whilst driving to work through around 6 or 7 inches of fresh powder, I witnessed several 4x4 drivers getting stuck on uphill slopes - mainly because they were reacting to the slightest loss of traction with a bootload of throttle. My Cougar and I didn't get stuck once.
 
No probs whatsoever in the snow just drive sensibly and you shouldn't have any problems just remember every other road user is a ****head and you'll be fine.
 
I've done ok with Coog, and I can safely say the best car I've had for these conditions, only getting stuck once on the entrance to our work's car park (first one in on the morning and having to drive across huge troughs which had iced up. A couple of minutes work with the shovel I've been keeping in the boot soon had me sorted. As a comparrison, the Mondeo I had before Coog was pants in the snow.

As Relliot has said, I think it has a lot to do with the driver too - the amount of people I've seen literally bricking it beind the wheel. If you feel like that driving then you really shouldn't be. Take the bus or stay at home, but either way, get the hell out of my way!!!
 
There's nothing wrong with my driving! My last car (Toyota Avensis SR) was absolutely fine, not one slip! Driving extremely carefully with the Coupe just doesn't make any difference.

Lucky I can walk to work.... :p
 
no problems in the snow as long as your careful, but must admit my cat loves the cold air everything seems to run that much better
 
The Cougar has been excellent in the snow and ice, only got stuck once and that was on the drive, just had to break up the ice - but the drive is quite a slope.

Last year I had a 2008 Astra SRI and it was dreadful, I've never driven such a terrible car in the snow, it got stuck on the slightest amount of snow. The traction control kicked in and took power away from a spinning wheel so when both started to spin it removed all power until you rolled backwards. The only way to turn off traction control was to hold down the sport button which doubled up the throttle so full throttle was half way and it tightened up the steering so full lock wasn't as far. So you had a twitchy revvy car whilst trying to drive as carefully as possible.
 
It was the third best FWD car I've ever driven on snow, and there must be a good dozen or sow others which rank lower.

It's a little better than my RWD car for low speed manouvering in snow (i.e. not getting stuck) but it needs more care for cornering. As others have said above; if you're a clown and go into a corner too fast it'll plow straight on like most other cars.

It's very useable in the snow, and features like the Quickclear windscreen make winter driving a bit less of a chore.
 
The Cougar has been excellent in the snow and ice, only got stuck once and that was on the drive, just had to break up the ice - but the drive is quite a slope.

Last year I had a 2008 Astra SRI and it was dreadful, I've never driven such a terrible car in the snow, it got stuck on the slightest amount of snow. The traction control kicked in and took power away from a spinning wheel so when both started to spin it removed all power until you rolled backwards. The only way to turn off traction control was to hold down the sport button which doubled up the throttle so full throttle was half way and it tightened up the steering so full lock wasn't as far. So you had a twitchy revvy car whilst trying to drive as carefully as possible.

My neighbour has a 2008 Astra and complained that it was the worst car he's ever driven in the snow - as you say the traction control creates more problems than it solves and being unable to completely shut it off is ludicrous. It's been parked up for a week and he only shifted it on Saturday to take it to a garage and get a valuation to get shot of it! He works out in the sticks a bit and his route to work includes a steep gradient which can be a pig to traverse in these conditions so he's tossing in his chips for a 4x4.
 
If you remember a few weeks back I started a thread on SNOW TYRES. My idea that a set of special snow tyres (working at below 7 Degrees C on the front wheels at least could be even better. However sourcing them in my size in Khumos has been difficult.
 
I'll keep my eyes open for that. Is it just cars with the X pack or was it optional for all? You can tell from looking at the windscreen, yeah?
 
There will be a button in between the traction control and heated rear window buttons on the dash (the picture on it looks like the heated rear window but the window is curved) and the screen itself has very fine metal wires running top to bottom across it's width. If your car doesn't have one, you can source the parts yourself for around £100 (including your windscreen excess when your non-heated screen develops an MOT failing crack and is replaced with a heated one).
 
Last January when we'd had heavy overnight snow, when nobody else got into work , I did, for me, that's testiment that it does ok.
 
I'll keep my eyes open for that. Is it just cars with the X pack or was it optional for all? You can tell from looking at the windscreen, yeah?


It was an optional extra on all cars regardless of engine and X-pack or lack thereof. It's infinately more useful than a CD changer in the boot though, so if it came to equivalent cars one with X-pack and no heated screen versus a car without X-pack but with the heated screen, I'd choose the latter every time.

Luckily both my current cars benefit from the same thing which Jag obtained under Ford ownership. I wouldn't be without them now.