I heard of a chap whose wife had to abandon their 4x4 when it snowed and walk home. When her husband got home from work she told him where it was. He walked there, put the transmission into four wheel drive and drove it home. When he arrived home it was to a row as to why he hadn’t told his wife about the purpose of the levers.

When it snows in our avenue I have learned that if I clear the driveway straight away the surface dries and stays that way (it helps if the sun is shining). The driveway is steep with varying inclinations. If I leave the snow on the driveway the layer next to the concrete surface sometimes melts and later turns to ice. I then have difficulty getting the car up some days even though the car is all wheel drive with winter tyres. Even walking up the driveway is difficult.

I have a new neighbour opposite who has a much steeper and shorter driveway. The driveway has a flight of steps next to it and no barrier between them. At the worst there is a fall of a couple of feet off the edge of the driveway onto the steps. He also has a 4x4 that he keeps at the bottom of his driveway. I wrote a note warning him about the need to keep the driveway clear. He ignored my note. The next morning he drove the 4x4 up his driveway across the fresh snow. I hope that he doesn’t get confident and assume that he can do that every time.

My T30 Xtrail - even in "2wd" mode would still automatically engage AWD when it detects a slippage. So does the 2.0dci Qashqai that I drove in to work this morning. However I had it in "Auto" mode and which engages AWD (when it detects that it needs it) earlier. The third position is "LOCK" which additionally locks the Centre diff when you need to get out of mud /snow in which you are stuck. It automatically disengages above 30mph irrespective of hte swith' position.

It's a very clever system that needs virtually no driver input.

I should add that I also run mine on All Season tyres that have the Mud n Snow mountain symbol on them. This helps too.

Edited by Ethan Edwards on 27/02/2018 at 17:30

All thats required with an xtrail is to use auto position for the AWD, its very rare you will need to use "lock" except when off road, and lock will cut out above some speed around 26mph.

For 9 years all i used was the "auto" selection.

Some Xtrails were FWD only.