Driving Advice Required ;)

[thought]

Let a man drive!

Problem is the ONLY things my husband is insured to drive is tractors and JCB's and that is only on farm land

[fastmower]

If you do reckon it's not too deep, just take it slowly and keep the revs up if you think the exhaust is heading for a dunking - you might need to slip the clutch a bit if it's proper deep.

Main thing is to keep the engine going - water around it shouldn't be too much of a problem unless it gets in the air intake. The deeper the outlet of the exhaust is under water the more pressure there will be - that's why you need to keep the revs up - if you go through at tickover the pressure of the water will probably stop the engine. I reckon you could probably get the water up to the bottom of the doors without too much bother - but don't take my word for it!

Go steady!

Andy

[thought]

thanks

Just trying to find the ford i did a u turn over, as not 100% sure where it was.. 6pm at night, in the dark driving between Bangor and Rachub :d..with currenlty no breakdown cover, and erm a 3 year old on board...

link to multimap

[thought]

Hi Vicki,

I think I might come and live at your house - sounds like much more driving fun round your way!



Andy

Driving around here is great fun.. Hills mountains, and out of season, very quiet roads..(just need to dodge the north wales police) also an awfull lot of ford dealers, with spare parts in stock... wing mirrors are lost weekly!... luckily one of our neighbours sons has the local scrap yard :d

I really enjoy the driving.. other than nights like tonight when the wind is coming straight off the irish sea. And the van just gets pushed across the narrow roads.. towards oncoming wagons - narrow fast roads!

[Guy88]

i had my blue MK3 pinto up to the top of the steps and the water was just overflowing onto the floor

[thought]

i had my blue MK3 pinto up to the top of the steps and the water was just overflowing onto the floor

Think i will just get my breakdown recovery sorted, and take it from there.. There are a lot of fords around here, being on the edge of snowdonia national park.

Vicki xx

[MarkM]

I used to go across to Mersea Island a lot and although at full high tide you can't get across at the lower ones you could, people would be queing up waiting for the tide to recede I would just drive past, only nearly got stuck once when it was a little higher than I expected, it did get fun as the exhaust dissapeared under the water but as said above keep the revs going. I didn't care about the van since it was a dented to hell firms van and had I rang in to base would be told I had to get across to do the collection. This wasn't with a Transit but a Talbot Express, the same theory about 'how to do it' applies though.

[DOL]

i thought that was Rufford ford its good goin thru in an 60 ft artic when the kids are stood @ the side waiting 4 a splash

[essex iain]

ive not driven through so many floods, but the lane i used to live on used to flood regularly. i had an escort van from work once and when the water was eighteen inches deep it continued to go through, but the water used to come in through the grommets in the bulkhead. just go through at a snails pace with the revs in the red. keep the bow wave in front of you and stick to the middle of the road. the biggst risk in deep water is sucking in water thru the air intake as it wont compress. ive seen it blow the sump off engines instead! most of all DO NOT STOP. if it all goes wrong open the window to get out, and the recovery guy will want YOU to get your feet wet rather than him.

[Uncle festa]

I was following a bloke in a big Chevy 4x4 on a counrty lane and he went through and flooded bit of road, where the field water had drained onto the road. I stupidly thought I can get through there, in a petrol Sierra, yeah right!!! I found myself sitting on the bonnet for 25 minutes with water upto the wheel arches and a very dead car, waiting for a friendly farmer to come and pull me out. I won't be making that mistake again!

[fastmower]

@sc_BK

Cheers for the link to the aerial photo mate - that brings back a few happy memories!
At least the woodland looks to be in reasonable shape - I thinned a hell of a lot of it and replanted with a broader mixture of species. It had been heavily felled during the war, and then the sycamore got in and took over.....

Spent several weeks in a boat pottering round that lake after the subsidence incident - a lot of the trees near the water at the bottom right hand side of the lake were flooded and died - we had to survey them all for timber value. It was like a scene from Southern Comfort where they're running round in the swamps of Louisiana!

Nice one - thanks for that!

Andy

[thought]

Slightly different note.. but last year - during the heavy floods, I watched a porch floating in a "puddle" i had driven through.. Oh well