Bob Cooke – contributor

I did say, didn’t I, that I wasn’t going to let Ivor loose in the Hotchkiss again, on account of his somewhat over-enthusiastic manner with the gearstick and the accelerator? Still, I’m a soft touch, so when he turned up at Boxgrove Pit again looking apologetic and promising not to do anything daft I relented, especially as he’d brought his nine-year old son Hayden along.

Nigel Fryatt – contributor

Bring it on, we’re ready! That was the (slightly exaggerated) thought that crossed my mind driving away from Kwik Fit in Caterham with our new Continental ContiCrossContact winter tyres fitted. As you can read in the Winter Driving feature on p74, we have decided to test out ‘winter tyres’ on our RAV4 and so went along to our nearest Kwik Fit to get the job done.

The reason for deciding to fit winter tyres to your 4×4 is covered in detail in the feature, but you only have to compare the tread patterns on the tyres to see that there is a significant difference; the grooves are significantly wider and the sipes (the tread on the edges of the tyres) are more numerous. It all bodes well for a winter of getting the maximum benefit from owning a 4×4.

Louise Limb – contributor

So, two years and 30,000 miles into ownership and my second encounter with the man at the MoT test centre came and went without the slightest hitch. A hint of a slapped wrist over the tyres, and even then it was only an ‘advisory’, but there appeared to be nothing more dreadfully amiss than a few bodywork scuffs, an increasingly tatty-looking interior and a completely clean bill of health from the steering wheel down. Of course, I was sceptical and eyed the document carefully, thinking that I, or more worryingly, they, had missed something. The noises, the vibration, the oddness on turning corners; where were these cataclysmic faults in the drivetrain and steering?