Been eyeballing a house that has a hellishly steep driveway. According to a quick check with the smart phone I'd say 15 degrees, which is only a couple off the steepest streets in the world.

Anyone ever actually checked the hill climbing abilities of the humble 998cc mini?! I'm curious which would give way first, clutch or traction!

reverse up it & there wont be any traction issues at all



it then becomes a (sort of) english Vee-Dub

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No offence intended here but--> anyone writing a book about minis 30 years ago may not have experienced such worn or stuffed-with components as we are finding these days.

You should put your heart & soul into everything you do.

I had a mate with a very steep driveway,
I made the mistake of driving up it in a Leyland Mini with two leading shoe brakes.
When you are rolling back down the hill you have two trailing shoe brakes.

One of the minis I bought belonged to a bloke with a rediculous driveway angle - probably about 15 degrees, maybe a fraction more.
This was a bitumen driveway - no traction problems, the car would drive up forward or back fine (gearbox ratios are the same), just have to make sure you always go down the hill forwards if you want to stop!

I read all this, then had a think about wifie and backing cars.... I am now halfway through a large scotch... feel better already

I had an uncle who had a ridiculously steep driveway and parked the 850 minivan at the bottom every night, no worries. And when he replaced the minivan it was with a Subaru 4 wheel drive as no other car could get up the driveway

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1969 Cooper "S"
1967 Mini Deluxe
1973 Clubman Van (the fleet spare)
1978 ex 1275 LS ("Wizard" Eaton Supercharged)
2015 HSV GenF GTS(occasional drive & tow car)
2019 MINI F55 Cooper S

Sounds to me like a good excuse to tell the wife you 'have to' spend some money making the mini a better hill climber

I knew a family in Sydney with a really steep driveway with a nasty kink at the bottom (street end). The driveway turned into a river in the wet. Their Mini Traveller could make it up the driveway no problem in the dry, but spun a lot in the wet.

Their other car was a Toyota Crown with an LSD and that managed it also. The Gemini I had at the time used to just lift a wheel and do smokies.

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Brett Nicholson
Greendale (near Ballan) VIC.
1971 Morris Mini Moke
1966 Austin Mini
1965 Morris Mini Traveller
1973 LR Series 3 88
2007 LR Freelander 2

hey Smac

15 degrees is 1: 3.7 ratio. Where I come from the standard council design for the steepest acceptable driveway was 1: 3.5. which i think is about 16 degrees. So if it is 15 its getting up towards the maximum comfortable design. If the car is running ok you should be okay and get used to it. That's my guess for what its worth.

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..still waiting for the Italian Job sequel to see if the bus went down

We used to have a really steep driveway with 2 kinks in it. My 998 used to get up no worries.

Cheers,

Dicko.