We've had a significant snowfall here in the UK over the last couple of days, so, having never used the X5 (E53) in snow we went in search of some deep stuff over the Pennines.

It took some time to have complete confidence, but I was impressed with the X's ability when all around were slipping and sliding.

At one point I did push things a little far though, and ventured up a very narrow winding hill with parked cars and stone walls 2' away on either side. Unfortunately the hill's gradient increased significantly after a couple of hundred metres which was simply too much for it to cope with given the standard road tyres. I was therefore left with the only option of reversing back down my own tracks. Unfortunately I wasn't aware until a few minutes ago that the Hill Descent Function works in reverse also!!

I came extremely close to the wall at several points due to the camber of the road, but eventually managed to find a driveway that allowed me to turn the car around. I switched the HDC on but I don't think I allowed it to do its stuff properly, I took my feet off temporarily but I bottled out and braked as it seemed a little too fast for comfort. I was still 50m from the bottom with a slight bend ahead and a couple of parked cars narrowing the gap. As motordavid said, you must avoid the urge to brake, but I did which probably made the situation a little more dramatic than it needed to be.

My question is, had I completely trusted it and lifted my feet off, would it have let me steer easily around the bend and parked cars even in such deep snow and a camber which fell away to one side?

I was also unaware until now that the cruise buttons vary the speed!

All in all however it was a great experience-building exercise, and I came away without a scratch.