My understanding of “traction control” is that it’s done using the brakes to stop the wheels from spinning futilely in slippery conditions. If so, wouldn’t driving a car with traction control in consistently snowy terrain lead to a lot of brake jobs?
In the past couple of days, there were more then a few run off the road. But the ones that were, were FWD, or AWD. I didn’t really see any RWD vehicles in the ditches. Of course FWD vehicles are more common these days, but I’ve driven right next to quite a bit of RWD vehicles here on the Chicago Hellways. It only goes to show that the operators were at fault in these cases, and it doesn’t matter what you drive. If you don’t know how, you’ll end up in a ditch. Even with an AWD vehicle. But AWD, 4x4, and FWD are definitely superior to RWD vehicles in snow and ice.
Not really. At least in my car, the traction control has a snow mode that will not prevent your wheels from spinning when you’re moving in a straight line. What it will do is attempt to the correct the direction the car is traveling, if it detects that the car is not moving in the direction the steering wheel is pointed. It does this by briefly applying the brakes on the appropriate wheel or pair of wheels, to bring the car back into line.
Even if you’re driving like a complete dipshit, intentionally trying to slide the car all over the place, the wear on the brakes caused by the traction control will be miniscule compared to the wear caused by actual braking.
Just please remember that four-wheel drive does NOT mean four-wheel STOP. Nine times out of ten when we see a vehicle in the ditch, it’s a Jeep or SUV, something that more likely than not has 4WD, leading the driver to think he’s invincible against the weather.
If you get 4WD, you still have to use your brain and be careful.
A pickup with RWD is kind of a pain in the snow because there is so little weight over the rear tires. Now when I’m going up to play in the mountains I put 4 60-lb bags of sand (about $2-3 at Home Despot) into the bed over the rear axle and that helps a lot. If I had to do it all over again I’d get 4WD.
My first car was a 1989 Toyota Celica. Small FWD car. I don’t think that it ever skidded in the snow. The first time I took it into the snow a bunch of us had rented a cabin for a week or two. It had a semicircular driveway that angled uphill to the house. I had originally parked at the bottom, but when the rest of the mob showed up later in the evening in a collection of 4WD Jeep Grand Cherokees, Ford Explorers and big ole’ off-road trucks, they tried to move my Celica up to the top of the driveway so that they could park. Nobody could do it, and they couldn’t get their various vehicles up to the top either, so we left it until the next morning.
I backed up a bit, stuck it in first gear, and drove smoothly to the top of the driveway with no problems at all. I thought about driving down the other side and coming back to do it again but I was laughing too hard so I just stopped at the top. You’ve never seen such a bunch of stone-faced SUV owners in your life.
Based on my limited experience I’d say that 4WD/AWD is best in the snow, followed by FWD (assuming the engine is in the front, and especially for pickups because of the weight distribution). I assume that a rear-engined RWD would have similar traction as a front-engined FWD.
The big gotchas are proper tires and knowing how to drive. Don’t go fast. Don’t assume that 4WD = Immune To Laws Of Physics. Like the other posters, almost all of the cars I’ve seen stuck in a ditch have been big honkin’ 4WD (like the Lincoln Navigator with low-profile tires that somehow made it 100 feet into deep snow and stayed there. I parked in the fairly clear Sno-Park lot instead).
Different systems work differently, but most cut the power and/or use the brakes to stop one tire from spinning to transfer power to the tire with traction. Depending on the type of differential a car has, usually the tire with the least traction will spin, by applying the brakes to the tire that is spinning the power will be transfered to the tire with more traction. FWD cars usually work the same way. Unless your driving like a complete moron there shoud not be much extra wear on the brakes.
Stability control attempts to keep your car going where you want it to by braking individual wheels as necessary, but again it should not cause much extra wear.
I will say that an unskilled driver is less likely to get into trouble with FWD but other then a slight traction advantage (with FWD) a skilled driver should be fine with either. Any driver will benifit from practicing in a snowy parking lot to learn how their car handles in a skid.
As has been mentioned tires make a bigger difference then anything else. As I posted above many RWD cars are designed for (summer) performance. Even if the tires on the car say ‘all season’ they are often made with summer performance being the biggest priority.
Actually it does, but for that matter FWD and RWD cars also have this feature 
I’d like to note that while mid-engine cars probably have good forward traction, they probably aren’t very good in turns. I say this in theory; I haven’t driven any in snow myself. They do have more weight in the back though which causes oversteer.
I also want to note something about front-wheel drive cars from experience. If you turn the wheels and floor it, it won’t necessarily steer the car in that direction. I put that theory to the test in my mother’s Kia a few years ago at a stop sign after it rained. I turned the wheels sharply to the left and floored it. It steered for two or three feet, and then started pushing (going straight forward). If I hadn’t let off, I would have went straight into the ditch and had some explaining to do. This isn’t always what happens, but it’s certainly possible, so don’t think you can turn the wheel and floor it and necessarily get away with it. As much as I hate FWD, I’d still say it’s better for low traction situations, at least when it comes to novice drivers. Experienced drivers don’t need to ask. They know what works for them.
Professional Driver chiming in here …
Accepted practice now is not to steer into a skid. **Look ** at where you want to go and steer in that direction. Your brain’s *autopilot * will take you where you are looking. (What ever you do – DO NOT look at where you don’t want to go …)
As others have said here, controling your speed is the most important aspect of winter driving. (btw, it’s 100% operator – vehicles, no matter what drive system is employed – AWD, 4WD, FWD or RWD – never lose control of themselves. The operator must take the time to gain some experience and practice winter driving skills. The large parking lot as a practice arena is a superior idea!)
Remember this:
It don’t matter much if ya can’t get it moving … a stuck car can’t kill you or anyone else. Once you get it moving – if you can’t stop it or steer it – someone could die real easy.
One other thing. You still have some control options as long as the wheels are able to turn – But once you lock up the steering tires, you can’t steer or stop. :eek:
quote: Accepted practice now is not to steer into a skid. Look at where you want to go and steer in that direction. Your brain’s autopilot will take you where you are looking. (What ever you do – DO NOT look at where you don’t want to go …)
AAA put out that nonsense and it is completey irresponsible. “A skid” is a ridiculous way to describe loss of control of a vehicle, which has many facets.
Two common scenarios are loss of control because of over or under steer.
When the TAIL GOES OUT…when you are feeling the rear of the vehicle going out… YOU’D BETTER UNDERSTAND that you need to steer in that direction. (battling oversteer). That will control a spin out. Jeeze, watch any car go around a dirt track! DUH…steeering in the opposite direction from where the driver wants to go keeps hiom going AROUND THE TURN, instead of into a f—ing brick wall.
IN FRONT WHEEL DRIVE, is it MORE LIKELY the front will ‘push’ and go away from the radius of the turn, and you can reduce the power or STOP TURNING THE GODDAM wheel so much (or sort of steer into the ‘skid’) to get the tires to grip again and so youi can continue into the radius of the turn.
I love my 4x4 pickup. Off road at the farm it’s a lot of damn fun. Works great for moving through the snow. Most of the time I keep it in 2WD in the snow, a lot more fun that way.
Seriously I also have to chime in for proper tires. An old roommate had a Mustang SVO with wide Eagle GT tires. Where we were it didn’t snow often so he never bothered getting snow tires. During one dusting I thought I was losing my mind trying to go in a straight line. Everytime I’d touch the clutch it would slide sideways. Very fustrating driving a high torque 5 speed in the city a couple dozen blocks.
This has been addressed in several of the over/understeer threads, but using your dirt track car example (where the cars are in a constant oversteer (fishtail) when turning) - The cars are pointing towards the infield but the direction they want to go is down the track, the front wheels are pointed where they want to go (down the track) or into the skid. They mean the same thing but some drivers get confused about which way into the skid is, so steering the direction you want to go is a little simpler to understand.
Valgard, your suggestion of sandbags for extra rear weight in a pickup will work very well as long as they don’t shift around. In Saskatchewan, I’ve seen people pack the back of their truck with straw bales and soak them with water. Once they freeze, nothing will shift them until spring!
Amen. I have a RWD pickup with a V8 that will spin the rear tires with gentle gas when the roads are just wet. However, when the snow falls, it sheds its Secret Identity and becomes the Death Toboggan.
Even with 300lb of rock salt over the rear axle, a pain to get started from any kind of stop.
What kind of driving do you do?
For my two cents here, I rally a RWD Toyota Celica, so it runs into some of the worst conditions one would find on a normal road. Last week, I was driving a dirt Forest Service road covered with snow and ice, and the car did just fine. It is equipped with studded snows at this time of year. It’s all in knowing how to control the car. As for the technical details, I do not have traction control or ABS, but I do have a rear LSD.
This should not be unexpected, and even happens in a different form in RWD cars.
Basically what you are doing is converting the rolling motion into a trench digging motion. The tire does not have the traction to climb out of the hole needed for forward movement, but becasue it is at an angle it can make some progress in a forward direction by digging. In RWD cars this could happen on a slight sidways angle, when you apply the gas the back could swing out.
Ok, and to add some other tips:
In all cars, lift off the throttle, or brake slightly, in order to cause rotation. Unless you have a really heavy car, you can get “lift-off oversteer”.
In all cars, increase power slightly or lift off the brakes in order to reduce rotation.
In rear-wheel drive cars, you can cause very quick rotation by opening the throttle to spin the tires. This can tighten your line; it can also spin you out.
In front-wheel-drive cars, you can simply plow-out the front end by spinning the front tires.
In a four-wheel-drive car, any decrease in power allows rotation; any increase prevents it. If you’ve got all four tires spinning, then I congratulate you and wish you good luck getting it back under control. It will pretty much do it by itself but you’ve got to keep the oscillations back under control - it’s a powered fishtail and lifting off makes it even worse…
If you have a mid-engined car, none of this applies to you. You can go around corners as fast as your front tires can carry you, much faster than anyone with your tires can go - but you’re screwed if they don’t grip when you want them to. Lift-off oversteer in a mid-engined car in the snow has to be seen or experienced to believe. The car can swap ends in its own length. Of course, you can take it easy in the corners because you have a massive acceleration advantage over anyone else - the weight’s not only over the drive tires, but when you step on it more transfers there.
Big truck …
105,000 lb. Double Tanker …
9 axles …
with a liquid load that splashes from side to side …
A lot.
Very easy to lose control of.
(Get this baby off the pavement in the snow you better believe it’s stuck.)
33 years experience.
2 wrecks (in personal vehicle, both times I got hit by another vehicle) most recent 1974.
Last ticket: Improper lane change (in personal vehicle) 1978.
1,836,217 incident free miles as of 5:15 PM PST yesterday (1/24/2005).
As you might well imagine, I guard that record rather jealously …
To reiterate:
It’s not where the drive wheels are, it’s which wheels carry the weight of the car. Different configurations require different driving skills, and there are numerous tricks and tips, some of which truly must be experienced to be understood.
If you do select a rear wheel drive vehicle, you would be well advised to put significant (non-shifting) weight as far back in the trunk (or pickup bed) as possible. You should also spend some time learning how to steer with the throttle in a safe environment.
Proper tires will do more for drive-ability in snow and ice than any other consideration.
My personal pick for driving on slick roads was my little Fiero – with proper snow tires it was unbeatable. Mid-engine cars have near-perfect weight distribution. I lived in north-central Ohio for 5 years – I owned a 4-wheel drive, a front-wheel drive, and the Fiero. Unless the drifts were over 6" deep (twice my ground clearance), I’d rather take the Fiero. Several years later I lived in Northern Wisconsin for a year – I bought another Fiero just for the snow.
If you’re looking for something to drive, there are some excellent vehicles with rear wheel drive. If you are just looking for transportation, then maybe you should stick with a nice front wheel drive.
I lived in Northan Montana for three years and drive a VW Rabbit. It was very forgiving and I never got stuck the entire time I lived there even with all season M+S tires, no chains or studs. I did get backwards in my boss’ minivan and run off the road on sun melted snow pack but any vehicle would do that.
I only got to drive my BMW 325 (ABS but no traction control) in the snow once. It was much more challenging to keep things together but it did reasonably well as it had a load in the truck and a back seat passenger. Did better than an unloaded pickup truck for sure.