My new Chrysler 300 with traction control. It will slide, but it won’t slip.
My best was an '88 VW Golf. With decent tires it was simply astonishing in the snow - 6" accumulation was like a bare road to that car (okay, you had to slow down just a bit). I lost track of how many times I drove past 4WD vehicles mired in a ditch.
(To be fair, it’s notorious in New England that during any sizeable snowstorm, perhaps 75% of the vehicles that get stuck will be 4WD. Their owners are those who went for 4WD as a substitute for learning how to drive in snow. And, as Rocky said to Bullwinkle, “That trick never works.”)
Only owned two cars in my life:
1988 Toyota Celica. Little two door FWD. Worked amazingly well in the snow, even without chains. This is what I learned to drive in the snow in and it taught me a lot (like “Slow Down” and “Just because you can go doesn’t mean you can stop”). I fondly recall one vacation with a bunch of us at a rented house in Lake Tahoe, sloped semicircular driveway with tons of snow and slush on it. Nobody could get their Jeeps, big 4WD trucks, etc. up to the top. I came out, put the Celica into 1st, pointed it uphill and just drove right up. Could have come all the way around and done it again.
You’ve never seen such a bunch of stone-faced individuals in your life. I was laughing my butt off.
Current ride is a 1998 F150, 2WD. Not a model of traction, even with nice new tires and a few hundred pounds of sand in the rear, still slides around.
I’m looking to get something that will work better in the snow, possibilities include:
Fullsize 4WD pickup, probably regular cab/shortbed.
Midsize 4WD pickup (Toyota Tacoma, Nissan Frontier).
Subura anything.
Honda Elements AWD.
Even kicked around the idea of a used Isuzu Vehicross.
Why yes, but unfortunately not ploughing. Here’s a pic one early morning this february, it was -24C that day as I remember…
K
If you mean skippy like the bush kangaroo, I guess there’s something in common.
You’re probably talking about driving on roads and such, in which case these cars are heavy and take a loooong time to stop if you are in a hurry, and if one should actually skid off the road, engaging lowrange and difflock will get you up from any ditch.
K
Other than a 10 ton 6-wheel drive armoured vehicle I drove in the army (technically the army owned it) I’d have to say my 2002 Subaru Impreza WRX. Any car you can double the speed limit in mountain passes where the roads are covered in ice and snow is a good car for inclement weather.
It’s a beauty. I can’t tell from the photo if it has a bed in the back. Does it? Some of the Defenders do. There is a local auto body shop here that has 2 new-ish white Defenders for sale - both with convertible tops and pickup beds. They are around $37,000 each.
Anyone who can afford a new Nissan Armada or H2 or any of the other ugly-ass new “4x4s” out there could buy one of those Defenders and have a vehicle that will set them apart from the crowd instantly, be the most unique 4x4 in town, and the most useful, as well - but I guess they need to be just like everyone else. I’m glad there are people like you who want to have something unique. And there are few vehicles more unique than a Defender.
Thanks!
Its a CSW so it does not have a pickupbed no. But the fine thing about Defenders and the older series models is that you can remove the roof and the walls and make a pickup out of it you want. Most Defenders around here that are pickups are mostly 130’s. But thats the beaty with these cars, you can remove and replace any piece of the car you want and make it after your own needs. Thats why all Defenders are unique.
K
My Honda Civic/Domani has been the only car I’ve really driven any distance in the snow (although technically my Mum still owned it at the time) The snow was heavy enough I guess for Northern Ireland, but only bad enough to restrict main road driving to 40mph.
This thread makes me think (slight hijack here) of my parents’ old Fiat from the 80s. They remember the name as a Fiat Panorama, but wikipedia lists that as a Brazilian motor, although it agrees it was an estate car. Can any European dopers remember a small Fiat estate from the 80s. Its relevance to this thread was its apparent lack of mobility in the snow.
If those idiots in the SUVs would slow down under 55mph in the snow they’d probably do better. I’ve had them pass me on snow-covered highways, which was a scary experience since they have to go through the deeper snow between the tire tracks. But then a few miles later I passed them in my Contour when they were in the ditch…
1993 (?) Plymouth Sundance, AKA Frankencar. (Props to The Sausage Creature for the eulogy.)
When I lived in Durango, CO, this car could make it up our steep, snowpacked driveway with nothing on its wheels but the cheap OEM tires it had when new. Our 1988 VW Jetta had studded snow tires on all the way around and struggled.
I have an AS in my current car, and I don’t think it’s a good idea from an engine/transmission standpoint, to try starting your car off in 4th. When the transmission computer fails, it defaults to 3, and it’s tough to get the car going in that high of a gear, much less 4th.
Phhhtttt.
(bolding Mine)New Pathfinder owner here. I bought it because it is the most useful vehicle for me, not to be ‘unique’ or have a ‘cool’ vehicle.
A ‘newish’ Defender with a soft top and pick up bed? For 5g’s more than my Pathfinder? No disrespect, but no thanks.
I loved my classic VW Beetle. Rear engine/rear wheel drive. Engine weight over the drive wheels but steering and drive wheels separate. Easier to control direction independent of power. Another big plus was that when you wanted to slow down a bit, engine braking works better. Having the rear wheels gradually slow down the car is pretty good. Esp. nice when you hit an ice patch and think “I need to slow down without hitting the brakes.”
My recollection was this was more of a problem in the 80’s. My favorite recollection was something I saw taking a walk after a blizzard in Boulder. Somebody in a jeep had come up to an intersection way too fast. His tracks swerved, but he maintained a straight line - right astride the rightmost go straight lane and the right turn lane, and into the light pole on the island inbetween.
I don’t know why SUVs get all the grief though. It seems to be any 4WD that isn’t a pickup. Pickup drivers seem to understand that even with 4WD, their handling is squirrelly. But, the Suburu drivers, and any other all wheel drive or 4WD are the same.
Back in 1977, an M-113 Armored Personnel Carrier – absolutely went everywhere we needed to go in the Spessart Mountains of Germany. Oh, wait, I didn’t actually own it. But it was a road-hugger, yessiree!
The wife’s current 2005 Chevy Impala is pretty good in foul weather here in Colorado – in fact, today we woke up to the first significant snow we’ve seen out here on the eastern plains in over a year. I loaded a few hundred pounds of bricks into the back of my old Ranger pickup and slid into work; Razorette tooled to work with no worries. Some of our friends own “Colorado Cadillacs” – SUVs, of which there are more per capita here in Colorado than any other state in the Union – and they’re always telling stories about how they love it that they can get back on the road when they slide off. I enjoy telling them that our Impala doesn’t slide off in the first place.
I have this old Case C-3 bulldozer…
If that was 1980 in Boulder, I was there. Pulling people out with my ’76 Chevy truck. They closed the campus that day. Great fun.
Heh…. Those folks no nothing about getting stuck. Get a 4x4 stuck and it always takes a bigger or same size 4x4 to get unstuck. That’s one of the reasons both my Wife and I have more or less the same size SUV’s. We can pull each other out. The plow truck is a back up.
Staying on the road is easy. Getting up the drive, or to the highway from our house can be a bit different sometimes.
I guess where I live I don’t see people in 4x4 driving like idiots. I sure don’t see many of them off the road. The cars I do see off the road simply can’t make it up the pass, those would be the 2 wheel drive cars that have no business on the road in the first place.
It’s different at altitude.
Experience is what you get right after you need it most.
My brother stuck a D4 Cat high track in my drive in October 11 years ago. That was a long day and night. It just kept sinking. It was a rental. I thought I had probably bought the thing.
I had a borrowed Case 680 2 wheel drive on site, but there was just no safe way to get it close enough to help. Not that it would have been big enough to make much difference.
Sorry, it was either 1984 or 85, at Arapahoe and 30th, IIRC. (Btw, when I lived in PA, there was another towing option - a tractor.
Of course, now I have to hijack, and ask where you and Sunrazor live. I’m in Colorado Springs. Yeah, it is snowing here, but the only hard thing to negotiate is my driveway.