Quote:
Originally Posted by M3 Mitch
Lumina is FWD, the Astro is RWD or AWD.
Some good snow tires like Blizzaks would help whatever car you drive in snow.
Actually climbing uphill RWD should give better traction due to weight transfer, but it requires more operator skill, something your girls seem to be short on. This is another fundamental problem that's better addressed directly than trying to patch over the symptoms with a FWD car that is more forgiving of "cockpit errors". See if you can't find them a good winter driving school, it's not cheap but over time it does pay dividends.
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Thanks. We do not see RWD getting better traction around here in the winter. RWD cars mostly just get stuck. FWD cars do a little better. 4x4 is great. You never get stuck and you rarely get pulled off to the side while travelling.
I do not know of anyone who can make it up our driveway in a rwd car in the winter. It is long, a bit of a hill, and gravel, so the plowing cannot remove all of the snow, besides it is usally ice. It is not really practical to salt it since it is about 180 feet long and I do not want to kill the grass now that we finally have some. Heck sometimes it is all but impossible to walk up the driveway let alone drive. Still 4wd did not get stuck, even when we could not walk on the driveway. It did slide around a bit going up, but it made it.
However We had problems all over this winter. In my Camaro, I got stuck a couple of times on the freeway going up hills. Frankly I think that it would get stuck on spilled ice cream. It is the worst car I have ever driven in snow and nothing else comes even close. It also slides like mad when you tryt o stop and it even slides when you are not moving. One time I parks near the end of our driveway where it is farily falt. I got out, started walking and looked back to see the camaro slide into the low spot at the side of the driveway. All by itself. It took a while mornign to get it out. (Do nto buy that ultra cheap electronic 12 v. winch from harbor freight).
My wife got stuck on a back road in her van. We had some other trouble with the van in the snow and it is a big heavy conversion van (lots of weight). When we borrowed my Dad's Ford Ranger it got stuck several times in our driveway and slid all over the road whie driving it despite putting a bunch of weight in the back. I got stuck in it once on a city street as well, but no one should have been out driving at all on that day. Only a few idiots were trying.
When I had a 4x4 truck I drove past many rwd and fwd cars stuck on the freeway and/or on streets last winter. It was only about five or six days that were like that, but I do not want to join those guys ever again. At the end of the winter the truck died and I brought the Camaro to Michigan and joined the stuck guys a few times. It was not fun. Never again.
If I have to drive any rwd vehicles this winter, I will try to order snow tires, but after driving a 4wd vehicle for a winter, I would rather never drive anything else. To me, the difference is nothing short of amazing. I just could not get stuck in anything. (Except once in mud - clay- in our yard).
I have seen several comments suggesting Blizzacks. Are those somehow better snow tires than other brands? The camaro tires are almost impossible to find period, let alone snow tires, but I will never drive it in the winter again. It is a summer car. I do nto want it to rust out.
The girls are inexperienced. I can teach them the winter driving basics, but there is no substitute for experience. Heck they struggle enough remembering everything that they need to know for driving on dry pavement.
Turning kids with less than 200 hours of driving expereince out into the snow and ice is scary. I have driven probably 20,000 plus hours and a lot of that was in snow and ice, but I still struggle with it sometimes. What I have learned is that those who think that they know some secret to "handle" the snow and ice are the ones who end up in ditches or accidents. (Not referring to anyone posting here). There are no secrets, just common sense and a basic understanding of how things work. However at times, you can slide off the roads here just sitting at a dead stop at an intersection. I want to give them every advantage that I can and AWD is definitely a signficant advantage. At least it was with my truck.
I used to think that the difference was not that significant and that 4x4 just gave people a false sense of confidence. Then I bought the truck and now I am sold on it.
Which reminds me. In my replace the truck search, my wife found a ford pickup with a big diesel engine in it. I do nto know anyhting about it except that it has a towing apparatus in the back and 200,000 miles. I know that 200,000 miles is nothing for a good dielsel engine, but is this likely to ahve a dieing transmission (especially from towing cars), or did they beef up the transmissions in the diesel trucks too?
I still have yet to go look at it, btu I really know nothing about Diesel pick ups. Even my father who designed and tested Diesel engines for Detroit Diesel says he knows nothing about them because he retired too long ago. Except he said that some brands of small diesel engines are really cruddy, but he no longer knows whcih ones. Anyone know about ford diesel pick ups? My wife says that it is really nice inside (which is the important part of a car to her).
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Chevy Lumina van
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