What kind of car to get? (Pittsburgh: how much, home, to buy)

[hystry002]

Hello,

I wanted to first thank everybody here, this forum has been extremely helpful to me. I'm moving to Pittsburgh for the first time and am looking to buy a new car. I'd love to hear some input on how much I need to consider the weather/topography of Pittsburgh. My main issue is whether to get something with AWD for the winters/hills or something smaller to get around the city conveniently. I'd prefer a coupe, but how well do they do in February in Pittsburgh? Are snow tires really enough? Thanks in advance!

[Moby Hick]

If you know how to drive on snow and can come into to work late on the couple of days with bad snow (a good idea regardless because of traffic), you'll be able to get around fine in a front wheel drive coupe with all season tires. Unless you live/work at the top of the hill or something.

[Hopes]

Front wheel drive is all you need for winter around here, even if you work/live on a big hill. I spent half of my winter in the Vermont mountains with only front wheel drive. It's important to have all-season tires in good condition. If you feel you need extra assurance, put snow tires on it in the winter. But there is no real good reason to get a bigger AWD if you're planning to live in Allegheny County.

[ferraris]

I think the ability to accelerate is more important here than AWD. We have a lot of hills and short on-ramps where being able to gun it is a huge help. My old '85 four cylinder really struggled at times, but I get by fine with my current 2006 4 cylinder. Moby Hick summed it up well, so long as you can get away with being late, calling off, or working from home a few days a year at most, there's no need for AWD.

[Hopes]

Originally Posted by ferrarisnowday

...so long as you can get away with being late, calling off, or working from home a few days a year at most, there's no need for AWD.

The few days someone can't get to work would be when the entire city closes down, and that doesn't happen every year.

[BarqCider]

awd,fwd or even rwd doesnt matter. good set of snow tires is what you need. snow tires provide better traction/stop and go than all-seasons. They are all-seasons but realy dont excell in any season. but hey to each their own.

[greg42]

Get whatever car you want. Snow tires will be a more useful upgrade than AWD, but the reality is the snow isn't THAT much. I've lived here for 20 years with front-drive cars. For a few seasons I had snow tires, but I haven't felt a need to get them again. (I only got them because at the time I had summer-only tires.) All-seasons do fine as long as they're not down to the last of their tread.

[Moby Hick]

We have an AWD and the main advantage I've found is that you can still parallel park on the side of the street even though they never clean the snow from there. The other advantage is going up a hill from a dead stop before the salt truck comes by.

[SteelCityRising]

I just bought a new Honda Fit and love it. I've only driven front-wheel drive vehicles since moving here in 2010, and I've rarely had difficulty traversing our streets in the winter. Most of our local DPW crews do a fantastic job. Since the majority of your driving will be in fair weather I'd purchase something you love. I love the Honda Fit as my "urban sidekick" because it has very few blind spots, can be very easily parallel parked, and isn't bad on fuel consumption. My only cautionary tale is that if you opt to purchase a hybrid vehicle make sure you buy a newer one. I recently owned an early-2000s Honda hybrid that had numerous design flaws. The transmission died at around 60,000 miles and would have been a $4,000 fix (the battery would have been similarly expensive), which is why I bought a new non-hybrid (couldn't afford a new hybrid myself).

[greg42]

Funny SCR, I was thinking after seeing that you were the latest post that one suggestion might be to NOT get a hybrid at all. From what I understand, hills (also weather extremes, although our weather is not really extreme) do a number on the hybrid mileage, meaning you don't really get back out of it the extra dollars you put into it.