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For a long time I had a FWD Saturn LW200 wagon with ABS and Traction Control. I now have an AWD Suburu Outback. To be honest, I haven't seen much different, both performed exceptional in the snow, etc.
I drove a Pinto station wagon with regular tires, right across from Burlington and lake Champlain back in the 70s. Fully understand what you are talking about. When the sleet came down I parked it like everyone else without studded tires on their cars did. But sleet is a different situation than just ice and snow
The right tires for road conditions is quite important. Back then we didn't have cars with all the bell and whistles, but we just drove than and handle things by experience.
Yep. I drove a Maverick on Lake Champlain occasionally. After bar crawls in town in Burlington when it was snowing, you had to be very aware going up the hill back to campus. You couldn't stop at a stoplight and ever hope to get rolling again so red light meant you took an immediate turn to avoid the hill start.
These days, I optimize for black ice since that's the condition that is going to kill me. That's 99% the tires and 1% the drive system. A really good friction tire like a Blizzak or a Nokian Hakka R2 or a Michelin X-Ice buys you an awful lot of control. My body-on-frame SUVs with stock tires were frightening on black ice. All they wanted to do was go straight. I used to run studded tires on them. They drove like farm equipment all winter but they'd corner and stop in freezing rain and sleet. With lighter cars, you can get away with the studless friction tires. I notice the difference between my VW GTIs at ~3,000 pounds and my Outback at ~3,600 pounds.
I don't get the "I must have AWD" from someone who looks to live in Missouri and Arkansas from their acronyms. That's not the kind of country where you live 2 miles up a dirt road with 5 feet of snow pack & lousy plowing where you need the ground clearance and drive system. I mostly need to not kill myself on black ice since I encounter it a lot. That's tires. AWD doesn't help when you need to hit the brakes. Otherwise, AWD is a luxury since I could get around just fine with FWD, snow tires, and a shovel.
The Nokian WRG3 is an all season tire. Maybe try a real snow tire?
Please explain where you live that FWD with good snow tires is inadequate? I have AWD and some ground clearance as a convenience so I don't have to shovel and I don't have to pay attention to where I park. I get 200" of snow in my Vermont driveway and it can be a mess during mud month. My VW GTIs with Nokians I owned as my daily driver for 14 years could get in and out with no issues but I'd have to dig the car out. A GTI with good friction tires is better on black ice than a body on frame SUV. It's lighter so it brakes and corners better. I owned a few of those, too.
If you said you lived on, say, the Roxbury Gap in Vermont, sure. That road is nasty and impassable during mud month in anything less than a lifted full size truck. For the rest of us, it's tires, tires, tires.
Can you find me some tires that go up my driveway with a FWD car?
WRG3 is billed as all-season, I found it to be no season. Snow? Not much better than my LX20's, if even their equal? Rain? Prepare to hydroplane! Dry and warm? I hope you like tires that howl like a semi/bad wheel bearing. Oh, and you'll be replacing them in 20K miles. I hated the WRG3's so much I'll never own another Nokian product.
Can you find me some tires that go up my driveway with a FWD car?
WRG3 is billed as all-season, I found it to be no season. Snow? Not much better than my LX20's, if even their equal? Rain? Prepare to hydroplane! Dry and warm? I hope you like tires that howl like a semi/bad wheel bearing. Oh, and you'll be replacing them in 20K miles. I hated the WRG3's so much I'll never own another Nokian product.
So you've never run a real snow tire on a FWD car but you're somehow the expert?
So you've never run a real snow tire on a FWD car but you're somehow the expert?
A coworker of mine drove some mid-size American FWD car (don't remember which one) to his house on a very steep driveway. Back then I had a 1981 Civic Is with all season tires, so I had to park it by the road edge near his driveway. He had no trouble whatsoever with his car and winter tires. Nowadays he drives a truck, but I can follow him up the driveway when driving a 2012 Corolla that wears Blizzak tires.
Can you explain to me how snow tires enhance traction on loose gravel on 27 percent grade slopes?
All depends on the type of winter tires, some like the Blizzak and others have a sort of abrasive material in the thread that provide traction. Besides stud-less tires like Blizzak, there are studded ones. Regardless of drive system, proper tires for road conditions is of utmost importance.
Can you explain to me how snow tires enhance traction on loose gravel on 27 percent grade slopes?
Sure, they have larger tread blocks, deeper grooves between the tread blocks, and a softer compound. But if you live near the MO/AR border, the problem you'll run into with winter tires is a very quick rate of wear, especially if you use them year-round. You might try an all-terrain tire designed for car-based CUVs which are basically slightly more aggressive all-season tires and designed for light off-road use.
Another part of your problem is a FWD car with standard tires is about the worst configuration possible for getting up that hill since all the weight is shifting off the drive wheels. In lieu of getting different tires or a different car, you can try going up the hill in reverse so most of the weight is on the drive wheels.
Can you explain to me how snow tires enhance traction on loose gravel on 27 percent grade slopes?
Depends if you mean on fresh powder or compressed, crunchy snow. You wouldn't expect so much gravel to go flying in dry weather that you can't ascend. Same with snow on top of it.
Large amounts of fresh powder are a crapshoot with any kind of tires, unless you're running a 37's and the tread is actually deep enough and spaced sufficiently to dig down into something and grab, all the while having a large enough diameter to roll over snow, and not waste that precious traction pushing horizontally against a wall of snow. Everyone else is waiting for the plow.
Compressed snow is when you use "winter tires". These have little to do with tread blocks and much more to do with the micro-patterns you see molded into each tread block. Many more sipes than any all-season tire, to try to get as many biting surfaces as possible. It is possible these are marginally better on dry, snowy ice, but wet, black ice, I have my doubts.
Last come the studded tires. There's no magic bullet, but if there was one, these would be as close as you can get. Actual metal studs meant to cut into surfaces where there is otherwise no grip at all.
I had a smaller Jeep SUV pass me today and it said 4X4 in big letters in the back.
It’s a damn unibody car, it’s not a truck. The 4X4 designation should go to body on frame trucks.
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