What makes a car good in the snow?

WilberM3 wrote:

Swank Force One wrote: In reply to Mazda787b: +1 for XJ being damn near useless in 2wd. Almost maddening. Someone mentioned front heavy fwd cars oversteering like crazy in snow. True. But fun.

yearss ago on my 88 XJ 4.7L stroker (rust in peace) i lost the stupid vacuum disconnect front axle function putting into 4wd during the first snow storm. i already had a lunchbox locker in the rear and good bfg A/Ts so after failing to get the vacuum motor to reliably work i gave up and drove it all winter in 2wd.... i found it to be pretty great actually. most predictable snow drifting vehicle i've had. but right now i'm using MiataMe's lifted/locked 99 XJ and it's downright awesome in 4wd, but really fun/capable in 2wd too. with the rear diff open though XJ's cant do anything even in the rain.

It's predictable, that much is true. It just has no traction whatsoever from a dead stop to go anywhere. Guessing mine is open rear diff.

Mine is a 00 Sport 4x4 with a ChryCo 8.25" rear, NP231 t-case. No ABS.

Small lift, adjustable shocks, 30" Geolandars. (I'm really not impressed with these tires.)

I had 99 xj with falkin Rocky Mountain tires on it. 250lbs of Softner salt in back almost never got stuck. When it did grab 4wd lever and go.

I didn't read all the replies, but my experience is it doesn't matter if it's fwd, 2wd, 4wd, awd, rwd, or nwd, tires, tires, and not overdriving the conditions.

pinchvalve wrote:

carbon wrote: Defeatable traction control is pivotal.

The Kia Rondo system is designed to cut power 99.5% when slippage is detected, and keep it off for 30 seconds. So when pulling onto a busy intersection, if you hit a small bit of gravel, you are dead in the water for a while. Thank goodness it has a button to turn it off!

i call bullE36 M3. or perhaps in todays politically correct world i should just call show me the data. the system you describe would not pass objective or subjective metrics and would not be saleable in the US.

My best snow car was a 70 Ford Turino 4 door 302. It would go anywhere without snow tires or weight in the trunk.

My current car is a 2000 Mustang 3.8 standard with studded snows and lots of weight in the trunk. The traction control uses brakes first which acts like a poor mans LSD.

pappatho wrote: My favorite winter car is a VSLD Miatas until the snow gets too deep and it is just plowing. A lot of what makes a good winter car is the same as a good summer car. Cars that give a lot of feedback on what is happening at the tire patch make life easier, specially after you put on snow tires which numb feedback. My wife's Explorer is too numb and I have a hard time knowing what traction levels are. Time may have made the memory fonder, but one of the most capable cars I have driven in the winter was the '91 Dodge Colt I learned to drive in. With 155 snow tires it would accelerate well and slide through corners easily. If you are use to 2 wheel drive and go to 4 wheel drive it can be a bit challenging to remember that just because the car is accelerating harder doesn't mean there is more traction for turning or braking. I dislike stability control in the snow. I had a JCW MINI and if I didn't turn the stability control off I would be fighting the system in a slide. It was kind of like having someone in the passenger seat with another steering wheel and you had to react to the slide and to what the passenger was doing to try and correct the slide. Other cars I have used as winter vehicles were a Neon, Protege5, 4X2 Dakota, full size Dodge van, V70R and open diff Miata. The VLSD Miata is still my first choice, though sliding around a '78 Sunshine Orange Dodge Van is amusing. This was my winter beater last year http://motoringguard.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=page_4 equipped for cross country ski racing. The lowered suspension and missing undertray (the engine compartment would pack full of snow causing belt slip and low charging) weren't the best in a UP snow squall, but it never stranded me. It had 259,000 hard miles on it when I bought it and I put another 10,000 on it last winter.

Kinda makes me want to sell the Forester and find a beater hardtop and a roof box for the S2000...

Front end bodywork design also plays into it, if it prefers to climb on top of snow rather than plow though it, your limit is more or less fixed at ground clearance for wet or packed snow. Especially for a FWD car. I've gotten a couple stuck this way, front end so high the tires no longer touched ground.

Man, you guys that like heavy cars in snow must not have hills to deal with. Nothing quite like slowly sliding down a slope in a momentum-over-traction 4wd Suburban, wheels hopelessly spinning backwards, eventually using the scenery as a wheel chock, hypothetically speaking...I am biased toward lightweight awd round here. Just to get to the main road from my driveway involves a 20-25% grade up and down. When there's snow, 2wd cars simply need not apply. My silly lil awd protege on snowtires, otoh, is a goldern snowmobile. Having torque at both ends of the car makes it ever so much easier to change direction. Yeah if you just drive a corner, awd won't help but if it understeers, just give it more lock and throttle and round she goes. Or Svedish flick it. Or just lift and let the back come round. Change the direction it's pointing and add thrust, now there's 4 tires trying to make you go where you want instead of 2. You just have more options. Straightline grip is not the reason the WRC cars have been awd since the quattro came out.

I can't believe it's going to take someone from the south where it never snows to settle this whole thing. The best car in snow? The answer is the same as the best off-road car - the one with rental papers and the optional insurance!

I agree that it's less about the car than most people think. Proper snow tires are really important for adequate grip. Functional shocks are also really important since you spend a lot more time close to the limit when you drive on street in snowy conditions. If there's deep snow then clearance and awd will make a difference, but for those of us who live in cities that's not often the major problem. It's also more important to be comfortable with your car's behavior around the limit of traction since you will exceed it much more frequently. A communicative chassis helps a lot if, say, you are driving down the highway and run into a slippery patch. You'll be able to tell from the way the car responds to normal steering inputs that it is slipping more, and know to be very gentle. These days I'm driving my NB Miata with snow tires over snowpacked roads and love every minute of it. The Miata is a great car for winter (as long as the snow isn't too deep) because it is so communicative and confidence inspiring when it is slipping.

ultraclyde wrote: I can't believe it's going to take someone from the south where it never snows to settle this whole thing. The best car in snow? The answer is the same as the best off-road car - the one with rental papers and the optional insurance!

Cheap fleet tires tend to suck in snow bad enough you cant really hoon on them.

ultraclyde wrote: I can't believe it's going to take someone from the south where it never snows to settle this whole thing. The best car in snow? The answer is the same as the best off-road car - the one with rental papers and the optional insurance!

So I should rent a car for 4-5 months a year???

Had a family emergency. Had to truck from Detroit to Pittsburgh Tuesday. The F-250 was getting the locking hubs repaired at our buddy's shop. Took my sister's 02 Mountaineer.

Wow. The cockpit was small and the seats suck for long drives. However, the AWD was nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be. Handled the sheet of ice masquerading as I-75 with no issues. Also had no problem on the snowy mountain roads.