Epically horrific vehicles in the snow.

Bobzilla wrote: EDIT: Would a winter/snow tire really make that much of a difference for this car? I've noticed in deep snow that the nose rises up like a boat coming up on the plane. This takes weight and traction off the front tires. Maybe I just need a splitter? lol

Yes, huge difference!

The worst was the Smart Car (bought it for the wife because she >>loved<< them, like boutique dogs, past tense emphasized). That piece of crap felt like it was about to start spinning like a top at any moment on ice. The only good thing is if it ever got stuck, a medium sized girl would be able to carry it out.

The second worst was my E34 M5. It had a built motor and was pretty highstrung, with a kevlar clutch and a torn right rear subframe bushing which I planned to fix in the spring, causing the rear end to do a little bit of steering at times. To those familiar with graph algorithms, driving it during a big snowstorm was like a depth first search. I would go as far down one path as I could before I'd have to turn back and try another way. With some ice on the ground, anything with a significant grade was like the Great Wall of China. It made me wish that my car had a brush guard so I could smack people out of the way because any loss of momentum up a hill meant it was all over.

Best: My 96 Range Rover on ANY tires. The viscuous AWD and TCS calibrated for off-roading worked beautifully whether on the stock 16" Michelin mudders or the 20" all-seasons I usually rolled with.

Worst: My 06 Miata on bald 18" Bridgestone RE0something summer tires. Looped it 3 times brining it to the dealership for a warranty top repair. Usually didn't drive it in the winter but I didn't want to lose driving time in the summer-and then it snowed on my appointment date.

Klayfish wrote: Bobzilla, I can 1st hand attest to your misery. My wife has the same car... '11 Forte SX hatch. It's not the worst car I've ever driven in the snow of any car, but far and away the worst FWD car. It's awful in the snow. In fact, right now we just have it staying in the garage and my wife is driving our Sedona...which is a billygoat in the snow. I suspect it's the Goodyear tires it has, but whatever it is the car is terrible. It'll go straight OK...kind of. But don't ask it to change lanes, turn or stop. The worst car of anything I've ever driven in the snow was my friends '84 Fiero. It did some really awesome donuts, whether you wanted it to or not.

I can't imagine how bad it would be on the Goodyears. I traded those out the week we bought it for Kumho Ecsta 4X. They were good last winter, but we didn't have near the amount of snow we have had this year.

Worst: '66 F250 with a gritchy throttle cable making it hard to come off idle smoothly, ancient "highway tread" tires. We, uh, don't get too much snow in these parts and I was borrowing my dad's pickup while my vehicle(s) were inoperable (again). Spent a bunch of time shoveling snow onto the tailgate with a used paper plate to try to get back over the hill home from community college...

The Falcon is so atomically crappy in the snow that I am driving the GF's Kia Soul.... which is almost as great in the white stuff as my 03 Jetta wagon was.

wae wrote:

foxtrapper wrote: The Volvo was epic due to its antilock brakes. They worked, all the way down to 0.001 miles per hour.

My first experience with ABS was in a company Jeep Grand Cherokee in a snow/ice storm. As I was chugging along at 20-25 mph, somebody pulled out right in front of me and the ABS made it so I didn't lock up the wheels, but I didn't slow down either. I finally had to jam the thing into reverse and hit the gas to slow down and not run the other car over.

We've been borrowing a 2000 Grand Cherokee Laredo 4x4 recently. The ABS on it is the most miserable and terrifying thing i've ever experienced.

"Stop the vehicle, Hal."

NO SIR. THAT WOULD MEAN SLIDING.

"berkeley you, Hal. At least there'd be some sort of friction happening."

The XJ Cherokee is pretty incredibly awful in 2wd mode, though, to be honest. ALMOST bad enough to consider swapping in the NP242 transfer case. But it's almost more fun this way. Get stuck? Put it in 4Lo and drop the motherberkeleying hammer for epic roostertails and climb up the side of a building if you have to.

I can say the best vehicle I have ever had in the snow is a tie... either the '01 Suzuki Grand Vitara we had, or dad's old 84 'burb.

6.2 Diesel, 700R4, 4.10 gears full floater rear, dana 60 frt, 6" lift and 245/85R16's. THing would blow through snow drifts 5' tall like they weren't even there.

Let me tell you how much winter tires make a difference.

My wife and I both drive Mazda 3's. She has a 2010 with the 2.2/5AT and I have a 2012 with the 2.5/6MT. Her car has Yokohama AVID ENVigor tires with plenty of tread left. That thing is terrible in the snow. It recently (and embarrassingly) got stuck at a friend's house and we needed to tow it out with a friend's diesel Passat wagon, which was NOT equipped with snow tires. That is sad. Fellow GRM'er Pseudosport was there with his 300+hp BMW 135i and even he could get out of even deeper snow, but he had snow tires.

Mine is pretty darn good in the snow. I have Bridgestone Blizzak WS70's on steelies that I swap on in the winter, and they have 4 winters on them. I haven't been able to get it stuck yet. In fact, this morning, I tried to. I went up an un-plowed, steep snowy hill and while I did lose some speed, it clawed its way up the hill without too much drama from a dead stop.

And yes, turn that traction control switch off! You need a little spinning to get going in the snow.

Looks like I can get some 16" wheels/tires from TireRack for ~$650. Dunlop Wintermax and some cheapo 16x7.5's. Hmm.....

I think its just Bob Costas syndrome

The sad thing is, I've known people who have traded in perfectly good cars because they were "bad in snow" when all they really needed was better tires. A friend of my mom's had a beautiful brand-new Acura TL in 2005 or so. One winter and it was gone, traded on an SUV. Never mind that it came with summer tires, the car itself got the blame.

Tom_Spangler wrote: The sad thing is, I've known people who have traded in perfectly good cars because they were "bad in snow" when all they really needed was better tires. A friend of my mom's had a beautiful brand-new Acura TL in 2005 or so. One winter and it was gone, traded on an SUV. Never mind that it came with summer tires, the car itself got the blame.

People do that all the time here. They drive a 2003 Civic, it slides mildly off the road one day, and then the next winter they've got a 1997 CR-V because it's "safer."

Used Subaru prices double to triple (depending on model) from October to April.

Tires certainly matter, but if the basic vehicle doesn't work, tires can't exactly mask that.

2wd pickup trucks which just sit there on snowy hills and spin a rear tire. Low slung cars that get bellied up in just a few inches of heavy snow. High strung engines or jumpy throttles that you can't modulate gently so you constantly break traction. There are others.

My worst was probably the '90 325i 5 speed with a 4.10 open diff and crappy tires. When the new owner (sporqster) drove it for the first time in the snow, he remarked that it drove how he imagined it would be like driving a 1000hp super car, only way, way slower.

My '04 Ranger 4.0l long bed 2wd auto on bald-ish tires is pretty horrible too.

ssswitch wrote:

Tom_Spangler wrote: The sad thing is, I've known people who have traded in perfectly good cars because they were "bad in snow" when all they really needed was better tires. A friend of my mom's had a beautiful brand-new Acura TL in 2005 or so. One winter and it was gone, traded on an SUV. Never mind that it came with summer tires, the car itself got the blame.

People do that all the time here. They drive a 2003 Civic, it slides mildly off the road one day, and then the next winter they've got a 1997 CR-V because it's "safer." Used Subaru prices double to triple (depending on model) from October to April.

I used to work with a girl that did that. She had an early 2000 Celica and traded it for a Cavalier because it was "bad in the snow." I just shook my head.

The mid-90s F150 I have is pretty much worthless. It is probably more to do with the terrifyingly bald and weather-checked rear tires from a different decade and the somewhat choppy automatic transmission. I'm sure it would be fine on new tires.

The Scirocco is pretty good, at least as good as you would expect an underpowered 70's econobox on aged out Proxes to be. It would be a hell of a lot better if it had a heater, I'll say that much. If this whole snowing in Portland business continues, I'll strap the older-than-me studded tires onto the old girl.

Future Wife's E46 is pretty great, but my experience in it is limited to turning off it's rudimentary traction control, putting the trans in manual mode, and bouncing it off the rev-limiter in the work parking lot...

Now that I think about it. The absolute worst vehicle I have ever driven in the snow was my old M20 swapped E21, complete with welded diff and summer tires.

The worst car in the snow I've ever driven was my 1969 Dodge A100 pickup. But that was kind of to be expected since all the weight was over the front wheels (including the driver) and it had a big block v8 with a billion foot pounds of torque.

The most unexpectedly horrible car was my 1995 LS400. It had decent tires and traction control so it seems like it wouldn't be too bad, right? WRONG! The only time I've ever gotten stuck in snow was thanks to that car. I was in a relatively flat parking lot with about 8" of snow on it and it just wouldn't go anywhere. The traction control would click on and it would just kind of sit in place groaning. Turning off the traction control just resulted in one wheel spinning. I had to dig all around it and finally dug long trenches for the tires. Oddly once it had snow tires it wasn't too bad. Maybe "adequately not terrible" at that point.

My 95 Mustang GT and 95 Dodge dually were both horrible in the snow, but both had all seasons.

My '09 Mustang with Pirelli's. Traction control on or off, it's a death trap.

dculberson wrote: Maybe "adequately not terrible" at that point.

That's about what I'd describe my prizrolla on snows in deeper stuff. The car has an engine that weighs somewhere around 100lbs less than the one it replaced. Even with 175mm altimax artics, much more than 6" of all but the fluffiest snow and you're pretty berkeleyed. The front bumper design and partial under tray on that car is great for aero, but loves to high center on snow. Good thing its a manual trans and non ABS car.

my p71 with all seasons was the worst car ever and barely moved in snow. with snow tires, it was a different car altogether.

I was surprised to find that my old Volvo 745T was horrible in the snow/ice. I just assumed the Swedes had it all figured out. Of course the 225-50-16 summer tires and full IPD suspension probably had something to do with it.

Zomby Woof wrote: You can't turn the traction control off in my 06 Cobalt. My wife slid off the driveway and got it stuck in the snow yesterday, and it took me forever to get it out. Without the TC it would have been a 10 minute exercise. The car handles incredibly well in the dry, but I've had the rear end come around on me a bunch of times in the snow, even with really good snow tires on. It's been a great car, but I don't like it in the snow.

Obviously you are not schooled in driving a FWD car.