Is it any wonder that some people are careless with 4WD when there are ads on the TV showing vehicles going 50mph through snow covered woods.
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Iâm surprised re: the unanimity of NEVER taking the vehicle out of drive in snowy conditions. Below about 5MPH, D isnât supplying engine brakingâitâs pulling you forward. Many is the time, on a snowy downhill, that Iâve seen cars with the rears locked, being pulled off the road, sideways, at 2MPH, due to operator not having the foresight to put the car in N.
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Traction control is useless in snow. To ascend a steep hill, you need wheelspin to get down to the paved surfaceâwhich is exactly what TC is designed to prevent. Every car Iâve ever driven with TC instructed the driver in the Ownerâs manual to disengage to climb snowy hills.
As for stability control, ABS, and the rest of âElectric Nannyland,â I can take it, or leave it. Taking away my ability to perform bootleg turns in snowy parking lots is morally wrong on a level that has noting to do with car safety, however.
Traction control is useless in snow.
Have you ever driven in snow??? Traction control is very very useful in snow. You donât want to start spinning wheels in snow. Traction in snow is slow and steady.
@MikeInNH: Pittsburgh, PA, born and bred. Delivered mail during the âStorm of the Centuryâ in '93, when we got 24" of heavy, wet snow overnight. Been an avid skiier for 35 of my 41 years.
âŠso yeah, I know a thing or two about driving in snow. How 'bout you?
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@meanjoe75fan
I know where you are comming fromâŠdeep or heavy wet snow going up hills clogs the treads and I agree, shutting off the traction control which which keeps the throttle from being cut off, is correct to spin the wheels to keep the treads gripping. But, on cars that do this, like my 4Runner, technically, the traction management system that uses abs and keeps power going to both( all wheels in 4wd) IS ALWAYS ENGAGED.
I agree, you need wheels spin in the conditions you state, but you always need balanced traction. So technically, both you and Mike are correct.
But, trying to spin the wheels to reach pavement as a strategy means you have pretty poor tires to begin with and it doesnât work when the snow is deep or the road is ice underneath. The electronic limited slip part of traction control( without throttle shut off) is GREAT, all of the time as it remains on, all of the time.
Traction control is outstanding, when you control when you spin.
@meanjoe75fan - born and raised in a small town in upstate NY with an average snowfall of about 4 times what Pittsburgh gets (mostly lake-effect).
"Storm of the Century" in '93, when we got 24" of heavy, wet snow overnight.
Drove through and lived through one of the worse snow-storm totals to ever hit the North East. Started snowing on Thursday afternoonâŠended on Sunday eveningâŠwith a final total of about 101" of snow. That year our town was hit with over 300". And thatâs NOTHING compared to the Tug-Hill Plateau (where my girlfriend at the time lived).
http://www.syracuse.com/weather/snow/stories/gramza-tughill.html
I do agree there are times you want to turn traction control offâŠbut saying it doesnât help in snowâŠis just wrongâŠIt can help greatly by preventing wheel spin. Lake effect snow can cause extremely slippery conditions. Especially when itâs very cold outsideâŠand then a lake effect storm crops up. Beneath the 10" of fresh snow is almost pure ice.
We have to go to a party on Saturday night, November 16. Itâs 29 miles from here and the weather forecast is for HEAVY SNOW!! Weâre going with my wifeâs Mazda3 with Michelin X-ICE tires and a shovel in he back.
The shovel is for digging out in case weâre forced off the road by some one ahead of us having problems and we want to avoid a collision.
The car has 2 WD and weâve never been stuck, so we donât agonize. We have a AAA membership but thatâs only for dire emergencies.
Our biggest concern is always some clown running in to us or causing an accident ahead of us.
In Minnesota on winter residential streets, they are snow covered for the majority of the winter. Youâd be continuously spinning wheels to try and dig down to bare pavement. You donât ever need to get down to bare ground to gain traction in snow and likely will just polish the surface to ice trying to do so. 50 years driving in the snow and ice-gentle starts, gentile stops and when the traction control kicks in, let up a little to gain traction.
Wth all due respect to the 2wd car driversâŠletâs not get carried away with 2wd and snow tires. For driving in heavy snow, make no mistake, the safest vehicle is the one with the best winter tires, the highest ground clearance and the most darn drive wheels (4wd) you can get. All of the above ! This combination when combined with safe driving is the best way to go. No 2wd drive vehicle can hold a candle to a 4wd or Awd vehicle with snow tires and decent clearance. My wife can drive a vehicle equipped this way, more safely in heavy snow then the most experienced person you could name in a compact 2 wd regardless of the tires. If a 2wd compact car has never been stuck, it hasnât been driven in very deep snow. The comparison between 2wd and 4 wd with the same tires in deep snow just doesnât exist. Itâs like comparing a Corvette to a Smart for Two on a race track. 4wd IS ALWAYS BETTER when equipped with winter tires !
I refereed 4 to 6 nights a week in central and northern Maine for 25 years during the winter months. If the forecast was for snow, and we had no cancellation for college games, we took 4 wds if we possibly could. We arenât that dumb. We had to be there on time and we had to get home for work the next day.
If you absolutely have to get there and live in a heavy snow areaâŠthen 4wd is the only way to go.
But in all realityâŠthatâs probably less then .1% of the population. When itâs real real bad outâŠmy wife and her Lexus stay home. When we go skiing or visit my family in upstate NY during the winterâŠthen we drive the 4runner.
The idea that you only need Awd in heavy snow areas, is technically correct. But even on snow covered roads of just a couple of inches, the modern Awd car with snow tires is SAFER then any 2wd car. On any snow covered road, it gives up nothing in stopping and turning with snow tires and allows the driver to accelerate more easily and merge, go up hills while turning and drive through a busy intersection etc., all, under better control. I call that a safety feature ! No one argues that having adaquate acceleration is a safety factor on dry roads. Well, itâs also a safety factor on slippery roads and NO 2 wd can accelerate with the control of a modern Awd with snow tires. Actively getting out of the way and moving securely in your intended direction is just as important as stopping. I donât kow about anyone else, but I still had to go to work regardless of conditions and I still had to go ome when it snowed while at work. I never had the opportunity to say, gee, I donât think my 2wd is SAFE today. I want to stay home.
4wd or snow tires can get you going fast, no doubt, but getting going is not the problem in most snow related accidents )imho) it is stopping and steering, and 4wd does nothing for either.
I hear you @barkeydog. But getting going IS a problem in many snow related accidents and not getting going contributes to accidents from others. Not getting going is a recipe for accident causing, especially rear end collisions at intersections.
I feel Without a doubt, another big cause for intersection accidents during snow conditions, are 2wd cars which refuse to stop for fear of not getting started. An informal study was done by a local police force some years ago which monitored an intersection at the bottom of a hll in the down town of a their city. The number of drivers who blasted through red lights to get a run for the hill on the other side during a a snow event was so numerous, they just stationed a cop there regularly to stop traffic in the other direction till the snow was cleared enough at the bottom, allowing them to them come to a complete stop, or they closed the road.
Living in an area with so many 4 wd they become the most prevalent vehicle on the road in slippery going but still seeing the majority of accidents by 2 wds, had lead me to the conclusion that, 4 wd,Awd cars are safer.
Are you talking about 13 feet of snow over the winter of a 13 foot snow?
I would not suggest anyone trying to drive in 13 foot snow!
13 feet of snow in one year is a decent amount of snowâŠfar more then Boston or Southern NH.
Very few areas in the US average that much snow:
Yeah, I think the UP in Michigan is among the most with maybe 200". Buffalo I think is up there too.
No doubt AWD and 4WD are better for going. The only thing that has bothered me (outside of having to replace all of the tires when you have a problem with one) is how easy it is to recover from a slide. I watched one 4WD one morning on a frosty freeway lose control and spin several times before going in the ditch and flipping over. I know how to recover on a RWD and a FWD, but what about the AWD and 4WD? Just curios. I might go for an AWD for the next car if I thought regaining control if you break loose would not be a problem.
Way back in Duluth, with hills almost like San Francisco, up or down hill drivers had the right of way in snowy conditions. That was late 50âs, I was just a kid then, I do not know if it was a law, or courtesy, but a great concept.
My son spent a couple years in Duluth with a FWD Integra no less. It is self-preservation to check for up and down traffic before pulling out on a hill. The only thing you have to worry about on ice or if brakes fail is that Lake Superior is at the bottom of the hill.
You can argue about the advantages of 4wd, AWD, FWD or RWD with or without limited slip all you want, but the single most important safety factor is a driver that knows their limitations and doesnât overdrive the situation. I have never driven AWD, but I have all the rest and once moving, I really donât see much difference from one vehicle to the next.