Good car in Minnesota

Driving/Drivers
1

On last week’s show C&C suggested a Ford Focus to the woman who moved to Minnesota and wanted a car good in snow. I love my '03 Focus but it is TERRIBLE in snow or on slick roads. No traction at all. I solved that by investing $500 in excellent snow tires, and it still turned out to be a lot cheaper than buying a Subaru. (Better gas mileage too) For everything else the caller wanted in a car, the Focus would be a good choice.

2

Tires can make all the difference in the world. Minnesota doesn’t get a lot of snow, so any decent fwd vehicle with decent all-season tires will be fine.

3

Agree; Minnesota may be the coldest state in the Lower 48, but the snowfall is modest compared to the NE. If I lived in Minnesota, good winter tires and a powerful battery with an engine block heater would be all I’d need.

4

Um… Right now in Minnesota, I would suggest a Boston Whaler :wink:

5

Yea really…What a mess there right now.

6

But it does get a lot of ice!
And it can get “lake effect” snows.

The highways are elevated in much of that part of the country above open plains. Very cold snow, which has a different crystal structure than our NE snow, blows across the highway and forms ice slicks, bare patches of grass, and huge drifts. When I lived in North Dakota, before cell phones were invented, we had people without survival skills slide off the highways and freeze to death every winter.

Good, well siped winter tires (they come that way now) are a really great investment up there.

7

Here in Minnesota, you drive whatever you want. MNDOT gets the freeways cleared up pretty fast after a snowfall. But you need winter tires for the secondary roads/streets. These are where counties/cities plow. And it may take a whole day before all roads/streets are plowed. And if it gets so bad that MNDOT can’t keep the freeways clear, nobody’s goin’ nowhere.

Tester

8

Here in Minnesota, I drive a 1989 Honda Accord year round. I don’t even have snow tires on it and I can still get anywhere easily. As Tester said, MNDOT gets things clear pretty quick. Rust ends up being the big problem in the end.