What vehicle for snowy driving?

[Walt34]

Also, with pick up trucks---- since they are so light in the rear, does everyone just load them with play sand bags or something during the winter for traction? I know we don't get much of anything in the winter, but when we do get stuff (icy sludge), pick ups are fishtailing all over the place.

I don't bother to load sand bags in our pickup, although we're in West Virginia (and not in the deep mountains) and not Buffalo or North Dakota. We're also retired and rarely go out in the snow anymore anyway just because the idiots make it risky. The pickup is 4WD, has all-season M&S tires on it, and that is good enough for our purposes. I don't even own a set of chains for it.

With 4WD engaged I have not experienced any issues with fishtailing, and suspect that any 4WD pickup that does has a driver with too heavy a foot. If I owned a 2WD pickup I'd never consider taking it out in any amount of snow, those things are bad enough in just rain.

I have some family in Buffalo, and if I did live there I'd probably have sand bags and chains but here it isn't needed.

 

[dvalley]

Snow is easy.
Ice/sleet not so much.

 

[Music Lover]

Snow is easy.
Ice/sleet not so much.

Yup. That's why I buy winter tires that are rated good on ice where traction is the most important.

 

[Ronstar]

I don't bother to load sand bags in our pickup, although we're in West Virginia (and not in the deep mountains) and not Buffalo or North Dakota. We're also retired and rarely go out in the snow anymore anyway just because the idiots make it risky. The pickup is 4WD, has all-season M&S tires on it, and that is good enough for our purposes. I don't even own a set of chains for it.

With 4WD engaged I have not experienced any issues with fishtailing, and suspect that any 4WD pickup that does has a driver with too heavy a foot. If I owned a 2WD pickup I'd never consider taking it out in any amount of snow, those things are bad enough in just rain.

I have some family in Buffalo, and if I did live there I'd probably have sand bags and chains but here it isn't needed.

I keep several bags of water softener salt in the bed of my truck. Good for weight, can be used for traction, and put the leftovers in the water softener in the spring

 

[Offgrid Organic Farmer]

We live in rural Maine. My wife drives a Prius and I drive a Prius hybrid plug-in. [I also use a 10-ton dump truck]

The Prius' both handle snow and ice just fine, up to about 8 inches of fresh snow.

In winter, once the rivers freeze over we end up driving on ice a lot. Maine has a lot of rivers, lakes and ponds, but bridges are few, it makes driving trips a lot shorter to just drive across the ice, instead of making a 20-mile trip to the nearest bridge. If you have to go someone on the other side of a river.

I recharge my plug-in from our household solar power system.

 

[COcheesehead]

I have had many AWD or 4WD vehicles. Here is a quick summary:
Good-Great
Jeep
BMW
Honda
Mini


Not so good
Subaru
Isuzu

 

[bushpilot]

I drive a Ford Focus, with good quality snow tires. It gets me there, and as others say, stopping and turning are the biggest issues. So, not a recommendation for a vehicle, just get good tires and you are most of the way there.

 

[meleana]

A 4 wheel drive is better than all wheel drive is better than front wheel drive is better than 2 wheel drive. Snow tires on any car- sedan or SUV or all wheel drive- are great. For deep snow- the higher the vehicle the better.


That said, here in rural NY we have a Honda CRV and a Hyundai Sante Fe Sport- both all wheel drive and no snow tires because my husband is too cheap to buy them. So we just have all season tires. We do ok. Our son lives in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and does ok with a Suburu Imprezza sedan and just all season tires.

 

[gerntz]

I can't believe we're five pages in and no one has Tesla yet. I thought they were THE ANSWER.

 

[AirOps]

Jeep Grand Cherokee with a v8 and full time 4wd

Yes, wife bought a new CR-V last week. Two days later, we got 17 inches of wet snow. She is driving my 1999 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited (V8) this week. My old GMC 4x4 still creating the paths! Both with nice tires.

Life is good!

 

[segfault]

My daily is a 4wd Chevy Tahoe that I've had for a couple years. I've had an AWD Audi and an AWD Nissan SUV, and the advantage that I see of manual 4wd is that you can leave it in 2WD until you need it - for me "needing it" on a regular basis in the snow is a sign I should head back home unless I have a really compelling reason to be out. The past couple of winters I've had it have been mild, but we've still had some snow, and I've only had to turn on the 4wd for testing purposes to make sure it worked. It easily handled a few inches of snow in 2wd mode. I didn't even have to shovel my driveway.

Some of the FWD cars I've had could be practically stranded by something as simple and common as an ice patch near a stop sign on a slight uphill grade. An AWD or 4WD vehicle would avoid that issue and might be better for someone who has never driven in snow.

 

[Franklin]

I agree with a medium suv with awd. I have a Chevy Equinox with awd. That thing will get through just about anything. So far, for me, it has gotten through everything. I live in southeast Michigan. We had a really bad snow a few years ago. Many vehicles were having trouble getting up a freeway ramp that had basically iced over (packed slick snow). I went slow and got through with no problem.

Of course, I’d rather have had my 4x4 full size pickup with aggressive tires, but the mid size suv with awd will do the job very well. Not sure about snow tires. I’m too cheap to get them and don’t have the space to store them. I get good all season tires and they work well. FWIW, you can get all season tires that are better rated for the snow. The last ones I bought were rated almost as good as snow tires. I’m guessing the compound is softer and you give up some mileage, but they do work well for me.

+1 rented Equinox in a snow storm in the south and was very impressed. I am a car snob and would buy that vehicle.

 

[Music Lover]

A 4 wheel drive is better than all wheel drive is better than front wheel drive is better than 2 wheel drive. Snow tires on any car- sedan or SUV or all wheel drive- are great. For deep snow- the higher the vehicle the better.

There are smart AWD systems that are just as good as 4WD. Some may be better.

That said, here in rural NY we have a Honda CRV and a Hyundai Sante Fe Sport- both all wheel drive and no snow tires because my husband is too cheap to buy them. So we just have all season tires. We do ok. Our son lives in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and does ok with a Suburu Imprezza sedan and just all season tires.

AWD with all seasons can be okay but it will never be as good as AWD with winter tires. The traction difference between all season and winter tires is well documented.

 

[Koolau]

Back in the day, I drove front-wheel drive cars and that was typically good enough for most snow situations. There was some slipping and sliding under acceleration, so I tended to go fairly slowly when conditions were marginal. DW bought an on-demand 4WD Subaru (Loyale). It was amazing how quickly you could get going in the snow. Unfortunately, you couldn't stop any quicker and I nearly crunched the car. I learned my lesson and took it easy from then on.

SO, what I'm suggesting is that 4WD can get you into trouble faster than your brakes can get you out of it. Not that 4WD shouldn't be used. It's just that 4WD can give you a false sense of the controllability of the car. Just a FWIW so YMMV.

 

[WestUniversity]

Yep, good tires first than AWD.

AND learn to drive in the snow![emoji41]

 

[Caskem]

You will get as many recommendations as posters, but there is a reason Subarus are hot sellers in winter areas. We have had seven over 35 years and they are amazing.

 

[gerntz]

Back in the day, I drove front-wheel drive cars and that was typically good enough for most snow situations. There was some slipping and sliding under acceleration, so I tended to go fairly slowly when conditions were marginal. DW bought an on-demand 4WD Subaru (Loyale). It was amazing how quickly you could get going in the snow. Unfortunately, you couldn't stop any quicker and I nearly crunched the car. I learned my lesson and took it easy from then on.

SO, what I'm suggesting is that 4WD can get you into trouble faster than your brakes can get you out of it. Not that 4WD shouldn't be used. It's just that 4WD can give you a false sense of the controllability of the car. Just a FWIW so YMMV.

Excellent

 

[mountainsoft]

I can't believe we're five pages in and no one has Tesla yet. I thought they were THE ANSWER.

Tesla's are road cars. If you want an electric vehicle for snow take a look at the Rivian https://products.rivian.com/. Cool trucks but way out of my price range. For that matter, ANY new vehicle today is out of my price range.

 

[mountainsoft]

4WD can get you into trouble faster than your brakes can get you out of it. Not that 4WD shouldn't be used. It's just that 4WD can give you a false sense of the controllability of the car.

We live on a steep mountain road and frequently have to drive on snow and ice. We drive FWD VW Jetta's and rarely have any issues even with standard all season tires. I did get my wife a set of studless snow tires for her last car and they did offer better traction, but if conditions get bad enough a good set of chains is the only option, even for the snow plow and 4WD trucks.

I see way more 4WD's sliding off the road than I do small cars. I'm sure a big part of that is because most people opt for the truck on snowy days, but I also think they get over confident and drive way too fast for conditions.

The scariest part of driving our road is going down our hill in the ice. 4WD does absolutely nothing for that.

Of course, the best option when the roads are icy is just to stay home.

 

[kgtest]

Also for the OP who isn't experienced driving snow... in most cases, if you lose traction the best solution is to ease up on the throttle and hope that the tires are able to regain grip... for example, if you are going up an incline and the tires start spinning ease off on the throttle and when they slow down they will likely regain grip... I always cringe seeing videos of people spinning the tires and thinking that spinning the tires faster will cause progress when in fact it is the exact opposite.

anything with low gear is great for snow climbing. Rented a ski cabin with a super steep grade driveway in mtns, and we had to just inch our way up it was so snowy and icy, just slow steady on the gas took about 10minutes to climb a hundred feet but the rubber did its job.

 

[Music Lover]

Back in the day, I drove front-wheel drive cars and that was typically good enough for most snow situations. There was some slipping and sliding under acceleration, so I tended to go fairly slowly when conditions were marginal.

Those with all season tires on non AWD cars are sometimes the equivalent of the slow left lane driver or the person blocking the aisle with their shopping cart. By failing to properly equip your vehicle it becomes a rolling impediment on the road.

SO, what I'm suggesting is that 4WD can get you into trouble faster than your brakes can get you out of it. Not that 4WD shouldn't be used. It's just that 4WD can give you a false sense of the controllability of the car. Just a FWIW so YMMV.

Maybe, but that's 100% the fault of the driver. All good drivers will take 4WD or AWD over a vehicle without AWD in winter conditions.

 

[Offgrid Organic Farmer]

There are smart AWD systems that are just as good as 4WD. Some may be better.

4X4 is good for mudding.

I know a lot of people who really enjoy off-road mudding.

In my area [Maine], if you stay on the pavement or stay on the river ice, then you really don't need to have a vehicle setup for off-road mudding.

Proper studded winter tires work great on Front-Wheel Drive vehicles.

The only 'issues' I have seen is if you are in fresh fluffy snow and if it piles up deeper than your clearance. And obviously Rear-Wheel Drive vehicle fish-tail a lot. Fishtailing out into the oncoming vehicle lane may cause accidents.

... AWD with all seasons can be okay but it will never be as good as AWD with winter tires. The traction difference between all season and winter tires is well documented.

Studs make all the difference in the world.

 

[YoungSaver]

If you're looking for cheap and easily, snow tires make a HUGE difference.
If you're looking for the best, then 4WD, not AWD.

I have two sets of wheels/tires for my daily driver. One with crappy wheels and Blizzak tires and the other set has more performance oriented summer tires. I can easily swap wheels when the weather changes.

 

[kgtest]

the security of having 4WD in black ice and snow is priceless. I know as I just had to drive it. Started fish tailing at bumper to bumper 40mph in the left lane, slowed down switched on 4x4 and never had another issue (as I passed a collision from that same black ice spot).


Proper air pressure in your tires is huge. I monitor mine like I do my portfolio on the cold days. Not having rubber to grab the road is no good.

 

[ls99]

2012 Cadillac CTS4, AWD does fine in snow.
2016 Chevy Colorado Z71 4x4 when the stuff is deep and going to my camp in the boonies.