"I have an SUV so i am ok in snow" myth

[simple_gifts]

All the other factors being = (tires, what WD it is) the SUV has advantage of ground clearance.

It is not a comforting thing to be in a sedan (1984 caprice), be in a rural area (south central PA) and have the unplowed fallen snow start to drag on the underside of the car....

 

[Kestas]

Women go to great lengths to follow the fashion trends, and yes, the SUV craze is part of it. They will grasp at any reason to justify owning and driving an SUV, no matter if it's logical or not. As long as it sounds good.

97tbird's post is an example of why men go to the library and the women go to the parlor after a dinner party. Discussions are typically on a completely different plane.

 

[Big_Kat]

I drive a Corolla and get around pretty good in the Iowa winters we have.... People just need to learn how to drive...

 

[sciphi]

An acquaintance said her brand-new FWD car stank in snow, so she was looking at replacing it with a small SUV. All her female friends were saying how it was a good idea paying a LOT more for a SUV. I and several other guys suggested snow tires as a much cheaper option, which for her car would have run about $500 on steel wheels shipped to her preferred installer. I don't know how it ended.

 

[odie]

The other 1/2 seen an S.U.V. that went off the road into a ditch during snowfall . She was driving the 2,300+ pound 2010 3 door automatic YARIS (w/V.S.C.+ T.C.) with four Blizzak WS 70s'. Drove it earlier today on snow/slush covered roads and did very well .

 

[Warlord]

I have only ever used 4x4 on my truck to make sure it still works. Havent run across a situation where I would need it to drive around yet. Safe driving is 90% driver and 10% machine.

 

[eljefino]

I got a sweet sweet deal on a FWD saturn from a chick who got a new jeep liberty in the middle of winter.

The saturn had junk tires and a stuck open thermostat but was otherwise sound.

I'm convinced that NOBODY ever talks to their mechanic, and few have a good "mechanic-patient-relationship". Why keep silent about your non-working heat? It's not because "it's an old car"! I put some decent all seasons on and was cruising.

My wife likes to repeat the saying "Four wheel drive does not mean four wheel stop". Catchy, but factually incorrect.

Speaking of idiots, this girl in my high school skidded into a telephone pole. She locked the service brake, tried the handbrake, and put it in park, but she just wouldn't stop.

Her parents probably let her have a car because "she's a good kid" (eg good grades).

 

[Spazdog]

I do see a lot of SUVs wadded in the ditch or upside down on the opposite side of the icy bridge.

Some are 2WD, some are 4WD.

The last one I saw was the large size Mitsubishi Montero. Passed me, hit the icy bridge, went into a slide, hit the non-icy pavement at the end of the bridge, and ended up in the left-center lane almost pointed in the right direction....on it's roof.

Driver error.

Anybody with anything less than studded ice tires would have been in trouble at that speed. I honestly don't know if his mental state was such that he believed that he was invincible in his 4WD SUV. I didn't ask. I just saw to it that he was not seriously injured, had a cel-phone, and I went on to work.

But there are a lot of SUVs wrecked out here in the frozen stuff. Might be due to the amount of SUVs that there are here in comparison to the average fwd sedan. But there are a LOT of pickups here and you don't see too many of them wrecked in comparison to the SUVs. So I'm going to go with driver overconfidence.

 

[97tbird]

I agree - It was amazing for me to see some people don't even slow down at all, seeing very well that there's a bridge covered in glittery whitish stuff at below freezing temps in broad daylight - it's not like they can't see! I also witnessed a Jeep Wrangler going through something similar to what you described, only less involved - it spun around and hit the curb after hitting the icy bridge, and came to a standstill, luckily still on its wheels, but facing ONCOMING traffic - i saw the fiasco taking place well in advance, as did the 2 cars behind me, so no other cars were involved and the driver or the Jeep didn't suffer any damage, but dang, why can't you at least slow down?

 

[typ901]

Originally Posted By: rshunter
Stupid knows no socio-economic boundaries...

Oh, and it's probably making the rounds that you are the resident a--hole, FWIW.


Do you work in my office too? HA! Sounds like the crew I work with.

 

[Ramblin Fever]

Originally Posted By: Pablo

As for the topic: Here on the left coast this attitude applies to most males as well.


Here in Colorado, I find MORE men with their 4x4 trucks/suvs with this mindset, and they're usually the ones in the ditch.

The people with the 2wd suv/little truck's are the one's getting home, all but slowly.

Front wheel drive cars are great, and have their place, out where I live unless they've got the same ground clearance as a 2wd truck, front wheel drive or not, they're not getting down our roads.

I've nearly gutted out our minivan a time or two in fact; I have to bring it down another road, back tracking in the winter time.

That said, as long as a car doesn't get high-centered, I'd say most of them are just as efficient in snow as a 2wd suv. I own a 2wd suv and I will say I have pretty chunky tires on it because it is a 2wd, this thing will actually move out faster from a light then the guy sitting beside me in a 4wd suv with typical tires on it.

However, that guy in the 4x4 will take off flying down the road, believing he can easily stop at the next light on a whim cause of the 4x4.....hehehehe...these are the ones I love watching fly through the light barely missing another car.

I also own 2 trucks that are 4x4's neither of them have an advantage over my 2wd suv that I've needed/used them for.

In our neck of the woods in town though, I generally find it's the little cars that are going up/down the roads too fast when the weather turns bad, as well as people who own actual trucks, not the suv's.

 

[bigmike]

Originally Posted By: Pablo
Quote:
my work place has about 80% female employees


One word: Lucky



My place of work is almost all female. I've never considered myself lucky in any way. It is the most painful work environment I've ever been in.

I seek solace with the only other guy in my department and we wonder what did we do to deserve this?

 

[mpvue]

marketing. salesmen and commercials make people think 'SUV's are safe.
women generally feel safer being higher up in a vehicle. they may throw around phrases like 4WD but they don't really/always know what it means (met quite a few men who are ignorant about it as well).
got passed this morning by a few pickups, and a GMC acadia, and some big trucks. the sensible (most all of us on the road this morning, it seems) were in the right lane around 35-40mph.

after 20+ years driving in the NE, I'm convinced it's all about the tires.
and experience/skill.
I've NEVER gotten stuck in the snow so much that I couldn't maneuver my way out of it.
I really don't need 4WD or AWD, only ever had one 4WD vehicle for 1 winter, all else has been FWD for the last many years.
best snow vehicle I ever had was a saturn SC1 w/ skinny all seasons. couldn't get stuck in that car. I could go uphill in the snow and go around and pass cars that were spinning out.

 

[d00df00d]

Amen on the comment about tires. They are always a make-or-break factor. AWD almost never is.

A friend of mine's father drives a 2003 BMW 330xi (AWD) with all-season tires. He got stuck on the road one day. His son drove out in a 2005 BMW M3 (RWD) with snow tires, drove through the same snow that got his father stuck, picked him up, and came home...

 

[Diesel_Clatter]

Originally Posted By: simple_gifts
All the other factors being = (tires, what WD it is) the SUV has advantage of ground clearance.

It is not a comforting thing to be in a sedan (1984 caprice), be in a rural area (south central PA) and have the unplowed fallen snow start to drag on the underside of the car....


+1, you beat me to it...

Even if the owners don't realize it, extra ground clearance is a significant advantage for the small SUV in the snow. Even the best snow tires are useless if they can't reach the road!

 

[d00df00d]

And how often is the snow exactly high enough to prevent a decent car from moving, but not high enough to impede a small SUV?

Of course there are some people who absolutely must be prepared for that eventuality, either because they live in an area where it happens often or because their job absolutely requires them to report for work regardless of weather conditions. The point is that those people constitute a very small minority of the people who actually buy SUVs "for the snow."

 

[Spazdog]

Originally Posted By: mpvue
...
best snow vehicle I ever had was a saturn SC1 w/ skinny all seasons. couldn't get stuck in that car. I could go uphill in the snow and go around and pass cars that were spinning out.

Chrysler Sebring Convertible with General copies of the Goodyear Aquatread.

4 inches of ice covered in 6 inches of snow? No problem. I drove the Chrysler to work in the ice, decided to take the shop's Comanche 4X4 pickup home, went about two blocks and went back to get the Chrysler. The Comanche would go but I could not get it to steer. The Chrysler took a light foot and sometimes 2nd gear to get moving but it would make intentional direction changes.

 

[Diesel_Clatter]

Originally Posted By: d00df00d
And how often is the snow exactly high enough to prevent a decent car from moving, but not high enough to impede a small SUV?

Of course there are some people who absolutely must be prepared for that eventuality, either because they live in an area where it happens often or because their job absolutely requires them to report for work regardless of weather conditions. The point is that those people constitute a very small minority of the people who actually buy SUVs "for the snow."



Well we have had a few occasions here where my ION has been unable to plow through snow that our Corolla, with a smidgen more ground clearance, has been able to handle.

Then again, you did say "decent" car!

 

[d00df00d]

Originally Posted By: Diesel_Clatter
Well we have had a few occasions here where my ION has been unable to plow through snow that our Corolla, with a smidgen more ground clearance, has been able to handle.

Then again, you did say "decent" car!

Hey, I think they're both decent cars.

You said this happened on "a few occasions," and that's exactly my point. Most people don't live where snow actually does pile up that high and often enough that it would seriously impede their lives. For those that do, then yes, a good SUV with a good AWD system and good tires would be the perfect choice. For most folks, the extra ground clearance of an SUV only matters maybe one or two days out of the year at most, and the odds are minimal that the snow would happen to catch them unprepared or on a day when they absolutely had to drive.

I can see how people would be afraid of snow and thus driven to get a vehicle that can get through it; I'm just saying a lot of people who buy SUVs "for the snow" haven't really been circumspect about it.

 

[mpvue]

Originally Posted By: Spazdog
Originally Posted By: mpvue
...
best snow vehicle I ever had was a saturn SC1 w/ skinny all seasons. couldn't get stuck in that car. I could go uphill in the snow and go around and pass cars that were spinning out.

Chrysler Sebring Convertible with General copies of the Goodyear Aquatread.

4 inches of ice covered in 6 inches of snow? No problem. I drove the Chrysler to work in the ice, decided to take the shop's Comanche 4X4 pickup home, went about two blocks and went back to get the Chrysler. The Comanche would go but I could not get it to steer. The Chrysler took a light foot and sometimes 2nd gear to get moving but it would make intentional direction changes.

w/ stick, what I do is start in 1st and short-shift to 2nd; if there is a drift, i just let the weight of the car roll though it w/o throttle. driving in the snow w/ a stick is a lot of fun.