I'd think RWD with snow tires and a competent driver would be just fine.
RWD? FWD? AWD? What's best in snow, by how much?
- Thread starter Ws6
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I also should say I've never had winter tires - never even seen them here where I am in VA. Just no reason to bother here for a few, at most, light snows a year and overall mild temps (40s-50s) with a few cold spells. Would be fun to get to try them and see what they are like. All seasons, slow, don't follow close is the name of the game here and it's always worked for me for the 34 years I've driven here in the mid-Atlantic. All the vehicles in the ditches....just driving too fast/following too close is really all but folks go on about it on the intenet and always talk about the tires or 4x4/awd but it's the driver every single time that causes that....slow down, leave a lot of room to slow down/stop, drive within the limits of your hardware and skill.
Yes absolutely. As I noted my old BMW was very good in the snow with the proper tires. It was light years ahead of my ECHO even with great tires.
Yeah I don't think I completely believe that. Even when my daughter was 16 and as about as inexperienced as you can get I know for a fact that the winter tires on the BMW (her daily driver) saved her more than once.
Here in Texas if it snows or ices, don't leave the house even if you have winter driving skills from having lived up north. The other drivers are crazy. It's not worth it.
I thought ALL cars were All Wheel Stop??? I have never had a vehicle that didn't have brakes on every wheel.
So many variables. Tires being the most important, then driver, then snow type, snow depth, snow condition, road condition, current weather conditions and topography. There is no one right answer that's for sure.
My primary initial snow type is dry powder. So dry I can clean my porch off faster with an air hose than a shovel. It packs down pretty well into a solid, and very slick with the sun on it, road base.
I run studded tires on everything, except my company truck and trailers. The difference in tire types is pretty apparent and at times surprising. My FWD Honda is a tank in the snow with one exception. Starting up uphill, which is how my driveway is, is near impossible especially when the snow is deep. Once it is moving though, it wont stop.
My Dad was the ultimate in RWD snow driver. We'd go from Colorado Springs to Breckenridge every weekend in a 79 Mustang with snow tires on the rear only. I remember some nasty blizzards in South Park and we'd just keep going. To this day I don't understand how, but we did. It was skill for sure.
My primary initial snow type is dry powder. So dry I can clean my porch off faster with an air hose than a shovel. It packs down pretty well into a solid, and very slick with the sun on it, road base.
I run studded tires on everything, except my company truck and trailers. The difference in tire types is pretty apparent and at times surprising. My FWD Honda is a tank in the snow with one exception. Starting up uphill, which is how my driveway is, is near impossible especially when the snow is deep. Once it is moving though, it wont stop.
My Dad was the ultimate in RWD snow driver. We'd go from Colorado Springs to Breckenridge every weekend in a 79 Mustang with snow tires on the rear only. I remember some nasty blizzards in South Park and we'd just keep going. To this day I don't understand how, but we did. It was skill for sure.
I'm just suprised folks list tires ahead of driver skill/experience here. @kschachn is right though, you would always want winter tires over all season but I still can't get off just slow down, big following distances, always anticipating as being the #1 way to avoid issues in winter driving vs. tire choice...it's like safety w/PPE....you manage the risk first but you still wear your PPE for when things aren't managed as well as they should have been! For a large part of the U.S., you just don't have winter conditions that from a practicality standpoint, warrant having a winter tire/wheel setup so I always assume that's what we are talking about vs. the areas that clearly have "real" winters and lots of winter condition driving experience and a winter tire/wheel setup is the norm/should be what folks are running.
Yeah, even here, I suppose I could still drive around 99% of the time on decent all seasons, but I'd have almost no reserve traction to take evasive maneuvers when someone else loses control... So far its been twice I've avoided a minor to moderate crash by being able to slow and steer effectively when the other car is getting into my lane...
That's because in some cases without the correct tire the vehicle might not make it out of the neighborhood regardless of skill.
With the general public's car control skills being pretty low, I would prefer a winter tire on other people's vehicles as well which would make for safer streets.
For those who live in an area with snow and have never used a proper winter tire (BRIDGESTONE BLIZZAK, MICHELIN X-ICE, MICHELIN PILOT ALPIN PA4 or NOKIAN'S for example) you will be amazed the control you get back.
You'll never have much more than 50 % of weight on the driven wheels. slightly over going uphill, slightly under going downhill.... with FWD (not all but qute a few) you can be significantly over 50% and likely will be always. 60-70% seems like a reasonable assumption.
He means, the advantage you get taking off doesn't carry over to stopping. Some vehicles have very poor brakes in the rear, hardly doing anything in the best of times.
Sure, you win
My point was about the overconfident people who get an AWD/4WD and are usually the first to end up in the ditch.
P.S. My old Tahoe would disagree about all wheel stop lol, the back brakes worked only when it's full moon out and all the stars aligned with Pluto.
If your braking foot is on the floor, and all four wheels are in ABS active mode, I don't see how the quality of braking components in a limited traction scenario makes a difference. If on a track...yup, totally agree, heat build up, brake fade, etc. are terrible. In the middle of winter, stopping on a snowy road, I don't see how anything other than the quality of the ABS system and tire selection make any difference...AWD, 4WD, FWD, RWD...no difference...
My friend's Saturn L200 with Sumitomo HTR-Z2 was surprisingly great in snow. We were kind of blown away how well it drove with budget all seasons on an old sedan compared to any other non-AWD/snow tire car we've driven.
Yeah, but pedal to the floor ABS stops aren't really what you want in many low grip situations, especially on surfaces with higher static grip than sliding friction, like ice or hard packed snow, or if you are in a corner as once you start to slide the outside rear tire, you may be going sideways for a while until you counter steer and get off the brakes almost totally....
In my experience, 4WD with the front and rear axles locked to the same speed does provide the best straight line threshold braking, as all 4 tires approach the limits of static grip together, which is better than the same vehicle in RWD as its always the front axle which locks first. How much better stopping in 4WD? 10-15% maybe if you are a good threshold braker. I found though that it makes the vehicle a little more susceptible to oversteer under braking in a corner though as the rears lose grip equally with the front tires.
I think some vehicles with part time AWD, they decouple the front and rear axles when the brakes are applied and especially if the stability control is engaged, to allow the brakes on each wheel to work independently?
Anyways there is always an optimum setup of ABS, tires, suspension, weight distribution, etc for a specific condition. Cars are tuned so they can work OK in the majority of conditions and not too scary in any likely condition, and so are snow tires as well.
For example, if you are driving in fresh dry snow on top of clear pavement or gravel, locking the tires totally probably will have the shortest stopping distance, but on ice, locking the tires would be much worse... Or I like to get snow tires with a sharp edge on the shoulder tread so when the tire slides sideways it cuts into soft snow or slush instead of gliding over it, but of course a square edge is bad for hard cornering on pavement....
On snow, if the object is to STOP, abs isn't helping. You want locked wheels, 4 better than 2. But just slowing down- to adjust spped somewhat, you want the ability to steer that abs gives you and gladly give up braking distance.
But I don't know what all this has to do with which wheels are driven.
With ~2500lbs of crafting supplies in the back coming back from a show in Sheboygan mall bucking snow drifts late Sunday night for about 60 miles in my 1982 diesel suburban. Was very hard to see at times and didn’t always know where the road was. thankfully once I got over 41 the plows had gone through.
So Yes definitely possible, I had to deal with overheating that night despite the fact that it was 5 below because my grill kept plugging up with snow. I had to keep the defroster on max and the truck was like a steam room even though I had the windows cracked as far as I could and not getting covered in snow.
If I weren’t in a hurry (and if I had a camera) it would have been an interesting photo when I was hammering the grill trying to get the snow out.
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