Driving in the snow

After my little 2wd truck did so badly on local roads ... and my ex's FWD econobox slid hopelessly down a wicked local 10% grade with freezing rain on it, i did a Google search to find the best car for slippery conditions. I encountered wildly contradictory opinions. Can anyone recommend a car* that would 1) stay in the lane,
2) be stoppable without using terrain features for dissipating momentum, and 3) be able to reverse out, back up that iced 10% grade with a reverse camber and a 100-foot dropoff on the outside? cn

*yes, car. I have no interest in driving a Tahoe or Grand Cherokee or similar gas rapist. Incidentally ... I saw many such hanging off the edge of that iced cliff. Studded tires are verboten locally, and chains = cheating.
Bonus points awarded for a car that meets all these conditions and is still a decent daily driver.

Haha ya those quads give you so much control! Haha I was thinking about getting the treads haha that would be insane!

But in the mean time my "standard" tires will have to get me through the snow, and they will do just fine!

My charger sucks in the snow if you didn't grow up in MI learning how to drive in it. So it's fine for me. I used to drive big fat trucks tho, I missed the one I sold when gas topped $4 a gallon. (ram w/ magnum 360 3/4 ton quad cab 4wd, which got about 9 mpg highway)

cannabineer said:

After my little 2wd truck did so badly on local roads ... and my ex's FWD econobox slid hopelessly down a wicked local 10% grade with freezing rain on it, i did a Google search to find the best car for slippery conditions. I encountered wildly contradictory opinions. Can anyone recommend a car* that would 1) stay in the lane,
2) be stoppable without using terrain features for dissipating momentum, and 3) be able to reverse out, back up that iced 10% grade with a reverse camber and a 100-foot dropoff on the outside? cn

*yes, car. I have no interest in driving a Tahoe or Grand Cherokee or similar gas rapist. Incidentally ... I saw many such hanging off the edge of that iced cliff. Studded tires are verboten locally, and chains = cheating.
Bonus points awarded for a car that meets all these conditions and is still a decent daily driver.

Click to expand...

your best bet would probably be a full size heavy sedan with front wheel drive. i drive an oldsmobile regency (aka the 9 and it meets all of those criteria (i'm aware oldsmobile doesn't exist any more but similar cars do). it does have "traction control" but it engages itself automatically as long as it's on, and it's just a button to turn it off. traction control basically slows the wheels down when you start to skid, so stopping isn't too hard to do. the engine is big enough (3. where i have the power to reverse up minor inclines, but it's still a 6 cylinder so it doesn't eat up the fuel the way a truck does. the traction control helps the spinning that sometimes happens when backing up a hill. because of it's heavy curb weight it tends to "stay in the lane" quite well.

it also helps to shift into 1 on the gearshift in the snow. when you get off the gas the thing just stops lol. brakes not needed.

and as far as every day driving, the car has BALLS and can take a daily beating of city driving. i've had mine since '01.

granny mobiles are sexy. don't let anyone tell you different. they're just jealous of the whitewalls.


edit: i have no idea why the emoticon with the shades is in the post. each time you see the face, replace it with the number 8. seriously, wtf?

I've noticed that eight parenthesis gets interpreted as a smilie. My cheap workaround is eight space parenthesis.

An Oldsmobile Regency? How did you get it to steer and stop on an iced downgrade?? cn