Need advice on 4 wheel dtrive cars.

[Zebo]

What does everyone else in your area drive?

You can always get a new grand cherokee with their adjustable suspension. Turn a knob and your ground clearance can go from 6.5" to 10.6". The cheapest grand cherokee its available on has a $32K MSRP.

Yeah Grand Cherokee is really luxurious too.

 

[Bignate603]

I thought that was only available on the high end Overland? Is their transfer case full-time or part-time?

Jeep's site says its standard on the Overland and optional on the Laredo X and Limited. Maybe it was only on the overland for the 2011 model? You need to check the box for "Offroad Adventure Package II" which includes the quadralift suspension. It's a $2k option but it includes a bunch of other stuff too like skid plates and tow hooks (for the next time he needs to get dragged out of the snow 😉 ).

Funny, the USAA site let me put it on the normal Laredo which brought down the price a bit. Jeep's website is showing the cheapest model with the air suspension has an MSRP of $36k after you add the option for the upgraded suspension.

One more thought, when you got your ranger stuck how much did you have in the back? Pickup trucks can be absolutely terrible in the snow because of their light back end not getting enough traction. Throw a bunch of heavy bags of sand in the back and it will help the back wheels get traction.

 

[Zap]

As the snow depth kept getting deeper and deeper. And by the time I lost forward momentum if was a good 12 inches deep. And kept getting deeper further forward. I tried reverse and that was hopeless.

Er, what kind of tires were you using? I've seriously gone through 12" deep fresh snow in my Mazdaspeed 6, where my car just left a trench. I've even stopped and started, and gave co-workers joyrides. ^_^ My car is AWD and I use snow tires in Winter, but otherwise it is a Mazda 6 mid-size sedan.

 

[SpatiallyAware]

It sounds to me like you could use some lessons in driving in snow.


If a stock 4wd ranger can't safely get you through then it's not safely passable in anything. Even larger tires won't help more than 5% or so, not enough to make it where you can just plow through anything

There are all sorts of tricks; rocking back and forth, chains, winches, plows.. But you really need to know how and when to use them.


I've driven my 2wd non-lsd ranger through 12" snow with 2'++ drifts with minor problems. IE you're doing it wrong.