Suggestion for Winter Vehicle! What's your winter vehicle?

[SexEPid]

I am driving a 1982 Toyota Tercel 2-door 4-speed, now, the tires are about the size of a wheelbarrow tire, we've had some ice here, the car is not too great on ice There are 4 new tires on the car(well close to new) does anyone suggest studding the tires, or do they have any other suggestions?

Any other suggestions for winter prep? I am giving the cooling system a nice flush out, I've done the oil change already, whats next fellows?

Pid

 

[Thegonagle]

'88 Subaru 4WD GL Wagon, complete with low range transfer case.

Cost: $450. Fun I've had beating the hell out of this thing: Priceless.

 

[mztykal]

I live in Hawaii...

...what's winter?

 

[Thegonagle]

I'm starting to wonder the same thing. It's going to get up around 70 F here today. Of course it could be 5 F by Wednesday.

I want to ski, damn it! We need some cold weather, so they can start making fake snow over at Afton "Alps."

 

[Thegonagle]

<< Any other suggestions for winter prep? I am giving the cooling system a nice flush out, I've done the oil change already, whats next fellows? >>


Just so I can be of some help, instead of subjecting you all to my brilliant wit , replace the spark plugs and the cap and rotor if they?re more than 10,000 ? 20,000 miles old, and make sure that the wires are in good shape. A strong spark is important if you need the thing to start when it?s below zero out.

A new DieHard Silver is a similarly good investment if the battery in the Tercel is four or more years old. Just stay away from those cheap Exide batteries. In my experience they?re good for throwing away $50 every 2 years (ie; they suck!)

 

[NetworkDad]

I don't even consider studs here in washington state. We MIGHT see one day of snow or ice. Other than that, it doesn't stop raining for 6 months, and the temp stays just above 32 (not cold enough to freeze) but cold enough to drive you nuts.

 

[mesonw]

Narrow tyres will serve you well in snow. They dig in nicely. If you look at rally cars int he snow - they're on rollerblade width tyres!!

 

[CraigRT]

had an 88 LeBaron GTS.. what a champ in the winter!!!

paired up with some cheap winter tires it makes a perfect winter car.. my car had a block heater too so all i did in the winter was plug her in at night and it started up great in the morning, was very surefooted car in the snow though!

i almost bought an 87 turbo model with fairly low kms for 500 bucks incl. winter tires. still thinking about getting one for this winter, as my last LeBaron went bye bye when I got my new car..

but the shadow/sundance, LeBaron/Lancer makes great winter cars (of course no summer tires or bald crappy tires) but with decent tires they rock.

 

[Pocatello]

My winter vehicle? The same vehicle that I always have, a good front-wheel drive Camry. I wish I have an AWD, but front-wheel drive beats rear-wheel drive when the road is slick with black ice.

 

[fastz28]

<< I live in Hawaii...

...what's winter? >>



Texas here.

What's winter?

I do have a Bronco 4x4 so I'm ready for one of those once in a hundred year snowfall.

 

[mithrandir2001]

<< Texas here.

What's winter? >>


Oh, you do get winter down there! When sleet starts falling in Dallas, the whole region shuts down. I've seen it and find it oddly amusing. Texans are terrified of snow and ice.

 

[Kronos]

i agree with Garfang, i want to ski too!! where is the snow at????

for a vehicle AWD is best. Subarus are very good, all have AWD. im looking into a new vehicle soon too but not because of the winter, because my car is falling apart quite fast. hehe

 

[Zenmervolt]

My wonderful 1988 Accord will be seeing me through another winter this year. As long as the body holds on for a little while more and I find a way to plug wherever it is that the water comes in at the rear of the floorpan it will be seeing me through many more winters as well. Studded tires are nice, but they are only an improvement on ice, any other time they make things worse. I would say that you might be better off getting a set of snow chains, that way you get the benefits of studded tires while being able to take them off and put them on more conveniently.

Zenmervolt

 

[Retro2001]

I, sadly, don't own one, but I've heard nothing but good things about AWD Subaru XT6's in bad weather. The are a 2 door coupe, and a precurser to the Subraru Impreza / WRX, made between 1988-1991. My 1993 Subaru Legacy (not AWD) does ok in bad weather, mostly because it sits up so high off the ground.

Will

 

[GTaudiophile]

A Mercedes G520.

 

[Thegonagle]

<< My wonderful 1988 Accord. . . >>

Damn, man, you sure do love that car of yours!

Of course I had quite the relationship with my '87. It's a damn good deal when a car purchased for $600 takes you almost 40,000 miles over 2 years. It would have gone a lot further had I not wrecked it. It was in very nice condition, but it had 208,000 miles when I bought it. I had to lay him down at 247,000 miles.

 

[Dee67]

Sometimes (at least in my opinion) what you keep/put in the car during winter can be as important as the preparations you make to the vehicle itself.

Back with my first car (a 1980 Dodge Aspen) [eek], I had an experience that the following items in the trunk would have proven invaluable:

Shovel
Small bag of rock salt and sand.
Jumper cables
a thick blanket and/or big warm jacket
a cell phone


It was a very cold night, and I had none of the above in the car. There was about 4 inches of snow on the ground, which typically didn't cause me any troubles in my area. I was dropping off a friend (who lived in a VERY small town, out in the sticks, with lots of curves and hills, and a very limited plowing crew) it was about 1:30am when I got him home.

On my way out of his area, there are only 2 roads out. About 4 miles into my journey home I reached a hill (on a curve) that I couldn't get enough momentum to make. On about the 4th attempt, the car made it maybe half way up, spun and went nose first into a huge snowbank. The car was in the snow up to the center of the front tires and the rest of the car was sticking out accross the road.

After numerous attempts to pull out, (or even dig out with my hands) I realized I was freezing and I wasn't making any progress. I left the hazard lights on in hopes someone would see the car before plowing into it (no street lights either), and set on my way to find a house so I could call my friend.

About a mile down the road I found a house, had to wake the people to use their phone (tough sell in the dead of the night being a 6 foot tall guy, with running eyes, nose and a beet red face). My buddy came out and we got it out (eventually).

The moral of this story is, if I had the above things in the car I likely would have "recovered" in 5-15 minutes with minimal trouble. But instead, the car wouldn't start by the time we got back to it, the entire ordeal took well over an hour, I got really sick, and there are a few areas that are just a couple miles further out where it's likely I wouldn't have made it to a phone at all, and probably wouldn't be here today to write this incredibly long-winded story

America's secret weapon of mass destruction

 

[amdskip]

my 81 z28 camaro in northern Illinois

I ain't jokin, this is fun driving until I go into a ditch.

 

[Thegonagle]

<< Shovel
Small bag of rock salt and sand.
Jumper cables
a thick blanket and/or big warm jacket
a cell phone >>


All very good suggestions. I always have some jumper cables, but I've got to find my "trunk shovel." I usually don't keep it in the car in the summer. BTW, buy at least 4 ga. jumper cables. 2 ga. is even better (but more $$.)

 

[UnixFreak]

A lightweight, FWD car with skinny tires in the front. Thats how to get around in the snow. My cavalier goes anywhere without chains or studs. I love it, here in Oregon (where it snows maybe 2" a few times a year, and people think its a huge snowstorm) when people from california or wherever buy a "suv" and get a heavy vehicle, with wide tires. Think about it folks. The heavy vehicle theory makes sense, more wieght to the ground, more traction. But take into account, that, its also more wieght in motion (basic physics) so there is resistance there.. coupled with wide tires (weight is distributed across a larger surface) makes one hell of a squirrelly rig on the snow or Ice. Any basic 4-wheeler nut like myself knows this. So when It snows, I leave the truck at home, and watch the suburbans and excursions, etc. try to stay out of the ditches.

 

[RayH]

If you get stuck, don't forget to try manual traction control:

front wheel drive or all wheel drive: left foot braking + throttle
rear wheel drive: emergency brake + throttle

The trick is to brake just enough to keep any wheels from spinning.

 

[Pliablemoose]

Studded snow tires, & if you're really into it, a set of chains for the trunk. I grew up in the Dakotas, very few times careful driving & studded tires were ineffective.

Live in TX now, & I live in fear of the ice, I could drive to work backwards @ 25 mph in the ice, but everyone else scares the hell out of me, they forget how to drive between ice storms & slam into each other like clockwork:|

 

[thedarkwolf]

I use to have an 81 plymouth horizan beater for my winter car but since it snows like 4 times a year now(global warming ) I dumped it and bought a 2wd 93 nissian truck. It really really sucks in the snow but hopefully my studded snow tires and some weight will help the few times it does snow. I want to pick up a late 80s AMC Eagle Wagon but thats mainly because I just want one rather than fear of snow .

 

[pdo]

I have once hit the ditch exiting the freeway. Almost flipped over but still managed to drive right out of it with my Grand Cherokee. I got my flame suit on for all you SUV's hater.

 

[cyclistca]

Nissan Xterra 4 X 4