Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Best/worst snow cars or trucks?

We had 9.5 inches of snow here at the house on Wednesday and yesterday I took a short road trip and saw at least a dozen cars and trucks still stuck in the ditches. People do forget how to drive in this stuff, but that said, some cars and trucks are more prone than others to spinning out and ending up in the ditch. What did surprise me a little was the number of trucks and two Avalanche's in that mix yesterday. The whole eastern half of the country had bad snow last week and lots of the southern states don't have the big road equipment or salt/sand trucks to help with the slippery road conditions. My vote for the worst slippery condition car goes to the Pontiac Grand Prix as I've seen more of those in the ditch than any other model. My old Saab 99 was my best snow car. How do you see it?

In a 2 wheel drive vehicle, my wife's Honda Accord was great in the snow.

I see a lot of Kia Souls with their wheels in the air

I once had a Corvette that could get stuck on an icy patch with cable chains on.

My wifes stock Subaru forester is probably a better vehicle in snow than my totally factory spec 76 CJ5

The open diffs of the CJ were pathetic where the Subaru can direct power to the tires that need it much better in a millisecond!

I'll go out on a limb here and suggest that the subaru design might be as good as any factory produced consumer vehicle ever made

My wife had a Explorer, studs on all four and the all wheel drive was the best snow right we've owned. She now has a CR-V Honda all wheel drive that doing good! I don't think it will do as good as the Explorer because of weight! Front wheel drive with studs work well, my daughter's Toyota Camry gets around real well! I think is more the driver that the automobile that puts cars in the ditch!

On crappy roads my Subaru Crosstrek will run circles around my full-size pickups all day long.

My Nissan 350-Z is worthless even when it's sleeting which it's doing today.

The one vehicle I've tried really hard to buy but never owned was a mid 2000's AWD Astro Van. They have a really good reputation in bad weather.

Agreed for the most part. Had AWD Saturn Vue and Chevy Equinox AWD as company provided work vehicles and they both sucked. Had a '15 Subaru Legacy that was capable, but not comfortable. Had several FWD Dodge mini-vans that w/Blizzaks were very capable and secure. Current diesel Super Duty will claw through some mighty deep and hard-packed snow but the light rear-end and very heavy motor out from make it less secure-feeling than something that's balanced better and true AWD. Current AWD Nissan Murano seems secure and capable even though currently sans Blizzaks but we're just barely into winter, I'll know more in 3-4Mo.

The consensus of many experts (and my experience concurs) is that the Subaru AWD system is unbeatable for snow. My new Forester is so far no different. It's supposed to be even better going up and down tough grades with it's X Mode (which my old Outback did not have.) I had a front wheel drive Toyota Tercel in my early days that was pretty good in the stuff too.

i've had a couple of subarus and a couple of toyota rav 4s both great in snow. i prefer the rav 4 i agree with the above statement on full size pick ups except in really deep snow.

Ed

Subaru's are pretty hard to beat in the snow. That said, my wife drives an AWD Ford Edge and it does well in the snow, even without dedicated snow tires. With real snow tires I suspect it would be fantastic. On the down side, the Edge gets horrible fuel milage (20-22mpg) and the PTU (Power Takeoff Unit, basically the transfer case) has failed every 20,000 miles, we've replaced it 3 times (under warranty, thankfully).

I’m thankful we don’t have that cshit here, it’s just 150 degrees in the summer for three months

The 5-speed manual Forester with studs that my wife drove around when we lived in Anchorage was quite noteworthy. Subaru AWD is different for manual vs auto trans - the manual is full mechanical (no brains no headaches, power when you want it) but the auto wants to do too much for you, to the point of pulling all power when you're trying to cross a busy intersection and it senses enough slippage...screw that. You couldn't pay me to drive an auto Subaru.

I drove a '96 buick roadmaster wagon around anchorage and it was no big deal, except the abs sometimes let the car creep when coming to a stop at slick intersections...had to put it in 2 or N. Too much push at idle from the RWD.

Any vehicle with low COG, even weight distribution and good winter tires should work well. I'm a big fan of a manual trans for snow/ice, for positive engine braking. Getting around Anch in my old crewcab ford 5-speed 4x4 on all terrain tires was easy as a downshift slowed you down very effectively and under control.

It was slick a couple weeks ago when I dropped into Anch for work - the rental AWD Toyota sienna minivan went along very well, on all-season bridgestones. Icy everywhere. I was pretty impressed.

Have an Outback (2016) that's a lot better than either my 77 Chevy Step-side or my Dodge Ram 3500 LB 4 WDs.

^^^^^ My first subaru was a 5 speed Impreza which was heads and tails better in snow then my 2003 outback. My 2006 Tacoma 4x4 6 speed manual might be the best snow vehicle I have owned.

My dad showed me how to drive a pick up through snow a long time ago. Fit it with studded snow tires and fill the bed of the truck up with something heavy. He preferred concrete blocks because they were always around.

He used to do that with his '56 GMC step side. Decades later I had the same success in long bed Toyota and several 5 gallon buckets of wheel weights secured in the bed.

A standard 2WD pick up fitted with studded snow tires with about 700lbs of weight in the bed is one of the better snow driving vehicles there is.

I've had 4WD suvs or trucks since '82, and lived in places like northern NY snow belt, Colorado, Alaska, and some more southerly locations like MD, AL, TN, and VA, so observations limited. I also skied so drove into snowy conditions on purpose. Have never used dedicated winter tires, just whatever all season or all terrain tires I'm was running at the time.
So my list:

Worst on snow or packed snow were '86 and '89 Toyota 4Runners. Real light rear end and stiff suspensions like compact pickups. Had to be in 4WD in snow and still had to be careful of rear end trying to pass.

Best ever on snow/packed snow was a '95 Land Rover Discovery. Good all terrain radials, full time 4wd, near 50/50 weight distribution, good coil spring suspension, outstanding traction. Lots of other problems with that truck, but great traction.

Pretty good was my '82 S10 Blazer. Decent tires, good suspension, decent weight distribution, limited power so harder to get in trouble.

My 2000 Dodge Durango was fairly good, but suspension stiffness could start you bouncing if on rutted snowy roads.

My 2005 and 2013 Tundras are good when running in 4WD, but light assed if only in 2wd. Both have been double cabs, the longer wheelbase and a little more weight behind the driver helps. I don't add a lot of weight in the back, but usually have some stuff in the bed. That said, I'm using some new tires this year that look real good in snow so far - Continental Terraincontact A/Ts. I think they will improve snow/packed snow performance noticeably over the oem michelins.

Knowing your limitations helps. Growing up in the upper midwest helped me figure that out with minimal sheet metal bendage

1" of snow here today and coming home and a large mercedes spun out in front of me and straddled the curb bending it's right rear wheel in at 45 degree angle. Fun and games when it snows here.

The 2011 AWD BMW 5 series and the 08 AWD 4Runner I have now are as good on snow as anything I've owned. The edge goes to the BMW though simply because of the traction control that controls pretty much everything to make it do what I want. Helps that I keep decent rubber on both. You see a lot of bald tires around here.

My sister once owned a Hyundai Elantra. She said it was the worst handling car in snow or ice that she had ever driven. She drives a RAV4 now, much better.