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

Going back a bit further, my buddy had a Chevy Corvair. With the rear engine near the drive wheels, and the low center of gravity, it did real good as long as there wasn't more than a couple of inches of snow.

The car had low ground clearance, and there was a smooth, flat pan under the whole bottom of the car, it seemed. It only took 3 or 4 inches of snow for that pan to ride up on top of the snow and lift the rear wheels off the pavement. The car would come to a stop, with the rear wheels spinning in air.

Sort of like the turtle on the fencepost. For that reason, my vote for worst snow car goes to the Chevy Corvair.

Best snow/ice vehicle I ever owned was a 1963 Series II Land Rover, long wheel base, diesel/manual. I pulled many unfortunate motorists out of ditches with that truck - it was unstoppable. The worst vehicle I ever owned was a 1999 Jaguar XJ8, but it sure was purty (and it completely sucked in the snow and ice).

I’ll drive the skandic

Lil toytotas with blizzaks work good.

While I’ve not owned one myself, sis has one Lil Subaru’s are ba in snow

A lot of weight over the drive wheels in those tornadoes!

My old '81 Toyota Hilux with a half ton of coal in the bed and rear wheel chains was able to push through bumper-high snow one Christmas.

I didn't unload the coal until the roads improved.

I don't know what this guys on about-Gremlins worked great in WI winter weather. Just get 'em going as fast as possible, shunt them into a ditch when still near town ideally, pull the plates, and walk on home. Don't worry about the car, the plow drivers crushed them for you, just buy another POS Gremlin or Pacer for $50. It was all part of being a young guy in the upper midwest in the '80s.

Until a cop stopped you and MADE you move the tire chains to the back wheels, "because that is where the law says they have to be".

Had a couple friends of the family who drove Tornados and El Dorados back in the mid 60s through early 70s, before anyone knew what FWD was. One of them had to cross Cabbage on I84 with the chains on the back end because a State Trooper had sub human intelligence.

The best in the snow was a 1998 Nissan Pathfinder. The worst was a 2006 Ford Ranger. If a dog peed on the rear tire it would spin the tire on the wet spot. Didn't keep that one long.

Hard to beat a Subaru in the snow. Most of them have a surprising amount of ground clearance. I’m just sick of fixing mine though.

2wd pickups suck azz in anything slick. Especially compact trucks. Better have chains and some ballast if you want to get anywhere.

yea, actually I didn't know there wasn't an AWD version

I got rid of an S-10 because it would fish tail as soon as the road got wet - and I wasn't an aggressive driver. That back end was just too light. Yes I could have put weight back there but it was ridiculous.

I remember as kids we used to sit around dissing Ford or Chevy or Dodge and a big argument among us - as if 11 year old boys knew what they were talking about - was that 4WD was really 3WD because on 1 wheel in the back was spinning. I don't think we knew about posi track or limited slip being 11 years old in 1977 but I've always wondered if modern 4wd still worked that way versus AWD distributing power where/when needed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNCDaRnF-k8

This probably can't be beat.

That is why I took the OEM tires off my new 2018 Forester which I bought in October. I had read that they were not good in winter conditions, even though they were AT tires. I put on the Nokian snow tires and have been out in 2 snow storms and love them. I'd rather have a FWD car with good winter tires than an AWD vehicle with ATs or all-seasons. It's more about the tires than the cars, but an AWD SUV with good ground clearance and great winter tires will go thru just about everything so long as the driver has a clue about how to drive in winter conditions (slow down and start gentle braking early).

All you had to do is get rid of the cheap OEM tires. Of the 3 vehicles in our family (Subaru Forester, Kia Optima, Hyundai Elantra) ALL have had their OEM tires replaced within the first year (my Subaru and the Elantra were replaced within a couple months). If you had put either dedicated winter tires on that Forester or, the Nokian all-weather tires, your experience would have been quite different. I don't understand the thinking of car companies saving a few bucks by putting such crappy tires on their vehicles. I now assume whenever buying a new vehicle that the tires will be replaced very quickly after purchase. I've had a manual Outback, an auto Outback and now an auto Forester. All have been great in snow with good tires. I've never got stuck, never spun out, never had an accident due to conditions, never felt unsafe while driving any of them. Regarding that creeping, sounds like you should have taken it to the dealer. I've never experienced anything like that in any of my Subarus or those my friends drive. It is not a usual situation.

Worst car I ever owned (on snow or any road condition) was a 1973 AMC Hornet. When I owned that POS I could barely afford the cheapest budget tires that I had on it, so that had a lot to do with it, but it was just a bad car all around.

Remember the old AMC Eagle?

Used to see them a lot in PA when I was a kid and visiting.

We just sold a 2008 Outback that I drove for years and eventually handed down to my son...Pretty hard to beat for winter driving.

They might be the best snow vehicle going, but I could never overcome the stigma of being seen in a Lezbaru.

Windfall;
Good morning to you sir, I hope that the week treated you okay and this finds you well.

Having grown up in a spot on the planet where there was often snow 5 months a year - Saskatchewan - and then spending the last 33 years in BC where we usually have only one month of snow, but all the roads are either going up or down and ditches don't exist - I'd have to suggest there's snow and then there's snow, you know?

In Saskatchewan where it got cold and the roads were pool table flat, as long as you stayed between the ditches almost any heavy vehicle would work with a variety of rubber. Even off road our '80 Toyota 4x4 pickup worked great there, but was sprung a bit too stiff for the BC skidder haul roads to be great in the snow.

Currently in our yard, there's one daughter's CRV, another daughter's Cherokee, wife's Forester and the family pickup is a Dodge diesel with snow flake/mountain rated snow tires and limited slip rear diff. That's handy because when it snows, without AWD/4WD we get to stay in the yard otherwise.

Said driveway - 105 meters with an honest 24 meters of drop from the main road to the house....


The Subaru kicks everything else's butt reasonably convincingly there - well not this - but it's not a car even by Canuck standards.


It's interesting to me as a Canuck in that if I'd not have been a member of the 'Fire I would never have known about the link between Subaru and the gay community as they either didn't run those adds up here or I didn't pay any attention to them. With regard to my utilitarian transport, I'm inclined toward the same stance we took with mountain horses which was "pretty is as pretty does".

So far my good wife hasn't left me for an alternate lifestyle because of driving that Forester, but I suppose now it's another thing I can stress over.

Anyway sir, sorry for being characteristically long winded, but again to summarize, there's snow and then there's snow. If you're travelling 7% grades to get to work and those roads are more like oatmeal poured onto a glass coffee table than not, then that's what we use up here. Dittos on the good tires too of course - Firestone Winterforce are the family favorite now, but Nokian and Blizzak are good too, just a bit more money.

All the best to you and all my campfire friends this Christmas Season whether it's snowy white or not.

Dwayne

This works even on ice https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbt...d/Number/59593/filename/plow24hrsize.jpg

I drove from Kewaunee to Marinette WI in that blizzard. LOTS of cars in the ditch and more than one took out a highway sign. Almost all of them were SUV/4x4 types that were driving way too fast for their brakes.

I made the trip in a former cop car. The limited slip was my friend tho my tires are shot (actually replacing them today). That car with it's big ass and ability to spin the tires on both legs kept me going fine and got me through quite a bit.