Instead of Grit and Salt

[Lindley]

Front wheel drive does provide fairly good control in snow. The problem is starting from a dead stop----the acceleration moment tends to shift the center of gravity backwards, away from the drive wheels. This can result in some spinning in order to get yourself moving.

You'll accelerate faster and maintain better control if you don't let the wheels spin.

If you can avoid spinning the wheels, then certainly do so.

But I'm referring to the situation where anything less than flooring the accelerator causes your acceleration to be zero. That's a condition I encountered during the recent DC storm, after they'd dumped salt (but no sand) everywhere and the roads were full of slush. Once I got moving I was fine, but I had an incredibly difficult time getting my front-wheel-drive car to start moving whenever a light turned green.

 

[RoJoHen]

Front wheel drive does provide fairly good control in snow. The problem is starting from a dead stop----the acceleration moment tends to shift the center of gravity backwards, away from the drive wheels. This can result in some spinning in order to get yourself moving.

You'll accelerate faster and maintain better control if you don't let the wheels spin.

If you can avoid spinning the wheels, then certainly do so.

But I'm referring to the situation where anything less than flooring the accelerator causes your acceleration to be zero.

I'd rather take a few minutes while the car is warming up to dig my tires out of the snow rather than floor it in an attempt to get out. You usually just end up digging yourself even deeper.

 

[Lindley]

That's not an option when you're stopped at a traffic light.

 

[RoJoHen]

Mmm, fair point. At that point I usually let off both pedals and let my car move itself for few seconds before stepping on the gas. It usually helps prevent spinning.

 

[Lindley]

Yes, that approach definitely helps when you have a downhill (or even flat) gradient. Even a slight uphill tends to defeat it, unfortunately.

 

[RoJoHen]

Sadness. Luckily, I live in a very flat part of the country.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

4-wheel drive can give drivers a false sense of security. You can accelerate faster and turn better in slick conditions, but you can't stop any faster. 4-wheel drive doesn't help braking at all.

Quite true. There's no way to compensate for the driver being a dumbass.

It's not always the driver's fault, especially in winter conditions. Black Ice is an enemy to even the best drivers.

Well, no, of course the skidding in itself isn't always the driver's fault. Thinking that 4WD has anything to do with *preventing* skidding is. That's what I meant.

 

[RoJoHen]

Ah. I've never driven a car with 4WD, so I don't know.

 

[Data Holmes]

Ah. I've never driven a car with 4WD, so I don't know.

Nothing will save your ass from ice. I love watching the idiots who think just because their Porsche Cayenne or Escliade has 4wd that they can do 75mph in the snow storms here in NJ. I take great pleasure driving past them sitting outside their, now smashed, 50,000 truck because they spun out and kissed the center divider. Dumb-asses.

 

[Lindley]

4WD is great for making an otherwise unmanageable stretch of road trivial to drive. But that doesn't mean you can get careless.

 

[Dusty Ayres]

Salt and grit are cheap and you can treat a LOT of roadway in a short period of time.

Salt is environmentally unfriendly, and as it enters the groundwater, it damages plants, animals, soil, drinking water, and lake and stream ecosystems. Plus, it does a number on roads as well, eroding them and destroying them, and making it harder to service them (Toronto is Pothole City because of this).

Here's Environment Canada's report on salt damage, and an article on the same topic: Salting the Earth

Grit is a lot better.