Thoughts? I live in a wintery biome so having awd gives me a bit of peace of mind
AWD helps, but knowing your vehicle and how it performs in the snow, will get you further than fancy devices. Now having the skills AND the fancy devices will take you almost anywhere.
when I was a kid, living on the prairies, the first winter I had my driver’s licence I went out to this big huge and very empty parking lot and started off having fun doing doughnuts. but then I started getting a feel for how it responds when it’s on the edge of control. and was practicing skid turns, regaining control etc. A RCMP car eventually came by, and just sat there for a min or two. I was thinking Uh oh… but he flicked on his lights, and I came to a stop, he walked over and asked what I was doing. I guess I gave the correct answer “learning how to drive in the snow”. He told me he got a “stunting complaint”, but he could clearly see that I wasn’t doing it entirely for thrills, or I would have been just burning those doughnuts. He gave me a few tips, on how to recover from a skid better, and told me to knock it off at that location but told me about another lot I could try and practice a bit more.
That interaction has literally saved my life a number of times, by giving me the skills early on how to recover when the vehicle is at the edge of control. I worked a career driving, never ended up in the ditch (touch wood) and have driven through the hairiest storms you can imagine.
Learn your vehicle, learn how to push it to the edge, and how to come back. (but do so in a safe place)
I live in south-west Ontario and drive a RWD sports car all year round.
There’s nowhere I need to be that I can’t get to in the winter with the right tires and attitude. I’ve also driven it across to New Brunswick 3 times now over Christmas and through some gnarly snowstorms.
As long as the snow’s not building up on the road and bottoming me out, I’m good.
AWD is awesome. I love my subie. But don’t delude yourself. In ski resort parking lots I’ve seen FWD shitboxes drive around stuck 4WD pickups because they just slammed the gas and their shitty tires couldn’t make it up a hill. Good driving habits > good tires > all wheel drive. All three is awesome, but you should worry about winter driving in that order
I’ve seen FWD shitboxes drive around stuck 4WD pickups
This is me, I love driving in winter and I drive an old manual civic. Last winter I drove through the mountains between the Saguenay and the Malbaie (Quebec) during a couple of good blizzards. It’s a winter wonderland. You have to be really good at driving when your car’s basically belly on snow though and I can’t tell you how many SUVs are constantly in ditches along the 170.
Totally agree. But I’d rather have good driving habits, good tires, and awd than just the first two.
I dont buy the argument from others that being safer means you will drive less safely.
If I saw a study that showed a clear increase in preventable accidents in awd vehicles in winter, I would reconsider my position that awd is generally better than fwd
Awd doesnt help you stop or turn. Thats when you go in the ditch and get stuck. AWD is not a safety feature unless you live in the mountains.
I’ve owned several FWD EVs in what I’d consider the wintery parts of BC (snowfall of 8+ meters anually) and the amount of times I got stuck as a result of not having AWD can be counted on one hand. Good driving habits and high-end winter tires are much, much more important than having AWD or not.
That said, the times I did get stuck were mostly a bit annoying if not embarassing (due to holding up traffic). Only once (while climbing a steep hill) did it actually get a bit sketchy due to backsliding, but that happened to every vehicle that had to come to a stop on that hill.
Yes sure, but not at any cost. Not only are they generally more expensive to own, insure, and maintain, AWD adds weight to a vehicle which makes it harder to stop. The best winter car I’ve ever owned to this day is still a small Fiat Panda. It was FWD and tiny, but importantly very light and with all the primary weight over the driven wheels. With good (studded) winter tires it got up hills in snow where my wife’s AWD SUV was struggling.
I mean, doesn’t that depend on the cost?
If it was $100 increase to avoid that, sure.
But if it’s significantly more, then I’ll take the cheaper car.
I’ve driven an EV for five years and made a 50km daily one way commute over rural, highway and city streets for 15 years. I live in Canada and we get snow , freezing rain and more weather. In my experience good driving habits > AWD all day everyday.
Pay attention to the road conditions, don’t drive faster than the weather will allow, get winter tires, keep your brakes maintained, drive a safe speed even when others are impatient, leave room to stop, if the weather is bad enough don’t leave at all, if you must leave plan to leave early enough that you aren’t tempted to make bad driving decisions such as speeding. This isn’t rocket science, but over the last 15 years and 540,000 km I have seen several impatient people pass me in the winter weather just to end up seeing them again in the ditch within 10 minutes. That includes 1 4x4 truck, 1 AWD SUV and at least 2 sedans.
The Bros in the truck all had to climb out the passenger side since it landed on its drivers side, the lady in the SUV was stuck down in the gutter and told me not to worry, she’d call a tow, and in the case of one sedan I ended up driving this small family home, car seat and all. Will AWD help you get yourself out of a slick parking spot, or start up at a red light? Sure, maybe, it depends. But it isn’t really going to help with much else and doesn’t come close to just learning to drive to the conditions.
Are you saying 2wd is safer than awd?
If good driving skill is equal, I mean.
Edit: since bluegill blocked me, ill update here… the argument could then be extended to saying summer tires is safer because it reminds you how bad things are, too
You mentioned in another thread to use all seasons instead of winter tires, so I won’t take safety advice from you on anything to be honest.
I didn’t block you, I don’t know what you mean, I’m also not the person who uses all seasons.
What do you mean by “good driving skill?” Humans almost all get over confident if they don’t get constant feedback that things are slippery, so 2wd with the constant reminder that things are bad will give you that feedback and thus you drive slower, which in turn makes it seem like you are a better driver who doesn’t get overconfident.
If you can avoid the over confidence problem and drive as slow as conditions demand, AWD is better because when you must stop at an intersect you can accelerate out of the stop sign faster and thus clear the intersection before the next idiot going too fast slides around a blind corner and into it. However I have no confidence that you can avoid that over confidence and so 2wd is safer because most of the time you are not in an intersection.
Adding to this, AWD gives people a false sense of security and often leads to riskier driving behavior. It’s just like you said, there is absolutely no substitute for knowing how to handle difficult road conditions, anything that extends your confidence beyond your ability is dangerous.
I use all season tires year round. Unless you live in a very remote or hot part of the world: anytime it snows the city/county/state brings out the plows and salt and cleans the road. Yes winter tires are better on ice, but in reality you are almost never driving on ice anyway so it doesn’t make much a difference. Just slow down when it is icy and summer tires are fine. And you need to do that anyway because winter tires are better, but they are not perfect.