Thread Drift

[Crankin]

Well, needing the AWD is what keeps me from having a car that gets better mileage. No amount of gas savings will enable me to get up my street and driveway of 10-15% grades in snow and sheer ice. Plus the downhill descent controller thing helps too. Of course, I am a snow driving wimp, given that I had to learn to do this when i was 37 years old.
I guess now I know why my son traded in the Ford Focus we bought him for a Subaru; while he doesn't live in Seattle, he *is* in California...

[NbyNW]

Of course, I am a snow driving wimp, given that I had to learn to do this when i was 37 years old..

Don't feel bad. At least they plow and treat the roads in your part of the country. AWD doesn't get you very far in Seattle when it snows.

[Biciclista]

Don't feel bad. At least they plow and treat the roads in your part of the country. AWD doesn't get you very far in Seattle when it snows.

lol NO KIDDING!

[Trek420]

Don't feel bad. At least they plow and treat the roads in your part of the country. AWD doesn't get you very far in Seattle when it snows.

I've been told that Seattle'ites have collective short term memory loss and forget how to drive in snow. It snows yearly but rarely and not long or hard. Whenever it does the city does a unified spins around, skids, falls over in confusion.

Or is that an exageration?

[Biciclista]

it's an exaggeration.
A lot of years we don't get enough snow in Seattle for the entire winter to cover the ground white once.
We get good snow every 5-6 years. (I'm not talking about way out there where your old lady lives - they definitely get more snow)
My sons got enough snow to play in maybe 3 times in their entire childhoods, we took pictures each time.

[OakLeaf]

I'll trust that that's an exaggeration for Seattle, but that's EXACTLY how they behave in the Washington, DC metro area.

[SadieKate]

I don't think it matters where you live. Over the summer, the collective always forgets how to drive in the snow or rain.

At least here in Deschutes County you can take a skid car class and learn how to drive donuts legally. Woohoo!

[Crankin]

Yes, they do a pretty good job of plowing and treating the roads here, but if you saw my driveway and how it is totally frozen over for about 2 months, on and off, that becomes irrelevant. We have a guy plow it, but the ice forms from the lack of sun and the constant melting and thawing every day.
AWD does help. I once drove home from work in a blizzard, before the driveway had been plowed. I went right through about 13 inches of snow, up the hill... in a sedan, not an SUV.

[Duck on Wheels]

I don't think it matters where you live. Over the summer, the collective always forgets how to drive in the snow or rain.

At least here in Deschutes County you can take a skid car class and learn how to drive donuts legally. Woohoo!

Surprisingly, it even happens here in Norway where snow-condition driving classes are an obligatory part of driver education (whheeeee! great fun spinning and sliding around on an oil-and-soap-slicked track!). Nevertheless, first day of snow (or supercooled rain that freezes on contact! ) there is always traffic chaos somewhere or other in town; always a driver or two or three who's postponed putting on winter tires until the last minute and then doesn't have time that morning, not to mention long-haul truckers from down on the Continent who don't even own winter tires or chains and who wind up jack-knifed and blocking the freeways here and there. But by day 2 we've got our act together for the rest of the winter ... pretty much ... including stopping long-haul truckers at the borders to check that their vehicles are appropriately "shod" for winter.

As for AWD, yes, we've got that now and it's great, but some cars do fine without. Some are heavy tanks that plow their way through. Some light-weighters seem to float on top yet keep their grip if the tires are good enough. Our old Renault 4 was a champ at getting through snow drifts, axel-deep Spring thaw mud, whatever. I think it was the independent front suspension and FWD that did it. The car seemed to just elbow its way up out of stuff one front wheel at a time. When we did our slick-conditions driving class, DH and I, even the instructor couldn't get our FWD Opel something (compact stationwagon) to do a front end skid, not even when he picked up speed and snapped on the handbrake, while another family's Mazda stationw was all over the road no matter how they tried to pull out of their skids. Some cars just handle better than others. So as for what car to drive in Seattle ... it might pay to ask the AAA how different models perform on the skid-class tracks.