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Re: traction Posted by Snowmobile [Email]  (#686)  [Profile/Gallery]
(more from Snowmobile) on Tue, 26 Feb 2013 10:46:47
In Reply to: Re: traction, Tom G  [Profile/Gallery]
, Tue, 26 Feb 2013 05:35:48
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I think traction largely comes down to tires, but having all 4 wheels driven really helps in some situations. We did a 4 hour trek through the rockies in a blizzard at night in an Outback rental, and the awd + clearance was reassuring. I was actually really hoping the Saab e-awd would materialize on the market in the form of a 9-3X or similar...
The one time I got stuck in a c900, I was playing in a large empty "unplowed" back parking lot, going fast in and then cornering in loops... the catch was the snow depth tapered, and was wet and "semi packed" because plows had moved snow to piles at the end of it... and there was thick glare ice under all this... of course, I didn't realize all of this ahead of time and on about my 3rd loop, the car floated up on the semi packed wet snow and then sunk. no problem, I'll back out (always works on a c900)... uh, nope, every cavity of the bottom of the car was filled with compressed snow and it went nowhere... had to shovel a bit to loosen things and try again... front wheels spun... had hit the glare ice! so at this point, had I had studs or AWD (or kitty litter) I probably could have gently backed out, but I ended up having to dig the whole underbelly of the car out so I could easily back the front wheels off the ice...
normally though, in a c900 with hakkas, it is impossible to get stuck unless the snow is so deep you ride up on it... and if you do, you just back out... I park in snowbanks all the time with that car... but the 9-5, well I don't have as much experience with it...
The subarus can often take on slightly deeper snow than a c900, but I think that is more an issue of clearance, since most of them are raised... the raising on the forester (on an impreza platform) is what makes it handle so bad... so that's the tradeoff... for a regular impreza, the AWD may give a small advantage, but eventually the car is going to ride up on the white stuff... just depends on how deep and how fluffy... that new slightly raised impreza might be a great compromise of height and handling. one of my friends had an impreza outback sport from the mid 90's and that was good in snow - slightly raised but still handled pretty well. they stopped making that style for a while but they are coming back...
The 9-5 does not seem as good a snow car as the c900, even on a lightly snowy highway, or crossing piles of slush at highway speeds, - it just feels more skatey than the c900's, but it is still not bad (but that may just be 215/55R16 Hakka R vs 185/65R15 Hakka4)... the unfortunate thing with c900s is that they love the snow, but it's not worth taking the nice ones out in it anymore for fear of rust due to all the bloody salt! I have a nice one for summer and a beater for winter...
, Thu, 21 Feb 2013 14:28:16, Fri, 22 Feb 2013 18:14:50, Thu, 21 Feb 2013 19:26:25
, Thu, 21 Feb 2013 18:18:02, Thu, 21 Feb 2013 17:33:18, Thu, 21 Feb 2013 14:45:55, Tue, 5 Mar 2013 09:22:04, Fri, 22 Feb 2013 10:01:34, Sat, 23 Feb 2013 04:13:15, Sat, 23 Feb 2013 18:53:18, Tue, 26 Feb 2013 05:35:48, Tue, 26 Feb 2013 10:46:47 <-- Viewing This Message, Fri, 22 Feb 2013 09:51:24
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