Why your SUV sucks in the mountains

[Norseman]

Legacy, outback, and wrx after 2015 are 5x114 too now. Forester, base impreza, crosstrek still 5x100.

Ah, my news is old news.

[My Pet Powder Goat]

What about tires with macho tread but all-season rubber? Doing the snows + steel wheels vs. new M+S now. M+S were fine on my AWD wagon last year but it's time to replace them.

Specifically thinking about Yokohama Geolandars right now, if anyone has opinions on those.
https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires...cleSearch=true

You don't want anything to f do with the geo squeelers. They came stock on my Subaru forester and they had terrifying snow handling. Never met a tire that lost traction and skidded while braking than those tires.

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[jamal]

Yokohama makes a bunch of different geolanders. Some, I assume, are good tires,. Those ones are different from the oem forester tires (which I agree suck) and people in the reviews seem to like them.

Here's another tire that claims to be good in snow and is well reviewed:
https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires...omCompare1=yes

[summit]

Here's another tire that claims to be good in snow and is well reviewed:
https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires...omCompare1=yes

All season compound with a lot of siping. Probably fine in light snow and not too cold... probably scary shit in the cold or on packed/ice.

Nokian made something similar called the Vatiiva.

[uglymoney]

Can we get some rad tire quiver pics in here?

From left to right all seasons waiting for summer Michelins, Michelins, edit oem Falcons, and in the back some Michelin snows for big days.

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[Rideski]

electric impact wrench

[uglymoney]

To some points above. For any car you can simply Google wheel size for snow tires cardname. Usually several threads pop up. Look for the tallest skinniest tire and smallest wheel that will work.

21 for snows is stupid.

Even in the Alltrack forum people are blinging out there cars buying 18 inch wheels with super wide low profile snow tires. They are blowing a ton of cash for tires that will be way less effective that the skinny taller 205/16/65 that I bought. Plus winter potholes with huge wheels equal blowouts.

They guys with the cheap ugly steelies have the toughest cheapest setups of all. I just hate them for the instant midwest induced rust. At least aftermarket alloys look relatively decent for 15 years.

Also the Harbor Freight impact wrench is a great deal and gets wheel changes done. I literally burned mine up and bought a variable speed Milwaukee which is 400% nicer and about that much more expensive. Ymmv.

[::: :::]

Chaining up

[Cabinfever]

4wheel drive doesn't equal 4 wheel stop.

This


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[reckless toboggan]

4wheel drive doesn't equal 4 wheel stop.

You don't have brakes on all four of your wheels?

That's weird.

Probably unsafe.

[whyturn]

Don't you have like 10 pairs of pow skis, though?

Actually 15. But I did build up over 5 years. Got my last set of new Hakka winters on TGR for $350

[auvgeek]

You don't want anything to f do with the geo squeelers. They came stock on my Subaru forester and they had terrifying snow handling. Never met a tire that lost traction and skidded while braking than those tires.

Yokohama makes a bunch of different geolanders. Some, I assume, are good tires,. Those ones are different from the oem forester tires (which I agree suck) and people in the reviews seem to like them.

The stock tires on the Forester are the absolutely suck. But, as jamal noted, they are not the same as those G015. We have the G015 on our Outback for summer/3-season use, and they handle pretty well in the snow. I thought they were great before we put another 10k miles on them this summer, and now at 25k miles, they're aren't as good in the snow as I remembered. But still WAY better than the ones that come stock on the Forester -- I drove a brand new rental Forester around in the snow in Whitefish, MT last Christmas/New Years, and they are pretty underwhelming. But funny thing is, we still passed about 10 SUVs stuck in ditches (guessing most were driven by locals, because of the location), which brings us back to the point of this thread.

Also the Harbor Freight impact wrench is a great deal and gets wheel changes done. I literally burned mine up and bought a variable speed Milwaukee which is 400% nicer and about that much more expensive. Ymmv.

Problem I have with using only an impact wrench is that you're very likely to overtorque. Much better to torque by hand with a torque wrench, they're not that expensive. YMMV.

[My Pet Powder Goat]

The stock tires on the Forester are the absolutely suck. But, as jamal noted, they are not the same as those G015. We have the G015 on our Outback for summer/3-season use, and they handle pretty well in the snow. I thought they were great before we put another 10k miles on them this summer, and now at 25k miles, they're aren't as good in the snow as I remembered. But still way, WAY better than the ones that come stock on the Forester -- I drove a brand new rental Forester around in the snow in MT for a week-long ski trip, and they are pretty underwhelming.

If the rubber compound is the same then I stand by my comment. The rubber got to hard when cold and were like plastic sleds on my car. Otherwise my mistake.

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[auvgeek]

If the rubber compound is the same then I stand by my comment. The rubber got to hard when cold and were like plastic sleds on my car. Otherwise my mistake.

Based on my personal experience with both tires in the cold, the rubber has to be different. We got stuck in the Forester after we lost momentum on an incline (I forgot to turn off traction control and the stupid computer just stopped transferring power to the wheels) on hard packed snow. Couldn't get started again, all 4 wheels spinning (tried all the tricks: traction control on, traction control off, XMode on, someone pushing, etc). Like you said, plastic sleds. It was an interesting experience -- I've always run winter tires so I've honestly never had a car/truck that was not otherwise stuck just have all 4 wheels spinning and not be able to move. Had to back down to a flat spot to get going again. Never had anything close to that experience with the G015 on our Outback. (Granted, this was a windey dirt driveway/road with about 10" of fresh snow with a track cut into it by a tractor and I really appreciated how well a rental car handled, it minus the rubber.)

Also, the G015 has the 3PMSF rating and the stock tires don't, which I assume is partially due to a different rubber compound.

[blackalps]

Don’t understand why anyone that spends significant time driving in the snow would use anything other than Blizzaks and/or studs.

Tire discussion aside, what do you fine car knowledgeable people think *is* the best car choice for someone that drives an hour each way on 70 every day?

[Mallthus]

what do you fine car knowledgeable people think *is* the best car choice for someone that drives an hour each way on 70 every day?

Assume you’re talking about the part of 70 in the Colorado mountains, probably between the tunnel and Denver.

If so, I’d just pick something comfortable. You don’t need crazy clearance, so you don’t NEED an SUV/CUV, but AWD (not 4WD) will be nice, especially if you have to drive when traction law is being enforced. Buying new with warranty, almost anything will be fine. Buying used, I’ll be the outlier and say avoid Subaru like the plague. I know people love them, but our first (a 2009) we dumped because of chassis rust (Subaru bought it back) and our second (a 2014) blew a head gasket at 45k miles. Won’t make the mistake of buying a Subbie again.



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[auvgeek]

Don’t understand why anyone that spends significant time driving in the snow would use anything other than Blizzaks and/or studs.

I think there are plenty of decent non-studded winter tires besides blizzak. Michelin Xi3, for example.

Tire discussion aside, what do you fine car knowledgeable people think *is* the best car choice for someone that drives an hour each way on 70 every day?

I really like our Subie Outback. Ground clearance of an SUV, handling of a car, long enough to sleep in the back with my wife (I'm 5'11", she's 5'4"). It's my first full-time AWD, and I like not having to fiddle with 4WD selector on the road. The larger engine would be nice at altitude and is supposedly more reliable (head gasket issues are almost entirely with the 2.4, IIRC), but we make do with the 2.4. Is as capable off road as a 4WD truck? Definitely not. Does it drive like a nice car? Definitely not. Does it have the reliability of a Corolla? Nope. But it checks most boxes and balances things pretty well for us, and ours was under $30k.

Another decent option would be a Toyota Rav4 or (if you're spendy) Audi A4 All-Road or Volvo XC70.

[swissiphic]

yeah but I had one of them 4-runers ^^ they were pretty good dicking around at low speed but scary at highway speed

I was spending big coin doing a lot of highway miles so I traded it for a TDi golf, I ended up spending more for the car payment but saving on the gas/repair bills so it cost exactly the same per month to drive a new car instead of a 10 yr old SUV and the car was way less stressful to drive at hyway speed

where it was all about stability/handling when the shit goes down

Over the years, I've owned a sr5 toy p/u, 4 runner, 3 nissan pathfindrs and an xterra.

4runner was the worst for highway driving, the 97 pathy the best. felt like driving an awd car on the highway. Close second was the nissan xterra...lots of mass and felt pretty stable, just didn't have the feeling being glued to the road like the pathy. Preferred all the nissans to the toyotas for driver visibility. Toyotas seemed to have vertically squished front windshields and the a or c pillars too thick. Nissans had more of the old school 'driving in the parents motorhome' big front windshield feel...mo betta for viewing ski lines while driving das highway in winter. Moved into an awd toyota matrix with michelin x ice tires these days for fuel economy. Windshield vis pretty good, handles great on the highway if the snow isn't coastal deep...but sure do miss the clearance of my previous suvies and the rear wheel drive...can't do the trailing throttle oversteer trick for switchbacks, controlled drifts on snowpacked logging roads and u can't jog the go pedal if you lose the ass end on an icy highway corner and snap it back in line...'cause the ass end doesn't drift...so basically the joy of winter driving went from 10 to 4.

[old goat]

wow this thread is a shitshow. my 98 4runner, 4x4 not AWD, with Blizzaks is basically unstoppable in snow. I pull subies out of ditches at backcountry trailheads regularly. not to mention the boneheads that thought it was a good idea to try to drive their FWD economy car with all seasons up a snow covered dirt road (cough, Butler Gulch, cough), also the ones most likely to not say thank you and/or have a bad attitude about me trying to help them.

otoh, I did Iceland for 3 months in winter in a Yaris with studded tires with no issues. but then, I was sticking to paved roads. I'm on the verge of swapping my T4R for a FWD with studs, just to save on gas. My gas costs right now going out to the mountains 3-4x a week is ridiculous.

I've had Foresters, a Legacy and a couple of 4Runners (the first, an 87, doesn't really count since it was a modified short bed pickup, nothing like more recent models). IME the Suby's handle a lot better, at least with AS tyres on both. (I have snows now.) The 4Runner had a habit of fishtailing on dry pavement on tight radius freeway ramps at low speeds and of sliding through intersections on ice, not to mention the time I wrecked it coming around a corner on I80 at 50, in4WD, and hitting a sudden patch of new snow from a squall on otherwise dry pavement (chain controls off). I bounced off the right hand embankment and the center guard rail before coming to rest on the right shoulder alongside 5 other cars who had done the same thing.

I get the the pulling Suby's out of the ditch thing though. You don't want to get high centered on snow in one of them--the wheels stop turning. I've learned that the hard way twice when I thought I could make it out of the drive without shoveling and wound up shoveling on my belly. So yeah, if you're going to be driving in deep, unplowed show, you're better off with 4WD, or at least not Subaru's AWD system.

[blackalps]

Assume you’re talking about the part of 70 in the Colorado mountains, probably between the tunnel and Denver.

If so, I’d just pick something comfortable. You don’t need crazy clearance, so you don’t NEED an SUV/CUV, but AWD (not 4WD) will be nice, especially if you have to drive when traction law is being enforced. Buying new with warranty, almost anything will be fine. Buying used, I’ll be the outlier and say avoid Subaru like the plague. I know people love them, but our first (a 2009) we dumped because of chassis rust (Subaru bought it back) and our second (a 2014) blew a head gasket at 45k miles. Won’t make the mistake of buying a Subbie again.



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yeh I’m not sold on subies. I hear about a lot of issues on them from friends. See them broken down a lot on my commute. But yes. I mean that part of 70. I live near Idaho Springs up in the national forest. Also drive Berthoud a lot. Currently have a 4runner which is great except the gas costs. In the summer I was off-roading deep into the backcountry and camping a lot, so the 4x4 and interior space was nice but the gas is killing me.

[Toadman]

All your problems are solved on what vehicle to get.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/m/9b31...ets-awd-e.html


For the 2019 model year, the Toyota Prius is getting a few updates — updated looks, a couple new paint colors, and a renaming and slight shuffling of the trim levels. Most important, though, Toyota has announced that the model will get an all-wheel-drive version called the Prius AWD-e, which the automaker expects could make up a quarter of U.S. Prius sales going forward. As such, the Prius AWD-e is rated at 52 mpg city / 48 mpg highway / 50 mpg combined

Just be sure to shoe it with winter tires, come winter, of course.

[Meadow Skipper]

Don’t understand why anyone that spends significant time driving in the snow would use anything other than Blizzaks and/or studs.

Hmm, that’s a unique point of view. Anyone else here feel this way?

[uglymoney]

You can get a 6 speed manual Golf Sportwagen AWD for 19k easily right now probably cheaper and such a great car at that price. I am getting upper twenties with a box at sea level with my slightly more upscale and lifted Alltrack which is only a little bit more money...6/72 warranty. Cargurus.

Or just get an Outback 2.5i. A little more money with way better residual values (only matters if you will sell it) and predicted reliability is better.

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[uglymoney]

Hmm, that’s a unique point of view. Anyone else here feel this way?

Having a hard on for one particular brand of snow tires over another is a personal thing. I try not to judge my brothers with the wrong brand.

[summit]

You don't have brakes on all four of your wheels?

That's weird.
di
Probably unsafe.

Since you and other have to be pedantic...

People brake need to decelerate at a much greater rate than they need to accelerate, thus 4WD leads to a false sense of security because you don't start losing traction under regular acceleration with shit tires in conditions that will lead to skids and slides under regular braking/steering, much less emergency braking. People end up in the ditch because of it.

Now do you understand the expression?