tips for improving traction for FWD winter driving?
- Thread starter takatasan
- 21 comments
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- 3,204
- 2.2L Camry
- NissanSkylineN1
- Xbox??? Who is this Xbox??
Put some bags of sand in the trunk.
- 1,467
- Carrollton, GA
- thaSTIGroe
Roo
Premium
- 7,418
- Hampshire, UK
- GTP_Roo
Be very, very smooth and gentle with your inputs - steering, acceration, braking, clutch if you have one. If you lose control don't just mash the brakes as all the wheels will lock and the car will only slow down if the wheels are rotating.
If you've got traction control and/or ABS it'll do some of the above for you - TC won't allow you enough wheel slip to start in 2nd - but if you still can't pull away with the TC on, try turning it off and pulling away in second as first will just spin the wheels.
In a FWD car?
If you've got traction control and/or ABS it'll do some of the above for you - TC won't allow you enough wheel slip to start in 2nd - but if you still can't pull away with the TC on, try turning it off and pulling away in second as first will just spin the wheels.
In a FWD car?
- 17,099
- United Kingdom
Drive backwards. That or winter tyres.
- 3,475
- Vilnius
Sand bags make perfect sense. Imagine you encounter a steep icy uphill. You come out of your vehicle, take your sandbag and like a ballet fairy you sprinkle the road and save the day!
- 27,205
- United Kingdom
Lightness isn't necessarily a bad thing either. If it's FWD then all the weight is going to be where you want it anyway - over the front wheels, helping with traction.
As Roo says - smoothness is key. Think of accelerating, braking and steering as all using a fraction of your entire grip. You can't use 55% steering and 50% acceleration, as that's using a sum total greater than your entire grip. Want to do more steering? Use less acceleration/braking. Want to have more traction? Wind off some steering lock. Want to turn and brake at the same time? Wiser to do one, then the other.
Oh, and do everything more slowly. It doesn't take much for the wheels to spin, so don't be one of those plonkers who revs the engine like crazy to get anywhere. As you won't get anywhere.
Last resort - take a couple of bits of old carpet in your car with you. No traction at all? Get out, put them under the front tyres, and use them to get off the extra-slippy bit of road you're struggling with. In fact, other bits and pieces are useful too - shovels, warm clothes etc. You never know when or where you may get stuck.
As Roo says - smoothness is key. Think of accelerating, braking and steering as all using a fraction of your entire grip. You can't use 55% steering and 50% acceleration, as that's using a sum total greater than your entire grip. Want to do more steering? Use less acceleration/braking. Want to have more traction? Wind off some steering lock. Want to turn and brake at the same time? Wiser to do one, then the other.
Oh, and do everything more slowly. It doesn't take much for the wheels to spin, so don't be one of those plonkers who revs the engine like crazy to get anywhere. As you won't get anywhere.
Last resort - take a couple of bits of old carpet in your car with you. No traction at all? Get out, put them under the front tyres, and use them to get off the extra-slippy bit of road you're struggling with. In fact, other bits and pieces are useful too - shovels, warm clothes etc. You never know when or where you may get stuck.
Joey D
Premium
- 47,364
- Lakes of the North, MI
- GTP_Joey
- GTP Joey
Just spend the $100 and buy a set of used snow tires and rims, it'll be better than anything else. I found a set of 60% tread winter tires mounted on steel rims for like $70 on Craigslist so it shouldn't be too difficult to get something.
- 3,915
- California
- gdwest1
Being careful, driving slowly, etc.
Dont do anything which starts with a sentiment like
"Yo bro, watch this!"
I have an '01 Camry at the moment, it does alright in the snow. Just take it easy, and brake substantially earlier than you would, but not nearly as hard.
Dont do anything which starts with a sentiment like
"Yo bro, watch this!"
I have an '01 Camry at the moment, it does alright in the snow. Just take it easy, and brake substantially earlier than you would, but not nearly as hard.
- 86,796
- Rule 12
- GTP_Famine
Yep. If you have to get up that slope in the snow in a FWD car, reverse it up. Be bloody careful though - steering inputs in reverse are massively exaggerated and reverse gear gives you boatload more wheel torque than first.
But yes, everything everyone else said about smoothness and stuff. And winter tyres make everything a little bit less difficult, which is always nice.
It's also worth a note that wheelspin isn't always bad - but it takes quite a unique set of circumstances. In the particular set of circumstances I found myself in, roasting the summer tyres so that they then melted through the unexpected snow and found tarmac was the right course of action. Not necessarily a recommended driving technique...
- 5,833
- Right behind you
- SRV2NV
- 3,915
- California
- gdwest1
Umm, you realize a lot of the world has to drive in the snow because work and such continues on?
Unless you're Seattle
But really, not sure what you're adding with this comment...
I see what he's adding. Around where I live, you can drive for an hour and experience a 5000 foot elevation change.
Try alternate routes around areas which may have snow or Ice. Generally, when it DOES snow in my city, it blankets the tops of hills and bluffs. Some main roads travel over them, and as a result, people crash.
- 6,041
- Puget Sound
- Crash852
Umm, you realize a lot of the world has to drive in the snow because work and such continues on?
Unless you're Seattle
But really, not sure what you're adding with this comment...
Over here, in Seattle, snow barely melts during the day and then refreezes as a sheet of solid ice at night. Oh, and we have something called hills.
- 86,796
- Rule 12
- GTP_Famine
Umm, you realize a lot of the world has to drive in the snow because work and such continues on?
Unless you're Seattle
But really, not sure what you're adding with this comment...
He's adding rule 0.
Rule 0 of snow driving is "Don't". If you ignore that then every other piece of advice becomes useful. Personally I ignore Rule 0 as often as I can.
- 17,865
- 509
Over here, in Seattle, snow barely melts during the day and then refreezes as a sheet of solid ice at night. Oh, and we have something called hills.
Yeah we have those here to. You know, with mountains and all that
And the way it refreezes over there isn't really anything special. And over here it doesn't melt for months instead of a day or two. It is simply you guys have no damn clue how to drive in the snow. At all. And it is clear when I watch West-siders attempt to drive in the winter over here.
Honestly, kind of how I react to Coasties talking about the impossibility of driving in snow over there.
nobuffalo
Premium
- 2,692
- USA
I think it's fair to say that with the kind of snow/ice Crash is talking about certain areas of Seattle would have no choice but to pretty much shut down. Considering the size/incline of some of the hills, narrow streets, population density, street side parking, buses and pedestrians rule 0 may be the best to follow by many, whether they know how to drive in the snow or not, whether their vehicle is well equipped for it or not. That said I haven't ever been to Spokane or even spent a winter here in Seattle so I can't compare conditions.
Good advice in here about driving in the snow and your best bets are practice and winter tires(which you don't seem to want).
Anybody drive with studs? I can imagine them making a pretty huge difference...
One thing to look out for, when trying to go up hills with crap tires sometimes it is necessary to really get them spinning, like up to 60-70mph
, just keep your eyes on the temperature guage!
Also in some conditions adjusting your tire pressures may be of benefit.
Good advice in here about driving in the snow and your best bets are practice and winter tires(which you don't seem to want).
Anybody drive with studs? I can imagine them making a pretty huge difference...
One thing to look out for, when trying to go up hills with crap tires sometimes it is necessary to really get them spinning, like up to 60-70mph
, just keep your eyes on the temperature guage!Also in some conditions adjusting your tire pressures may be of benefit.
- 17,865
- 509
There are some condition and road combos that are pretty much undrivable, yes. Generally very steep hills with super slick ice. But that isn't the case every time it snows in Seattle, and certainly isn't the case for the areas around Seattle. The Seattle mindset, generally, seems to be if it snows at all, what-so-ever, leaving the house is just madness. The number of times I saw Westside drivers with chains on in less than a 1/4 inch of snow at WSU was just hilarious. That and how often I'd get asked if Pita Pit was even open because it had snowed 2 inches.
My friend had to make a trip over to SeaTac a few years back when GEG was shut down to pick up his girlfriend. There was about a foot of fresh snow here and several inches on the Westside, but all very drivable and manageable. He said Seattle and the area was bizarre because of how many cars were just left on I-5 because it had started to snow during traffic.
Just one of those mindset things, like how some people think it is impossible to drive RWD in the snow, etc.
I use to drive with studs when I was much younger, but have found they don't offer much benefit 99% of the time and make things worse on wet pavement. Studs only make a difference on very solid ice, and even then a good compound and tread design will suffice. The rest of time, like fresh snow or plowed roads, they make things worse and just demolish the surface.
One thing to look out for, when trying to go up hills with crap tires sometimes it is necessary to really get them spinning, like up to 60-70mph
Spin to you win!
It can help a bit but often you'll find you're not making any progress. I've found just keeping the throttle perfectly steady works out a bit better if you have a bit of a start because you're less likely to start spinning things. And while spinning can work, it does ultimately fail going up a hill in my experience.
nobuffalo
Premium
- 2,692
- USA
Well I'm anxious to see how the Seattle people handle the snow, they certainly can't be any worse than Houston drivers!
Makes sense. 👍
Key bit underlined. The time I'm thinking of was during a nasty ice/snow mixture in St. Louis and in my brothers AE86 on already worn out all-seasons. At the bottom of the hill was only a cul-de-sac so no momentum could be gained from that and there was a flat parking lot off to the side of the road but trying to gain speed and carry it around the turn onto the road wasn't happening for me. The only option was to start midway up the hill and from a stop the tires would spin, no matter the gear or smoothness used. It took some effort but I made it!
