I love in the northeast…off a very secondary road…and it snows a lot here. Small stree…so I’ll tell you the cars every family has.
Hyundai Santa Fe, Hyundai Tuscon
Ford Focus, Honda CRV
Mazda CX-9, BMW
Golf, outback, Volvo
Kia, explorer
Two Mazdas
Prius, focus
Prius, Subaru
CRV, Camry
Suburban, some kind of truck
Subaru
Hyundai Santa Fe, Hyundai Elantra
But really…when it snows a foot…things close around here.
And further south…if they even forecast a lot of snow, things close.
I have to laugh because when things close here for snow - schools, etc. - just go down to Dunkin Donuts early in the morning and see how busy it is with cars and loaded ski racks all headed to the ski mountains. A snow day might stop the school buses (rightly so) but those of us used to driving in it with the right vehicles are out and about even with a newly fallen foot of snow. Snow day = ski day. Plus, some of us have to be at work regardless.
50+ years of living in an area that gets plentiful snow most winters - AWD, all season tires. Never had snow tires and have never needed them. I’m sure they don’t hurt but without the need to navigate some mountain pass through the Rockies, we do fine without them.
Car and Driver magazine did a test some years ago comparing AWD vs FWD and RWD on snow and ice, with and without snow tires. I found the link - it’s interesting reading especially for those that think AWD is the best under all circumstances. I’m sure both AWD and winter tire technology has improved significantly since then but the results should still be relevant.
Here’s the article and I’ve quoted the summary from the end.
http://www.caranddriver.com/features/winter-traction-test-what-price-traction
"*So What’s the Bottom Line?
Four-wheel drive helps get cars going. When it comes time to brake or change direction on low-traction surfaces, the extra mass of the driveline becomes more of a detriment. Folks who live in hilly places that get snow may need the climbing capability of four-wheel drive. If it snows a lot in those hilly places, they should probably invest in winter tires, too. Even flat-landers who happen to have steep driveways may wish to consider a four-wheel-driver.
Almost everyone else will most likely be better served by using winter tires. Acceleration takes longer, but in an emergency, the handling behavior and improved lateral grip of two-wheel drive and winter tires – in the slippery stuff – are the safer bets.
Winter tires boosted the rwd Benz’s acceleration times more than they did the fwd Audi’s, but in almost every other test, the inherently front-heavy Audis derived more benefit from the winter rubber than did the more evenly balanced Benzes. This finding certainly suggests that front-drive cars benefit from winter tires as much or more than rear-drivers do.
And finally, unless snow or ice covers your roads many times in a winter, the snow benefits of winter tires may not outweigh their drawbacks on dry pavement.*"
Not being a user of winter tires, what exactly are the drawbacks on dry pavement?
Snow tires handle differently on dry pavement than all season or summer tires. They’re not as ‘sporty’ and you can’t push your car’s performance as you would normal tires.
Snow tires have different tread patterns on them, which are designed to dig through the snow and channel the snow away so it doesn’t compact into the tread. Snow tires on drive pavement tend to be noisier than standard tires, and they have less of a footprint on the road, so they don’t handle as well, they also on dry pavement drop the fuel mileage due to extra drag (I seem to recall it was the tread pattern that did that).
AWD versions do weight more than fwd or rwd, that is true, which cuts down their MPG (ever notice when they advertise SUV’s gas mileage, it is for the 2 wd version?). That said, modern AWD units weigh less than the old part time 4WD vehicles, and because they have a viscuous coupling system that apportions power to the wheels, they operate a lot more efficiently, there is less driveline drag and losses compared to a 4 wd system, whether the 4WD was engaged. Cars like Ferrari, and cars Porsche and others put out, came with AWD, not for bad weather, but to improve the handling of some of their supercars, they had specific reasons to do so that had nothing to do with snow.
I am not going to disagree with the Car and Driver assesment, but I would argue that if you look at a typical driver, with typical driving skills, and AWD car might be more beneficial across a range of driving conditions, AWD can help in snow and slush but also can help in rain as well (and that is just my opinion). AWD is a weird beast, there is a kind of 2 edged sword with it, it can get you out of some mucky situations, like a parking lot that hasn’t been plowed or a muddy dirt road, and it can also give people enough confidence they don’t get nervous or scared about bad weather, and drive like the world is gonna end which leads to bad driving habits. On the other hand, as others have mentioned, you get the idiots, especially in the big SUV’s like the suburbans, explorers and the likes, who think AWD means “All Way-out Driving” (the $**%%(! adds that Jeep put out, showing the Cherokee on a snow filled road plowing along at a high speed was absolutely irresponsible, despite the fine print that says "professional driver on a closed course, don’t do this at home), among other things, the extra mass of those vehicles, which can be almost double a small AWD vehicle, also means that they are harder to steer out of a skid, take longer to stop, so when doing 70mph on a highway they are basically an unguided missile if they go out of control.
In terms of the OP’s post, if 30k is your upper end let’s say, you can get a lot of decent cars, both used and new. You can get a decent used volvo (which @doschicos is right, is built like a brick outhouse), you can get any number of the crossover/small SUV’s (CRV, Forester, Subaru Outback, Rav4, Mazda CX5/7, Hyundai Santa Fe, Ford Edge, the smaller jeeps (whose name escapes me), so you have a lot of choices. Unless they are planning to go truly off-road, any of that kind of vehicle should do well for them, after that it will be a matter of taste. Keep in mind things like fuel efficiency if they have to drive a long distance and use that in making the decision, too. I suspect given where she will be that all weather tires that come with the car will work fine, snow tires IMO are important in areas with heavy snowfalls more than just typical winter condition areas.
I own a Volvo. It is my third Volvo. Unless you get All Wheel Drive (which WILL cost you more than $30,000), please don’t assume this car handles well in the snow as a front wheel drive. It’s OK…but not terrific. And plan to get snow tires…that does make a difference in front wheel drive Volvo sedans.
@thumper1:
Brings back nostalgia, Volvo rear wheel drive cars didn’t do all that great in the snow, they were boxy, heavy tanks with rough brakes and heavy steering (even once they had power steering). I remember driving my 73 142 sedan, it was probably the scariest car I ever drove in the snow, made my Alfa spyder look like an AWD vehicle:). I suspect with the volvos they were talking the AWD models, and those would be under 30k only when used, probably with significant mileage.
All of my Volvo sedans were front wheel drive.
We had a separate set of snow tires on their own rims for the first two. Now, I just don’t go out when it snows!
@thumper1:
That is the wise course of action:). Something like the S5 sedan with AWD if bought used might be had for under 30k, new volvos start at around 34k MSRP from what I could tell (I don’t know what street prices are like).
I have been in the Catskills this weekend and at least one third of the cars are Subarus. They have very snowy winters so It must mean something.
But this OP says they live in a place many of us would consider “south”. It sounds like this driver will be seeing more snow than where they have previously lived. That does NOT mean they need snow tires, or all wheel drive.
It is funny, I remember driving 20 years ago + in maine (early 90’s) when the SUV craze was just starting to really heat up, back in the burbs and such people were gobbling up Cherokees and Suburbans and Explorers and so forth, they were becoming really common. My wife and I were kind of shocked driving through snow country in New England, we saw more than a few Subarus but many were front wheel drive, not AWD , and SUV’s were pretty rare, saw some older Cherokees and such, some international harvesters from a pre-day, relatively few of the then dominant SUV’s. I asked someone about it, and they said part of it was how expensive the SUV’s were, but part of it was people in those parts learned how to drive in snow and bad weather routinely and probably didn’t think they needed that. SUV’s originally were developed for people who went offroad, hunters, fisherman, people that drove on beaches, and people like farmers and the like who needed vehicles to get through truly bad conditions.
I am glad that more modest cars offer AWD, among other things it has decreased the number of people driving the big SUV’s (at least that is how it looks), which are a disaster gas consumption wise and also to me are a menace, people drive a suburban like it was a sports car or the other big truck based SUV’s, and these days I generally see people driving the big trucks like that because they need them, tow things, carry a lot of stuff (part of that I think is the big SUV’s have become a lot less of a status symbol, despite being expensive, when my son went to a private school where there was a lot of status showing, the Yukon Denalis, the Cadillac SUV and the like were big deals, now that luxury cars like Benz and Lexus and infiniti and so forth offer AWD, has cut into the big SUV as a status symbol).
I lived in the White Mountains…new driver…LOTS of snowy days. I had a VW Bug. My neighbor had a Vega. Good friend had a Chevette. You get the picture. All of us somehow managed to get to work without four wheel drive. We ALL had snow tires.
The most important thing my dad told me about 4WD…it can help you go, but it likely won’t help you stop.
@thumper1 Did your Bug have heating? My brother drove one without a heater while live in the White Mountains in the 80s. That wasn’t too pleasant. Brrrr…
Well…it sort of had heat…ok…no, it really didn’t have heat. But it was a great car!
My old Volvo’s (non 4x) went great on snow and hills but I kept two sets of rims so switched to snow tires in the winter. My “newer” Volvo is an XC and I’ve had great luck (better luck than some of the little AWD mini-SUVs) climbing up a snowy, icy driveway with all weather tires and been very happy. But yes, you can drive in anything…and we did back in the day with Pintos Vegas, VWs and heavens knew what…you LEARN how to drive in it. My kid was living in the mountains with an Escort LOL and would drive it if he could find it under the fresh snow drifts. The car isn’t going to help; if you don’t know what you are doing on snow and ice.