Snow!

In most cases you get what you pay for.
 
jayhawk said:
Isn't that how ricers justify their 1989 Civic with 200 billion miles on it, slammed suspension and obnoxious exhaust? "If I put X amount of dollars into it, it will be faster than your car!"

"Yeah, but it's still a 1989 Civic..."

:dunno:
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Yeah, maybe, but we are comparing a V8 Luxury sports saloon that cost over 100k? in todays money when new to a 23-year old faithful donkey :p
 
We got our first dusting of snow today, more to come tonight. I'm super pissed that I can't drive right now. I was really looking forwasrd to puting the CJ through it's paces.
 
Posmo said:
Yeah, maybe, but we are comparing a V8 Luxury sports saloon that cost over 100k? in todays money when new to a 23-year old faithful donkey :p
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Well yes, no denying that. I was merely stating a case for the benefits of 4WD for an average driver, in everyday situations when the roads are slippery and iced up.

I do agree that most people would be just fine with 1.8 FWD boring-o-mobile, but I do maintain that when the conditions get difficult, 4WD makes driving immensely easier and more relaxing, a point highlighted when the driver isn't an sxtremely skilled one, when compared to RWD.
 
Either you're forgetting or ignoring the fact that like most other automotive comparisons, which wheel drive you want depends on what you want from it. For example IMO:
For traction, 4x4 > FWD > RWD.
For fun, RWD > 4x4 > FWD.
For safety, FWD > 4x4 > RWD.
And so on. So it's pointless to argue which is best if you want them to do different things.
 
I would say that 4x4 is safer than FWD though, but you have a point :)
 
4x4 in the snow, wrong move with the right foot and you can spin real easy, fwd wrong move with the right foot you just dont move.
 
Finally we got snow here in southern finland. I felt pity for the FWD-drivers today while walking to the supermarket. Understeer at 10mph and no traction what so ever, the RWD-drivers atleast had some fun while risking their lives :D

It's been supricingly warm for the last few months, but now it's the end of that. Next week it'll be -10 celsius here, and in north-finland over twenty :D

I wish it was summer already.
 
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Jupix said:
Either you're forgetting or ignoring the fact that like most other automotive comparisons, which wheel drive you want depends on what you want from it. For example IMO:
For traction, 4x4 > FWD > RWD.
For fun, RWD > 4x4 > FWD.
For safety, FWD > 4x4 > RWD.
And so on. So it's pointless to argue which is best if you want them to do different things.
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For traction RWD > FWD
 
jayhawk said:
Dunno how fast he was going, but I do love doing lazy, first gear drifts in the snow. Then let off the gas abruptly while turning the opposite way and start doing figure eights. I did many today around two light poles. The key is to keep your left hand planted on the steering wheel and turn using only the palm of your hand. Works well for low speed stuff.

Next time I'll have "blue Danube" playing, I think.
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LeVeL said:
yep, today was all first gear. The snow was really wet and heavy
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Why stick to first gear? You are barely moving then. Need to at least use second gear too make it any fun :p
 
adaptech said:
Why stick to first gear? You are barely moving then. Need to at least use second gear too make it any fun :p
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The snow was wet and really heavy. In second gear you'd have to go FAST to spool the turbo enough to have any torque.
 
LeVeL said:
The snow was wet and really heavy. In second gear you'd have to go FAST to spool the turbo enough to have any torque.
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Unless you have a huge turbo you wont need more than 40-50kmt too get the turbo spooling
 
We finally got some snow today, so I took my Volvo for a spin. Since it was the first time, I started rather slow, so I might annoyed some peope behind me, but I let most of them pass. For the others: my apologies.

After climbing the Rennsteig to Oberhof I settled in a parking lot to throw the red dutch a bit around, which was fun but since the place was really small I soon got a bit bored.

Afterwards I found a nice little street to nowhere which was almost untouched, so I tried it. I found some light swings and a hairpin so I gave it a shot. Unluckily the runup was quite steep so I had almost no speed at all when I reached it, leaving me with the powerover on the exit. Soon I realized that giving it only half throttle did almost nothing to bring the rear out of shape, so I gave it the full boot and stayed on it. I actually felt how the back tires digged in to the ground, giving me competence for the rest of the trip.

On the next parking lot in Zella-Mehlis I continued my search for car control and found the first victim I encounterd: it was an Impreza of some sort with a broken suspension. It seemed the driver hit the curb with his rear right wheel, breaking the mount for the dampers. It was jacked up and abandoned so you could easily see the mess.
Poor little fella, I hope it is "just" the damper mount and nothing more serious. Get well soon...

In a soon to be opened industrial area I then discovered how effing long the breaking distance on snow is when going downhill. It almost felt like the parked caterpillar jumped into my car, but after stopping I gladly realized it was some 20 meters away.

The next stop was Brotterode. Since I was on the road for over 2 hours I helped myself to a coffee, encountering the second victim. The salesgirl of the cafe slipped on the new snow and fell on her thumb. I was starting to think that it wasn't such a good idea to drive on the 13th, even if it wasn't a friday.

As it was getting darker and colder, I felt like heading home, but I visited another parking lot on the way. Now filled up with fresh coffee, my confidence rose to a level beyond sanity. So I entered the lot, turned nt, gave the volvo a kicking and finally spun out of control going backwards, almost parking in the entrance of the supermarket. Luckily I ran out of speed about 2 meters before hitting it. It occured to me that the surface was now freezing over, after me and probably a lot more (ab)used the place for practicing.

I realized that my luck for the day was nearly depleted, so I really headed home to reflect on the day. I found out I wasn't all out of luck, since I found a parking space directly in front of my domicile.

All in all it was really fun and I enjoyed it almost as much as riding my bike in the other part of the year.

Edit: Sorry for the long text, but I felt like sharing...
 
We got a very light dusting today (well, its still coming down). I went out for a drive and got some interesting results. As a preface, here's my experience with snow so far: my old Maxima on new all-seasons with an open diff was pretty bad but it was manageable - uphills were definitely the biggest problem; once I got an LSD, snow performance improved a lot, although it still wasnt spectacular, to say the least; mom's Golf (open diff; all-seasons) is alright - nothing amazing but it gets the job done; MkIII Supra (open diff) and NA Miata (torsen) on snow tires were great - required a lot of attention and delicate inputs but the traction was certainly better than with the FWD cars (yes, there is definitely a huge difference in tires here); WRX... well, go back a page or two and read about that one.

And now we come to the Accord. Which sits on horrible all-seasons. This thing is scary (yet somewhat fun in a silly kind of way) in the snow. At 30mph in a straight line I could break the wheels loose (well, one wheel - open diff) at half throttle. With the wheels turned, make that quarter throttle. Anything other than very smooth delicate steering inputs at low speeds resulted in the car plowing straight-on as if I didn't even have a steering wheel. Driving very slowly and smoothly is really the only way to avoid terrible understeer: flicking it or braking don't work because the tires don't have enough grip to create any sort of weight transfer. Handbrake 180s are laughably easy though.

I drove home from school (~52mi) in a major snow storm in the Maxima once and it was a hilarious experience - I spent half the trip (backroads, as opposed to the second half which is all highway) flicking it back and forth; the back end was constantly sliding. I was giggling. The same trip in half the snow in the Accord would be a bit nerve-racking - I'm sure I'd make it home fine but I'd have to drive really really slowly and its not a trip that I would enjoy, that's for sure.


cliffs: FUCK ALL-SEASONS!
 
Been having a bit of fun with the STI without an issue, but being selective. There is an abandoned parking lot of an old grocery store (which is incidentally right beside my Subaru dealer) that I took liberty to enjoy for a bit. Been finding it interesting taking some winding roads even at the speed limit, feels like a challenge going around corners and the like without trying to push it, though I have done the low speed 2nd gear throttle blipping turning corners and getting some tail-out.

I had a bit of a unexpected 4-wheel drift taking a stoplight turn out onto a main avenue here in Cedar Rapids with a cop sitting at the red. Hit a load of slush over some snowpack and broke loose a bit in the turn. I thought I was going to get the stink-eye...but he seemed be a relaxed cop.


---On a side note to a snow topic---

I got to go cover the blizzard we had here in Iowa on the 8th/9th for my station....so I got to go meander around in a Nissan Xterra, the only vehicle I trust in our fleet.

Two Words after driving through 2ft snow drifts, 7+ inch covered downtown streets, then 50mph cross-wind whiteout conditions down I-380 with no clue where the road was except for the reflector poles on the side of the road: Teh Awesome.

http://img189.imageshack.**/img189/4887/dsc7929c.jpg
http://img15.imageshack.**/img15/6518/dsc8025.jpg
This parking lot got a big of tracks put into it after this shot :)
http://img687.imageshack.**/img687/5136/dsc8071.jpg

Had some nice driving being the only one on the road pretty much, streaming video back to our station for the newscasts, then taking the roads that haven't been plowed :mrgreen:

Got back to the station Wednesday afternoon to a nice dusting on the STI.

http://img706.imageshack.**/img706/2125/img00116200912090756.jpg
 
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my fav spots to drift over winter are .... parking lots at local churches :D ya ... I feel bad every time I do it but usually no one is there at night and no one seems to be around them by then. Also, turn off your lights. when you drift, everyone knows that from miles away. lol. no lights, no one can see you ^^
 
LeVeL said:
For traction RWD > FWD
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Usually front engined FWD cars have better of the line traction on a slippery surface than RWD. This is because they have more weight on the drive wheels.
On the contrary RWD has better traction when accelerating on a grippy surface because the weight distributes to the rear wheels.
 
adaptech said:
Unless you have a huge turbo you wont need more than 40-50kmt too get the turbo spooling
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There are a couple of things, for one turbo spool depends on engine load which is hard to achieve when you are just spinning your tires. Also chances are he is making good midrange power and in 2nd gear he would be going around 40-50mph which is a bit too much for parking lot fun.
 
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