Weight and weight distribution are both important, but a pickup will usually perform better in snow with more weight, like 500 lbs of sand in the bed usually does the trick.
How you apply power to the road surface is also very important. Not enough weight and you will just spin tires. Break too aggressively and you lock up. Pedal to the floor and your tires are spinning. Overcorrect your turns when you start to slide and you’ll never get back straight.
My car is a little older and actually drives better in snow with the traction control off.
Also, I think drivers of larger vehicles are often over-confident. I know my cars are really bad in the snow, so I drive incredibly carefully. I slow down really early, speed up really slowly, and turn as gently as I can. I haven’t been stuck in the snow in over a decade, nor have a slid into anything (though I have slid), and I’ve been in some pretty crappy snowstorms.
I think AWD/4WD can be a liability because people seem to think it’ll solve their problems.
Agreed, and something else I’ve noticed… people seem to think AWD/4WD will help them in all cases, but don’t realize that stopping has nothing to do with that feature. So they get better traction to go, go too fast, and ABS only helps so much.
They are heavy but the weight distribution isn’t even and most trucks are 4x4/RWD which is what leads to the issues you’re alluding to. The rear tires can’t propel the vehicle because there’s not enough weight over them in the rear compared to the weight of the front.
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Weight and weight distribution are both important, but a pickup will usually perform better in snow with more weight, like 500 lbs of sand in the bed usually does the trick.
How you apply power to the road surface is also very important. Not enough weight and you will just spin tires. Break too aggressively and you lock up. Pedal to the floor and your tires are spinning. Overcorrect your turns when you start to slide and you’ll never get back straight.
My car is a little older and actually drives better in snow with the traction control off.
As someone who lives in a snowy area:
Also, I think drivers of larger vehicles are often over-confident. I know my cars are really bad in the snow, so I drive incredibly carefully. I slow down really early, speed up really slowly, and turn as gently as I can. I haven’t been stuck in the snow in over a decade, nor have a slid into anything (though I have slid), and I’ve been in some pretty crappy snowstorms.
I think AWD/4WD can be a liability because people seem to think it’ll solve their problems.
Agreed, and something else I’ve noticed… people seem to think AWD/4WD will help them in all cases, but don’t realize that stopping has nothing to do with that feature. So they get better traction to go, go too fast, and ABS only helps so much.
Exactly. 4WD/AWD helps when climbing a mountain pass, but it won’t stop you from sliding through an intersection.
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Big trucks aren’t necessarily all that heavy. The bed is entirely empty space, remember.
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Huh… That’s interesting. My Nissan Navara (Frontier) weights 4400lbs despite being half the size of an F-150.
And increasingly a smaller and smaller portion of the overall composition of the truck.
It just means even more weight is on the front tires instead of being more evenly distributed.
I think the cybertruck is super heavy, though.
They are heavy but the weight distribution isn’t even and most trucks are 4x4/RWD which is what leads to the issues you’re alluding to. The rear tires can’t propel the vehicle because there’s not enough weight over them in the rear compared to the weight of the front.