It's winter. Happens every year here. I can predict that it will last from approximately late Sept. right on through to mid-May, at least (this is using my wood stove as the measuring device). Every year. In the winter, it gets cold.....the severity varies. In the winter, we get snow....the amount varies. We deal with it without the assistance of FEMA. If I wanted warmer weather, I'd move where that happens. Just an FYI...I don't like being cold. Go figure.
2 weeks ago we got about 10" of snow through 3 different snowfalls, some of which came over the weekend. My daughter's school was closed the ENTIRE WEEK!!!! And while my wife and I were struggling to find a place for our daughter to go during the day while we were at work, all our teacher friends on Facebook were bragging about what they were doing with their week off. Of course once it warms up, they'll go back to complaining how they are overworked and underpaid..... I do enjoy the snow though. It is peaceful to go outside for a walk. And there's something fun about getting my little garden tractor out and pushing snow all around the driveway!
Lol...... Yup I m complaining about it and ready for it to end. I don't care for winter that much but am stuck dealing with it regardless as we can't/aren't moving. I could care less about the snow for the first few months but by March I am about done with it and I do complain about it lol. no offense intended I also complaing about my land taxes every year and I can't do anything about those either. Everyone has their own thing that causes them to complain so for me I just read it and move on as it's not worth getting upset over IMHO.
Sadly, people and school districts live in "FEAR" because some person will get a lawyer because a kid slipped and fell and sue the S#!T out of the district, Thats why it's done. Not getting political here but Hmmmm…..
All my life I enjoyed winter, especially in northern Michigan. Be that in the UP or northern LP. Where we lived near Gaylord we always received 200" or more snow every year and we loved it. However, I must admit that these last 2 years have been a bit tougher for us. Perhaps it is just because we are getting on in years. Well, sometimes we love it and then there are those other times. Like now, we look forward to spring. On schools. When we lived with 200"+ of snow per winter, our kids missed very little school. Most years 2 days at most or maybe 3. Where we live now, although there are a few years when the snow gets a bit deep, we wonder why they close the schools so much. In addition, until last winter I had never heard of a school closing because the weather was too cold. Wow! When I was a little boy and my wife was a little girl, we both walked to school and we did not live in town. She was close to hers at only 1/4 mile or less. Ours was just shy of 2 miles. We never had days off in winter and one of the first tasks of the day was to bring in coal and/or light the furnace. It was never warm in our schoolhouse. On snow tires. I believe the last time I had snow tires was back in the 1960's. It has never been a problem with us but then, we don't drive like most folks do. So believing the media that you have to buy tires every winter is bull. Some areas definitely it is a good idea just like some other areas where it is almost mandatory to have tire chains. Okay, rant over.
Try it the way they do up here. Schools do not get cancelled, the buses do. Your problem to get your kids to the school....................
#4!!!!!!! My grandfather, logger and miner from the UP of Michigan, always said, "What do you need 4wd for? You just get deeper in the woods before you get stuck." He drove 2wd Dodge pickup trucks well past his 80+ years. They did him just fine on "old logging roads" and "railroad grades" for all his years. I wish that yuppies would understand that this concept, rather than running themselves into ditches.
There are several videos out there that demonstrate the differences between all weather and snow tires. You don't need to buy them every year. My car is a high mileage car, and I've had my snow tires for 4 seasons now, and I'll get another 2 or three. I bought a second set of rims for the snow tires. Made swapping them out simpler. My car is front wheel drive, and unless the snow gets too deep on the roads, it operates wonderful with the snow tires. My dad swears by 2WD. He's never owned and will never own a 4WD. Getting up our driveway with his Toyota Tundra can be a bit tricky in the winter. Again back to the snow tires. If he had snow tires on, I now he'd have no trouble with the driveway.
I know not all AWD or 4wd systems are created equal, but the one in my small SUV was dangerous and SUCKED so bad I disconnected it (removed driveshaft). The thing would put power to the rear wheels only after the front wheels were spinning at a 40 rpm differential. So you get your front end all out of shape and the all of a sudden you gain some traction in the rear, if you had any kind of forward road speed it would completely upset the car. The ONLY thing that AWD was good for was to keep you from getting stuck or to help you get unstuck. I think the widespread availability of AWD or 4wd in all types of vehicles nowadays has made many drivers overconfident. Kinda like the internet has made a WWW full of experts.
What small SUV is that? That system sounds just like the Honda Ridgeline I had. Fortunately I never had a situation where the rear wheels kicked in. The only time I'd put it in AWD was in deep snow to get going or when driving up into my backyard.
It's true that they are not all created equal. My Nissan truck is 4x4 and had "traction control", but when the traction control kicked in it was downright scary. So much so that I put an auto locker in the rear which keeps the traction control from kicking on. My mom had a Pathfinder with the same system that she hated too, but her previous Explorer was apparently pretty good. On the other hand, my older and rear wheel drive IS300's traction control is pretty impressive. I never even realized how much it kicked in until this past week when it threw an engine code and I lost traction control. The drive into and from home was a little more interesting in the snow and ice!
I must be the odd man out as I love my 4x4 and AWD vehicles. Growing up on our dairy farm we had 3/4 ton 2wd Chevys and we spent so much time pulling that thing out is wasn't even funny. When we moved cows down the road to the summer pasture we always just drove the tractor down because it got stuck all the time. When Dad finally sprang for a 76 Ford with 4wd I thought I had died and went to heaven as you could actually drive up to the equipment shed without getting stuck (think mud and sloped). The 4wd also works wonders for backing heavy loads of hay and equipment up sloped gravel drives into the barn. We had a 2wd Ford F350 that was used exclusively for pulling and it would spin out trying to back a loaded cattle trailer up the sloped drive into the barnyard. Man one of the scariest things I remember doing was spinning out on some washboards with a full load of horses halfway up a steep gravel road...... I had to back that trailer a good 1/4 of a mile back down the road and get a harder run for it. There was some pucker factor involved in that one when you hit the brakes and the truck slides on the gravel another 5-10 foot downhill. I had a 2wd drive chevy 1500 and a 2wd S10 and both of them sucked for getting up into the fields if there was even a heavy dew on the ground. Finally got rid of them and bought a 98 Grand Cherokee which I never had stuck. Then when we moved to the house we have now my wifes car was a Honda Civic and we have a super steep driveway with 90 degree turns in it I would try my hardest to get that thing up the drive but even with it plowed if there was snow on the drive the majority of the time it would spin out into the ditch as soon as you had to slow down for the first turn. We walked up our drive a lot of times in a 3 year period. I can drive right up our drive in the truck or the pilot with 12" of snow on the drive and they never miss a beat. I think that in areas where it is really flat 4wd is hardly needed but we live in hill country around here. I would agree with everyone though that 4wd is not the solution for poor driving habits. I see a lot of city people in 4wd vehicles in ditches as they seem to think they are invincible. It seems to be really bad now with all these small lightweight AWD vehicles as people get in passing lanes and try to drive to fast and end up hydroplaning on the snow as they are so light they don't have enough weight to punch through the ruts and tire track.
You're not the only one who's seen major differences needed with 4x4. But it really does make a difference what the terrain is tho. Our old farm had a sloping drive going down to the road, and a left hand turn at the bottom to go up the hill. 2 WD rear drives were absolutely useless on snow. The weight of the front (engine) would slide it down to the right every time you'd try and get even a little run for the hill around that turn. Then, going up the 1/2 mile steep hill was usually impossible. But fun, when I was a kid. We used to have 30 family members there for 3-4 days over Thanksgiving. I remember many times, 4-6 of us pushing cars all the way up the hill when we'd get snow. Later on, when my family lived there for 13 years... not so much fun trying to get out that way. We were prepared tho and all vehicles, Subarus and pickups, were 4wd with studded winter tires. And, there were times we even got those stuck. Not often tho.
The problem with 4WD or AWD is they allow you to go a little faster but you don't stop or slow down any faster! Front wheel drive with good tires does amazingly well at least my 08 Sentra does pretty good with the new Pirelli P4's .. I replace my tires when they have enough rubber to go another year because they suck in snow at that point! This week we got another 8" of snow and I drove down my 200' driveway dragging bottom to my parking spot.. Pretty impressive! Still I want an AWD vehicle next just to be a little safer..
Yep, I agree that's the problem with most of the SUV drivers that get into trouble on slippery roads. Over confidence because they have 4wd. They all (one way or the other) find out eventually, that they have zero advantage over any other car when it comes to steering and especially stopping. It's amazing, isn't it, to see how many of them blow by you on the highway when it's slippery.
