If you never lived where it snows and were moving North to where it does snow, what would you have liked to have known? What would you do to prepare?
If you never lived where it snows and were moving North to where it does snow, what would you have liked to have known? What would you do to prepare?
There is no such thing as good winter drivers and bad winter drivers. There is only those with snow tires and those without.
Best: 4 snows on awd and 2-4 water softener bags of salt in trunk for weight and getting unstuck.
2nd best: 4 snow on awd
3rd best: 2 snow on front wheel drive with 4 salt bags in trunk/bed.
4th best: awd no snows but good tread
Worst: fuckin everything else.
Household tips: insulate your pipes if in unfinished basement or have a heater running for really cold days or if the pipes will not have water FLOWING/RUNNING/MOVING thru pipes i.e. you go on vacation.
Plastic wrap your windows every fall. It sucks but helps a ton keeping heat in and costs down.
Spend the most money on gloves, hats and boots. Things that can’t be layered and get rhe coldest.
Hot hands/heat pouches are life savers for winter sports/sporting events/hunting/camping. They make them in foot shaped stick on versions for boots, put one in each of your pants pockets and one each in your coat pockets.
Keep spare salt, shovel, gloves, hat, blanket, granola bars and water in your car for when you WILL go off the road and need to wait for AAA.
Don’t fuck around with ice. Don’t try and walk across it without losing balance. Dont try and walk across it because you think it’s thick enough to hold you. If you are going on ice over water DONOT until you have drilled to check thickness or it is a large bodybif water that publishes the ice thickness.
Yes, snowmobiles can hydroplane across bodies of water.
Yes, skiis and snowboards can skate across bodies of water.
DO FUCKING NOT FUCKING TRY AND FUCKING HYDRO-FUCKING-PLANE OR SKI/SNOWBOARD ACCROSS ANY BODIES OF WATER.
You don’t need snow tires in Chicago. The streets are very well plowed and salted. Just take it slow.
Actually the best tires of all: stay the fuck home where it’s nice and warm and work online in your socks and bathrobe.
That’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard. The part about there not being good or bad winter drivers.
Honestly. Most of your tips sounds what someone says that was a tourist somewhere cold once in their life and now pretends to know what they’re talking about.
Sincerely. Someone born and raised in the north.
Right. Vancouver drivers are terrible in the snow (if the snow sticks that year, and bad all year round anyway). Drivers from Saskatchewan or North Ontario scoff at whatever we get over here!
I don’t agree with that. Good tools are useless in the hands of the ignorant. Somebody can have the best winter tires ever engineered, but if they stop and turn on ice like they would do on perfect pavement on the dryest summer days, then they’re fucked and they’re a cocky jackass. A good driver will know the limits of their tires, whatever they are.
True, it follows that having this knowledge will generally convince good drivers to get better tires, but it’s not like buying fancy new rubber will turn you into Ken Block (rip).
TL;DR: Get the winter tires, they’re great and worth it. But PLEASE for the love of god take the time to learn how to fucking drive on snow and ice or you’ll be stuck in the medium with the rest of them, because even with the best winter tires it’s NOT the same physics