[masraum]

Originally Posted by jyl

We have snow tires on the only AWD car at the house (daughter’s Honda Element) and when it’s snowy/icy in Portland that’s the car we use, if we have to go anywhere. I want to get some steelies with snow tires for one of the RWD cars we have (probably either the W124 or the W211 wagon). Normally we use studless snows. These RWD Mercedes seem to be so marginal in snow/ice that I wonder if I should get studded snows. I probably won’t, as studded tires are icky unless you’re actually on snow/ice. But chains are their own version of icky, and IME they only help with straight ahead, not so much with steering (no chains on front, rear slides out even with chains).

I drove a Chevy Chevette in the snow in NoVA. It's a RWD econobox. I've also driven a '65 Chevy Impala in the snow. It was RWD with a 350 and 4spd and low gears. My dad drove it from Woodbridge to WDC and back one day. Coming down our road at the end of the day, they hadn't plowed our road and there was ~8" of snow. The Impala had at least 16-18" of snow in front of it like a snow plow because the front bumper hung lower than the snow.

I think when we lived in Japan (long winters with lots of snow), dad put chains on the drive wheels, but we always had snow tires installed in the winter, not all-seasons.
This was our car the first time we lived there in the late 70s.


The second time we lived there in the mid 80s, we started with this wagon (first car I ever drove, just once, dad couldn't take the stress, I was 13 and he tried teaching me on public roads in the snow). Then we added this "Jeep." It was 4WD with low and high.