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What's Your Longest AWD Snow Trip

6K views 20 replies 19 participants last post by  Spike 
#1 ·
...After spending the entire day with our school's junior high under water ROV team at the MATE ROV competition, I had a 400km trip back home that I decided to do in a snowstorm. That, I think is the longest snow drive I have ever done. Took me 5 hrs. The view...well this is what it was all the way home...but there is something about doing it in an AWD vehicle that makes it fun....
 

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#10 ·
We drove my wife's (now sold) '95 Legacy from MT to Seattle that X-mas. Coeur d'Alene/Spokane area was the worst as far as people off the road.

That car was very low, and we had to get to the top of Queen Anne. I can never get on the correct street coming from I-5, and usually end up threading my way up the backside and wandering around until I find the right block. This time was no different, except all the side ways up had 2 feet of snow and maybe 1 or 2 trucks had gone down. We powered up that **** with no problem, even had to get out of the track once to go around somebody that turned down the street while we were about 2/3 of the way up. The look on that guy's face was awesome, I bet our car looked like it was swimming uphill. If we would have stopped it would have been game over, though. We got back through the pass to come home just hours before the whole thing got shut down for several days.

We've had only 1 good snow so far this year, 8", and our new OB was out before the plows. I'd rather be in the OB than my 4WD truck most of the time.
 
#4 ·
...and since it was dark when I got home...here she is the morning after...nothing like a dirty OB...time for a wash...:29:

...as for the view...yes it is lovely. That is in Terra Nova National Park...
 

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#6 ·
I think back, and I realize all of the worst winter driving I've done, by huge margin, was all in old RWD cars.

Since getting a Subaru, when it snows I try like crazy to alter my travel plans to avoid going out.

Nothing to do with handling in the snow... The problem is salt on the roads. I miss my old RWD cars; they rusted out. I don't want that to happen to my subie :(

Hopefully I'll eventually move back to someplace salt free and snow-a-plenty.
 
#7 ·
I don't ever have to drive very far - - we're only at 4600 feet and I seldom have to drive more than five miles to get out of the snow. Problem is that we live in a snow recreation area and have all the flatlanders who do not know how to drive in the snow (and don't prepare for it properly) coming up here for fun times. I like having my OB to get me where I need to go and to be able to get around them when they crash or get stuck....
 
#8 ·
My wife and I drove 4 hours in a snowstorm to Elk Mountain, PA. Was one of the best storm drives ever. It was snowing hard enough that the air intake under the hood got clogged up. Since the engine could barely get enough air, power was horrible. I didn't think we were going to be able to make it up the last few hills to the resort. Kinda scary. The hood latch was frozen shut so I couldn't even open it up to try clearing the snow/ice. It eventually ended up throwing a CEL for the throttle position sensor which cleared itself on the drive home the next day. I ended up removing that flat plastic section of the air intake just under the front hood and now it's just the round open plastic pipe. That is much less likely to get clogged when storm driving. It's been like that for about 5 years will no ill effects on performance or mileage.
 
#15 ·
Last year, I drove from Annapolis, MD to Gladwin, MI. It started snowing pretty soon into the trip... About 650 miles of nonstop snow. Also, we had to drive through the night. I think we got there around 6am. I had a brand-new set of Altimax Arctics on the Outback... No problem!
 
#16 ·
toss up btw these 2 trips:

1) 100 miles in the Appalchian(PA turnpike). took over 3.5 hrs in a POS 1980's Ford Tempo.

2) 5 miles stretch on I-94 (south western Michigan) that took almost 20 mins in 2010 Outback with snow tire... Car handle well but can't see anything... Those Fog light turn off when you turn off low beam...argggh... Feels like hrs under this condition.
 
#18 ·
From Pittsburgh to Gettysburg by way of State College. Two days, total of 10 hours in a 91 Explorer Sport (5spdMT).

Was a lot of fun to drive in and I was visiting a lady friend in college, no amount of snow was going to stop that mission....
 
#20 ·
Amazing what we'll do on that kind of mission ;)

Not sure about LENGTH of drives in the snow, but when I was on my maiden shakedown voyage up at Crater Lake NP in early Feb 2011 there was snow on those winding roads heading up to the lake and I never slipped or had any issues going up or down, even on the near-brand new stock Contis! I had two of my younger cousins in the car with me and they were super impressed with how well we were able to get around in that weather.

The one cousin ended up buying an older Subie (forget what she ended up getting, nothing super new) and the other told his sister about it and she ended up getting a used Forester (06 I believe) and she loves it.
 
#19 ·
It was on a two week back country backpacking trip. Three days of snow in the Coastal range Northern CA first week of July. 12 of us started out with dry clear typical early spring trail conditions lots of snow melt and some cruddy muddy spots on the trail. Weather forecast was minor low passing through with some rain and thunder storm activity no biggie pretty typical mountain weather in the summer.

Long story short we ended up hiking out the front side after parking on the back side because the trail was snowed in behind us. 4 days later we walked into a local Diner on the Coast side of the range and found a logger who was getting ready to head over to the back side for a job so three of us crammed into his pickup +1 him for a 4 total adults in a standard cab Chevy full sized truck. He was kind enough to track down a buddy on the back side that was up for hauling us two hours back up the logging roads to where our vehicles sat. Vehicles were 1980 VW Diesel Dasher 5spd, 1980ish or maybe late 70's short box Dodge Conversion van, and one of those little 80's Dodge D50 pickups. All of us with 2wd and a muddy snowy mess getting down the mountain to the pavement. Oddly enough the little VW Dasher was pretty much unaffected by the crappy muddy mess the two Dodges were a problem took us 4hrs to get the two dodges back to the pavement. Then we had a 2+hr drive around to the front side to pick up the rest of the crew.

Rough trip!
 
#21 ·
Never in an AWD vehicle but I drove the almost 900 km (each way) trip from Toronto to Norwalk Ct to my in-laws every Christmas for 26 years. At least part of every trip, both ways, was in stormy winter weather. The route we took either went by way of Buffalo or Watertown NY - both are snow belt areas. I don't recall ever having to drive in snowy conditions for the entire trip, but on more than a few occasions we had some serious winter driving for as much as half of that trip. Mostly with front wheel drive vehicles and never with winter tires.

Last time I made this trip was 15 years ago, long before I bought my first Suby.
 
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