[GRUB]

I took my first drive in the snow today. I live near the boarder of New Hampshire in Massachusetts and we are having our first snow of the season so I decided to go out a play a little bit with my TH. The snow we are having is very strange, it has been a mixture of snow and freezing rain giving the snow a hard mud feel even though it is only about 3 inches. I started out in auto mode but quickly switched it snow mode. I noticed under the snow there must have been a layer of ice so even though the snow wasn't deep the ruts from other cars were able to push me around. A couple of times I felt like I didn't have control of the TH when I was starting to drift a bit. To correct that I shut off the traction control and shifted into manual mode and kept my RPM up around 2500 to 3000. I live on a hill and the roads I drive to a main road on, about 2 miles, were not plowed but had some car/truck tracks in the snow. Once I got to the main road they were clear. I stopped at a hardware store and drove through a small snow bank with ease. When I came out and started my TH I had to select snow mode again. It seems that the TH defaults back to auto when you shut it off. I don't care for that much. If I put it in snow I would like it to stay in snow until I take it out.

Due to the unusual makeup of the snow with ice under it I don't want to make a judgement on the TH. I have owned several AWD and 4WD vehicles before and been driving on these same roads for 15 years now and all I can say is I really like the TH but a little disappointed. Maybe it is the snow, maybe the tires, maybe the automatic transmission, maybe it's the driver?

 

[syzygy]

Which tyres do you have fitted?

 

[GRUB]

Which tyres do you have fitted?

I have the stock Goodyear Wranglers SR-A

 

[dgr401]

The Latitude also switches back to auto mode when you shut it off. I don't care for that either. If you are on the beach you can get stuck real fast, hopefully the auto feature would work quick enough to prevent getting stuck. I'd rather not test it out. Our snow is like what you are describing but we did not get much at all, it is raining real hard right now.

 

[txjeeper35]

I can't quote traction on ice/snow. SRAs are horribly made tires. The sipes/chutes literally do not help with proper water evacuation. In turn, snow clearance shouldn't be too hot. Once you put a actual snow tire, or better all terrain on, traction should improve. Also too high or low psi hinders grips.

 

[GRUB]

I just came in from clearing my driveway and I will say that this snow is not your typical dry fluffy snow or wet slushy snow. It is mostly frozen rain with some snow tightly packed together, very heavy.

 

[syzygy]

I can't quote traction on ice/snow. SRAs are horribly made tires. The sipes/chutes literally do not help with proper water evacuation. In turn, snow clearance shouldn't be too hot. Once you put a actual snow tire, or better all terrain on, traction should improve. Also too high or low psi hinders grips.

Yes, they seem to do poorly in snow tests.

 

[BluMule]

Sounds like the same snow we had yesterday in Chicago. The Trailhawk was great. I did get bounce around a little in the ruts. I expected it would seeing it was a crunchy hard pack of ice pellets and snow. Also I had less then a quarter of a tank of gas in a compact SUV. I kept it in auto and really had to push it around a corner to get it drift. As soon as I got off the gas it straightened up.

 

[GRUB]

BlueMule your avatar looks like something out of Doctor Who? I might have been a little harsh on my TH, the snow was like no other snow that I have driven in before. The temp never got above 25 deg F and had frozen rain all day. Closer to Boston the temp got up to near 40 deg F.

 

[BluMule]

BlueMule your avatar looks like something out of Doctor Who? I might have been a little harsh on my TH, the snow was like no other snow that I have driven in before. The temp never got above 25 deg F and had frozen rain all day. Closer to Boston the temp got up to near 40 deg F.

Yep it's from Doctor Who. You were honest not harsh. It was a weird snow. More like ice pellets.

 

[Lackadazikal]

Yeah, freezing rain is no joke to drive in. One day last year (before my Renegade) I left for work during freezing rain, turned onto the main street, slid all over the place, turned down the next street, went around the block and pulled right back in the driveway.

 

[Section ThirtyOne]

I have Blizzak WS80 snow tires fitted on my TH; it is a beast in the snow.

Methinks a lot of your problems in the snow have to do with the stock Goodyear tires. Look at the customer ratings for the tire on Tirerack: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Goodyear&tireModel=Wrangler+SR-A

 

[GRUB]

Methinks a lot of your problems in the snow have to do with the stock Goodyear tires. Look at the customer ratings for the tire on Tirerack: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Goodyear&tireModel=Wrangler+SR-A

I was just looking at tire rack this morning and saw the 4.3 rating on ice. I do like the white outlined lettering on the Wranglers, but I probably will replace the tires next year with falken ziex ze950 a/s. I have had these tires on other cars and for the money I think they are a good all around tire, not necessarily an off road tire but a good on the road in any condition.