How to drive a 4wd in snow

Down shifting an automatic (or especially a manual) trans while in 4wd or AWD will help slow the vehicle better than a 4x2. The brake pedal I believe doesn't care what drivetrain you have.

sadly, this is the wrong time of the year to be playing in parking lots. Nearest big one is the mall.. and I am sure you can guess what that looks like this time of year

For what it's worth I'm kind of glad to see someone else is a bit lost on how to handle this. I've only ever owned one AWD vehicle and that was a '99 Forester. To be honest I HATED driving it in a the snow and never got comfortable with how to handle it in a slide. Give me a front or rear drive car and I'm happy to play in the snow all day but my experience with the Forester completely turned me off AWD.

...That said, the evidence out there would suggest there are many who can and do pull off some amazing slides and recoveries in AWD's including Subies so while I may not want to admit it but it is possible the problem may have simply been me and my inability to adapt.

Bottom line...some time in a snowy parking lot and some empty back roads along with a willingness to try things differently is probably your best bet.

Huh - my 02 WRX is an absolute sliding machine!

Natural tendency of any Subaru is understeer due to the weight of the engine past the front wheels, but get on the power and the rear comes around quite nicely.

I'd take Sonic's offer of the snow tires. Well worth the effort to swap tires, even with AWD.

Otherwise, all of the 4WD trucks/cars I've owned (3 trucks and an '82 Subaru) didn't have any sort of traction control. My Toyota p.u was the best, with the Subaru a close second. The Cummins was downright scary in the snow until I put snow tires on it. Then it seemed to break the laws of physics - mainly in the ability to steer and stop.

mad_machine wrote: sadly, this is the wrong time of the year to be playing in parking lots. Nearest big one is the mall.. and I am sure you can guess what that looks like this time of year

School on a weekend works.

I don't always use my E-brake.... But when I do i prefer a snowy parking lot.

my truck (87 GMC K25 with the bulletproof manual trans and transfer case) is very easy to drive thru deep snow and on ice in 4WD.. just point it where you want it, and it goes there. i do drive a bit slower when i need to be using 4X4, but that's generally because i can't see where i'm going and/or i'm on glare ice and i don't have the mistaken impression that 4wd and a ride height that's 2 feet higher than my cars makes me immortal and unstoppable..

in 2wd, it's tail happy and very traction limited in snow and ice..

i had an AWD Astro van about 5 years ago.. that thing was also unstoppable and easy to drive in crappy weather. i don't think it ever slid around on me at all..

mad_machine wrote: Today was the first time I had the disco in snow and to say it was a bit disconcerting to realize I had no idea how to correct a slide in 4wd vehicle as big and heavy as it, would be an understatement.

Park the truck, buy a car. Done.

gofastbobby wrote: In reply to mtn: The heavy front brake bias, setup for normal driving, is a terrible problem for 2wd trucks in the snow. in 4wd the tires are all connected, you lock up the front, same thing happens to the rear.

Only if you can lock the center diff, though. If the center diff is open, the front brakes will merrily lock up.

I learned to drive a '76 short bed Chevy with 12" of lift and near-bald 39.5" Super Swampers. NP 203 full-time transfer case. Looked bad-*** but not so good in snow!

I once watched a Disco do the prettiest Pirouette on a slick road i had ever seen. Short wheelbase threw the driver for a loop...and another and another.

As a multitime fwd and awd ice race champ...you drive awd very much the same as fwd.Weightshift to the nose for steering and when/if the rear comes around throttle on to pull out of the slide.

^+1 for that, In my experience with the Sammy (diffless TC) it's very much like how a FWD car handles...you'll have to get used to having no feel from the steering wheel whatsoever when sliding on slick stuff (or sometimes even just driving on slick stuff, it's worse than playing a driving game with a gamepad).

Are you asking how to drive it or what to do when sliding?

+25 on figure it out in a parking lot, even if you need to drive 20 miles to somewhere empty. you may get harrassed by police but if you keep it slow and don't do donuts you can usually get away with the "never driven this one in the winter, trying to get a feel for how it reacts before i'm on the road surrounded by other cars" line.

i like selectable 4x4 because 99.9% of the time i don't take it out of 2wd. but that's a whole unrelated conversation.

Knurled wrote:

gofastbobby wrote: In reply to mtn: The heavy front brake bias, setup for normal driving, is a terrible problem for 2wd trucks in the snow. in 4wd the tires are all connected, you lock up the front, same thing happens to the rear.

Only if you can lock the center diff, though. If the center diff is open, the front brakes will merrily lock up.

I'll give you that. The 4wd vehicles I drive don't have a center diff, they have a transfer case.

I really need to get the retrofit for my disco's transfer case. Damn the engineers at Rover to hell for thinking that Traction Control and hill descent could take the place of a good locking diff.. and double damn the bean counters for letting the engineers keep the locking transfer case, but making them remove the linkage to lock it

I'm pretty sure the 03 Disco doesn't even have the lock in the transfer case. The 99-01 disco 2s had that, my 99 included, and I used it when I had to have the front driveshaft out for rebuilding. In 01, they did away with it completely, only to put it back into the 2004 models, complete with a linkage.

supposedly the late 03s had it. I have to crawl under there and look for the nipple on the linkage.

and rumor has it even the years that didn't have it, have it. They just have absolutely no way to hook up the linkage

I always leave my truck in 2wd (I realize this doesn't help the OP).

My reasoning is that the only thing 4wd is going to help me do is get going faster than I can safely stop or turn.

I usually leave the truck in 2wd with the traction control off and teh stability control on. This allows me to have teh truck behave as I think it should. It also allows the stability control to kick in when I get in over my head.

The only time I use 4wd is when going up a slippery hill or when I can't get going at all. I then immediately put it back in 2wd.

For the OP, I think you are kinda screwed. The "truck" will probably not turn well no matter what. It is like a tank!

Rob R.

Does the parking brake only hit the rear? Maybe try a parking brake drift?

Parking brake is on the center diff on a Disco. On my D1 with fresh AT's and the diff lock the thing was a beast in the snow.

That being said, inertia is a bitch and you have lots to deal with.

Found out the actuator for the front end wasn't working on my 4wd pickup the hard way yesterday morning. Icy roads, but my truck has snow tires with studs. Locked up the front tires upon trying to slow down, while the rear end continued to push me towards certain death. Downshifted to get it slowed down, and finally stopped. It was a good reminder that I need to make sure it gets put in 4wd before you hit the slick stuff.

Maybe the newer trucks are better, trying to finesse mine is impossible. The disk/drum setup seems to work fine when loaded, but it is like trying to do surgery with a sledgehammer when conditions deteriorate. J

The big difference between sliding a AWD/4WD and a RWD in the snow has to do with the arc. A RWD car will still have the front wheels more or less connected with the road, so it does the classic opposite lock slide. The AWD vehicle takes a much bigger radius and has a big slip angle at the front, so it's basically going sideways more. You need to pitch it into the slide earlier so that you're already pointing where you want to go when you get to the corner. Then just modulate the throttle. I spent quite a bit of educational time in snowy conditions.

Sorry, can't comment on Discos specifically. My Land Rover can run in RWD