Ice is slippery

In reply to Knurled: A friend of mine has a S10 which is smaller and 2wd, and he puts snow tires and studs, and I bet he has better grip then me, and I have 4wd, traction control, and steering assist.

So when we get our barely-white dusting of snow later this year I can't call in because my new old truck is 2wd and open diff? Damn.

My KJ with the Trac-Lok rear axle was terrible on ice in 2wd, so bad that I would have to put it in 4wd to keep it straight.

In snow with proper tires it was fine. Lots of time I didn't need 4wd.

Let me tell ya about when I bought my second RX-7, which had a limited slip. I got stuck in a gas station parking lot. It was like the hallway scene from Austin Powers. I could go forward, I could go backward, but I could not turn, turning the steering wheel just made the car crab sideways. I'm sure it was quite comical for the guy inside, watching me do everything but turn the car around for fifteen minutes.

I was seriously wishing for an open diff that day. Or good snow tires. My first RX-7 had an open diff and I never had winter issues despite never getting snow tires for it.

odd.. my old 318ti had the factory Limited Slip and I could drive it all winter.. as I was poor, I tended to leave the Star Specs on.. even in snow. The only thing it couldn't do was climb any sort of hill in the snow.. good thing that Southern New Jersey has none

BMWs have crappy weak limited slips. On a good Mazda limited slip, you could torque a wheel with it off the ground if the other one was on the ground. The preload was so high that they also chattered and barked in parking lots, and Mazda issued a bulletin that the fix for customer complains for that was "install an open diff".

That is the issue: the initial resistance to slip is greater than the traction available. Later Mazdas went to a viscous limited slip that didn't "lock up" until there was significant wheel speed difference, and for the FD they went to Torsens which are open diffs.

Last year I was headed to work in the pickup when heading from a decent trafficked towards a road with six lanes when I realized I was on black ice. About 50 feet of it. No one was around I just hammered down and made sure I made it across even with the red light. Damn, Ice, you nasty.