Car Weight

[oilnoob425]

What do you think should be a minimum car weight for the real world driving especially if you live in places where it snows, rains and high winds often? I owned Hyundai Accent and it was a light car, i always had problems with that in less then perfect Wisconsin weather. Now I have Civic and it's a lot better but i still think more weight will benefit this car for given driving conditions. I really need to hear some opinions on this issue. Should i want more weight in the car or not?
Thanks in advance!

 

[gedcruise]

Well, our first Honda weighed 1765 lbs, and had no trouble with the same type of weather you see in Wisconsin. We get snow as deep here as you do, we just don't get it as often. This winter, we have barely seen any snow. Some years, we have real blizzards, with more than a foot of snow in one helping.
What I am trying to say is that vehicle weight has nothing to do with vehicle performance. A good light car, on good tires, will do as well as any in bad conditions. One of the joys of winter around here is watching idiots in 4X4s trying to extract themselves from the snow in the median or the ditch. They obviously felt invincible, until they lost it.

 

[oilnoob425]

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A good light car, on good tires, will do as well as any in bad conditions.

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That's not what i experienced last night! And yes I do have great winter tires. But was passed by Minivan with most likely all season tires. I just didn't feel very confident even with great snow tires, not to mention it wasn't a very deep snow. What gives then ???!!

I used to think the way you do but apparantley it's not so. That's why I opened this topic. I want to see different opinions on this matter.

 

[gedcruise]

We drove the Aerostar through a blizzard, without difficulty, on Goodyear Aquatread 3s, not a very good snow tire. How? Well, the Aero had 900 Lbs of pax and luggage aboard. Vehicle loading will influence vehicle snow performance.

 

[oilnoob425]

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Vehicle loading will influence vehicle snow performance.

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How? That's the initial question i need to know. By loading you mean weight, right?

 

[gedcruise]

Any loading of a RWD vehicle, like the Aerostar, will increase weight over the drive wheels, aiding snow performance. The end of the story here is that after off-loading wife, two grown sons and luggage at the airline terminal, the Aero morphed from unstoppable snow machine into undrivable. I very carefully found it a parking space right off a perimeter that had had a shuttle running around it in a regular basis. I was afraid to drive it anywhere else.
In the same way, a FWD vehicle will be at its best in the snow with only a driver. Any added weight is borne by the non-driving wheels.

 

[eljefino]

You want as many pounds per square inch pressing down to pavement as the larger cars.

Run your tires at 35 PSI and get 155/80/13 snow tires, the base size for many years' Accents. This'll make the contact patch smaller so it digs down better.

Other problems you may run into (I have!) in the snow is simple ground clearance: Rub your floorpan on snowpack and you lose ground contact weight. Also if your car is too skinny wheel-to-wheel to fit in the ruts right, a sides' worth of tires will always be in slush.

There was a thread a month ago about adding weight for snow traction, my thought is it might help you start moving on flat land but would add inertia once you're going (bad) and will be a negative going up or down any hill.

As far as high winds, that will be a problem in an accent: they have squarish side windows that really seem to catch the breeze. A more sporty car with better aero, stiffer sway bars and struts, and lower profile tires will hold the road better for the same weight. These lower profile tires of course would be bad in snow and rain.

 

[Ramblin Fever]

I've personally decided there is a big difference in driving a small-light weight vehicle versus a heavier one.

I use to live in Vegas, NV where the wind BLEW from fall to spring, major gusts day-in and day-out; at the time, I owned a 95 Kia Sportage.

Great little SUV, don't remember what it weighed, but it wasn't enough - that poor thing was always all over the road, VERY scary in the wind, especially on the highway. Never had it in the snow, so I can't say anything to that - but it was very frightening in the wind, even a vehicle of comparible size would toss it around.

However, my then '91 Rodeo weighed in around 5,000# - BIG difference between the two, course the Rodeo also had a wider/longer foot-print, but it also had higher ground clearance. Got to where we didn't want to drive the Sportage unless there was no choice; we eventually traded it for another Rodeo after only having it for a year.

 

[oilnoob425]

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You want as many pounds per square inch pressing down to pavement as the larger cars.

Run your tires at 35 PSI and get 155/80/13 snow tires, the base size for many years' Accents. This'll make the contact patch smaller so it digs down better.

Other problems you may run into (I have!) in the snow is simple ground clearance: Rub your floorpan on snowpack and you lose ground contact weight. Also if your car is too skinny wheel-to-wheel to fit in the ruts right, a sides' worth of tires will always be in slush.

There was a thread a month ago about adding weight for snow traction, my thought is it might help you start moving on flat land but would add inertia once you're going (bad) and will be a negative going up or down any hill.

As far as high winds, that will be a problem in an accent: they have squarish side windows that really seem to catch the breeze. A more sporty car with better aero, stiffer sway bars and struts, and lower profile tires will hold the road better for the same weight. These lower profile tires of course would be bad in snow and rain.

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I don't have an Accent anymore I got Civic now. I run regular size winter tires. Wind is't that bad of an issue in a Civic Coupe as it was in an Accent, when it was so bad sometimes, it was frightening.

 

[oilnoob425]

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In the same way, a FWD vehicle will be at its best in the snow with only a driver. Any added weight is borne by the non-driving wheels.

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I don't know. yesterday wasn't as fun as i expected. I guess i will buy heavier car and then see how it goes.

 

[carock]

Light weight cars can be great in the snow, talk to a Saab Sonnet or Saab 99 owner. The VW Beetles and the original Rabbits were also winners in the snow, so were the old CJ Jeeps. When it comes to wind performance, I have argued and won with the idea that suspension goemetry has more to do with wind wander than all other factors combined. My 1500lb 1969 Mini Cooper is impervious to side winds.

 

[DriveHard]

its all about contact pressure. If you put narrow tires on those little cars they will go through the snow just as well as a larger car. Its when you combine a little car with the wider tires that you will be in a heap of trouble.

 

[CBDFrontier06]

I found during my 17 years in Wyoming that lighter cars performed at least as well as heavier cars, until it came time to stop. I know my light import FWDs would climb slick hills far better than the heavier FWD domestics I drove. Also, my Civics, Sentra, etc. all stopped better than my heavier American iron could ever have thought of stopping. My 85 Olds Calais (pig) was pretty good at the acceleration part of travling in snow and ice, but when it came time to slow down for a turn, it would just plow on by the intersection. My mom's 93 Thunderbird (REAL pig) was the worst I'd ever seen. She traded in her 85 Accord SEi for it and quickly found the T'bird to be a nightmare, as the driving dynamics on ice were SO different. My 91 Civic ran circles around it too.

I'm not sure if there are tire choices that could remedy the stopping issue for heavy cars. Wider tires seem to stay on top of the slick stuff, while narrower ones dig through it but then become overburdened by the sheer weight when they do make contact with dry pavement. I guess you carry a yacht anchor with you and toss it out the window when you need to stop.

 

[WishIhadatruck]

I've owned smaller cars (not super small, it was a Corsica) and with Bridgestone Blizzaks on it would go until it sat up on top of the snow without the wheels touching. Ground clearance was its only problem which was rare. It went anywhere I wanted. Tires make the biggest difference and low profile tires are probably not going to be as good in the snow. What size tires are on the car? What year is it? You mentioned a coupe, is that what you have? % of weight on the drive wheels can make a big difference. Current Civic coupe has 61% of the weight on the drive wheels and very low profile tires. 61% isn't bad but is probably kind of low for a fwd vehicle. The narrow track could be causing a problems as well as someone else said. If the minivan was driving in other cars tracks and you had your right or left wheels always plowing a new path then you'd have trouble keeping up. The minivan is more likely to have traction control as well to give it better traction since it can apply the brake to a spinning tire and force the other wheel to do some work. You never know, they might have had snow tires on as well.

 

[javacontour]

I agree, tires are probably the largest factor.

Generally speaking, the SHAPE of the contact patch matters. If everything else is kept the same, such as tire construction, and only the width is changed, then the area of the contact patch should be same, because the weight of the car is not changing.

A wider tire will provide a wider contact patch, but it will not be as long as the narrower tire, with a narrower, but longer contact patch.

One of my "pet peeves" is folks who claim a wider tire puts more rubber on the road.

Not true, the area is roughly related to the air pressure. (The tire itself will support some of the weight, but not much relative to the air inside the tire). So if the axle of your car supports 1500# and you have 30psi in your tires, your front tires combined will need 50 square inches of contact to support that 1500#, or about 25 square inches/tire.

That contact patch is the same area, but will be shaped differently, depending on the tire width.