JonRowe has it right; tires first, regardless of your drive system. Ground clearance is crucial for deep snow or ridges. In my Golf, I have to be careful because while the AWD and Michelin xIce tires are fabulous, it only has like five inches ground clearance. Luckily, plowing here is not only well done, everyone and his bubba brother has a plow blade for their truck, so it’s hard to find areas not plowed most of the time. It’s the ridges they plow up across your driveway that are problematic.
I love AWD because I like more performance-oriented cars, and can’;t have RWD. AWD is amazing for handling and getting power to the pavement, even if it weighs more.
Tulsa is surprisingly hilly, sitting at the base of the Ozarks. It gets snow, usually not more than an inch at once. Anything over that and schools close, if for no other reason than to keep people off the road.
Well, I was exaggerating a little. Living in Vermont, there are no flat surfaces it seems. But I’ve also lived in the southern reaches of the Appalachians, and that’s more like the Ozarks, where you can get snow sometimes but not enough to really justify getting snow tires.
In Atlanta, growing up, if there was a hint of frozen moisture, the city panicked, they looted the food stores, and Winterpocalypse was proclaimed. Probably wise, as folks down there then had zero clue about driving in anything other than warm weather.
We had a Forester eons ago when it was more car-like. My wife loved it, but it was a lease, and when the lease ended the local Subaru dealer showed zero interest in keeping us in a Subie, so we ended up with a CR-V. The new Subarus are definitely much nicer inside, and this iteration of the Forester certainly seems more like a standard SUV for good or ill. Probably no doubt it’s a solid, durable beast.
I have time this weekend to test drive a 2018 Forester, as they are trying to get rid of them (offering 0% financing), but I am pretty sure I want to wait on a 2019.
After some vehicle issues since mid september and an upcoming inspection in October where lots of stuff would need to be done at 70k miles, I traded in my old wheels for this blue beauty over the weekend:
Some interesting things I found out, apparently Japan had really bad flooding in the summer and Toyota , Subaru and Mazda all will have late 2019 delivery dates for certain models. Most surprising was the 2019 RAV-4 won’t be in available until February.
Yep they are fantastic daily drivers, lots of tech, and high quality materials inside. But also the worst paint, its so soft, rock chips are inevitable.
10 ft rule applies when buying one, if it looks good from 10 feet away, there are no paint problems. ;)
That’s some funky stuff there. Reminds me sorta of the fiasco around the engine heads/gasket on the Ford Focus RS. Only with the Honda, there are a ton more vehicles involved.
