Kurlon
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Josh
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2019
- Threads
- 4
- Messages
- 118
- Reaction score
- 91
- Location
- Southern Maine
- Vehicle(s)
- 2021 4XE Rubicon, maybe?
- Thread starter
- #16
On snow covered roads, it just will not get any bite. Pressures are 35psi all the way around, slightly down from what the sticker calls for, same as I've done with pretty much every vehicle I've owned. Bare ice, I can feel the studs digging in, any slush or real snow and it just floats. I had one morning a week or so prior that the road was bare ice, my prior vehicle wouldn't touch it, in that case 4Lo locked it chugged right up. That was the scenario I got it in hopes of conquering. On the interstate the past two days in the storms I put in about 8 hours of total drive time, and at no time did it feel planted. (8 hours of bad defroster design in that storm did NOT help my mood.) This afternoon I came home to our road sporting a hardpack base, inch of fresh on top from the last of the storm and my driveway wasn't cleared so about 8" to a foot of semi wet snow there, with a bit of a berm from the plow at the entrance. As noted before my road is a bastard because of the grade when leaving, coming in it's downhill, my driveway is paved and flat, no ice at the entrance, usually not an issue as I've got gravity on my side. Drove down the hill in 2WD, turned in and it stopped with the front wheels past the berm, rear hanging out in the road and that was it. Only lifted the throttle as the ass started rotating as I didn't want to get it stuck aiming down the hill, would have to have cleared out a LOT more berm to have been able to back it out if I had. 4Lo fully locked and it would not even rock. If I had been in 4Hi at the start it might have held momentum and gotten past the berm, maybe? Once I snowblowed in front of the rig and cleared out in front of the tires, with some effort it pulled itself onto the driveway using 4Lo locked up. Snowblower ate the berm remains without issue so it wasn't superdense snow it was fighting.
I used to run the prior generation Hakkas on a Suzuki Vitara, unstudded. It almost didn't have enough motor to brake the tires loose on anything other than wet glare ice if you did a full clutch drop, and would tractor through snow like a champ until it got up to the bumper, then it was game over as it didn't have enough weight to keep from floating. Been a fan of proper dedicated snows ever since. The LT3s on this rig have slightly more grip than the KO2s, unless we're talking bare ice in which case the studs absolutely work, but any amount of loose snow and I swear I'm driving on slicks.
I'm sure in an offroad situation, aired down the KO2s or LT3s would be different animals, but I wouldn't expect a foot or less of snow to defeat the rig at stock pressures with dedicated studded snows. This is a situation that I wouldn't have even thought about in an 06 Highlander Hybrid AWD with Blizzaks, stock pressures, nose in, maintain throttle and do the snowblowing after the new year. The only thing that would throw a wrench in the works would be if my driveway was covered in ice under the snow so the Blizzaks couldn't dig to pavement but that wasn't the case today and the LT3s absolutely would not dig down.
For comparison, my wife's Nissan Versa Note with Michelin X-Ices made it up and out without issue afterwards. (Driveway snowblowed at that point, road still not freshly plowed.)
I used to run the prior generation Hakkas on a Suzuki Vitara, unstudded. It almost didn't have enough motor to brake the tires loose on anything other than wet glare ice if you did a full clutch drop, and would tractor through snow like a champ until it got up to the bumper, then it was game over as it didn't have enough weight to keep from floating. Been a fan of proper dedicated snows ever since. The LT3s on this rig have slightly more grip than the KO2s, unless we're talking bare ice in which case the studs absolutely work, but any amount of loose snow and I swear I'm driving on slicks.
I'm sure in an offroad situation, aired down the KO2s or LT3s would be different animals, but I wouldn't expect a foot or less of snow to defeat the rig at stock pressures with dedicated studded snows. This is a situation that I wouldn't have even thought about in an 06 Highlander Hybrid AWD with Blizzaks, stock pressures, nose in, maintain throttle and do the snowblowing after the new year. The only thing that would throw a wrench in the works would be if my driveway was covered in ice under the snow so the Blizzaks couldn't dig to pavement but that wasn't the case today and the LT3s absolutely would not dig down.
For comparison, my wife's Nissan Versa Note with Michelin X-Ices made it up and out without issue afterwards. (Driveway snowblowed at that point, road still not freshly plowed.)
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