TOD on Snow

Maybe you should try your question over again. You seem to be talking about on road driving when you talk about TOD in "snow-road", and then you ask if it is better to buy a different off-road car. What are you looking for - "on-road" or off road?

Oh, you are right. More precisely, I am going to buy a Hyundai Santa-Fe. I was wondering about the TOD behaviour on snow covered normal roads. I heard different points of view about this aspect, and some people suggested me to buy a really 4wd car, not a suv. Thanks.

"Mike Marlow" ha scritto nel messaggio news:69e9f$45720670$452895ad$ snipped-for-privacy@ALLTEL.NET...

Well, that begs a lot of questions. What kind of driving will you be doing? What types of roads? Twisty mountain roads or urban driving? Will you be simply commuting? How far?

For most people with just normal urban commuting needs, just about any two wheel drive vehicle on the road today is really sufficient. Front wheel drive or rear wheel drive makes no real difference in that setting. 4 wheel drive or All Wheel Drive are really quite unecessary for those conditions. Too often people talk about "needing" 4WD or AWD to handle occasional 4" of snow. Hell, any two wheel drive vehicle with half worn tires will handle that.

So... what that all boils down to is that if you're looking at 4WD or AWD vehicles, buy what you want because if your use of the term "snow covered normal roads" is in any way close to the average Northeast urban driving conditions, you don't really *need* either, and should therefore get what you *want*.

"Mike Marlow" wrote in news:f3af5$4572c705$452895ad$ snipped-for-privacy@ALLTEL.NET:

Mike, I would have to guess that you failed to look at the OP's email address. He is apparently in Italy, and since he is worried about snow, I would have to assume Northern Italy at that.

If he lives anywhere near the Alps, my guess would be that REAL 4WD would be required for many days in that part of the world. Todays AWD drive vehcles perform admirably in the snow, but 4WD is absolutely required for the real deep stuff, and as you mentioned, for getting around in the mountains.

Eric

Bigger than life Eric - I missed that completely.

Wonderful, guys!!!! In fact, my needs are really those depicted by Eric; I live in Rome, but often I use to spend my holidays and week ends in the Alps or Appennini. I like scuba diving in lake and river and often they are non located directly near main roads, even if there are often good country/mountain roads to reach them. I have no needs to pass river, or to climb hills or mountains out of those roads. But anyway some people said to me that also in those conditions I can not rely completely on the efficiency of the TOD transmission, which seems to be good for normal roads and highways in case of unexpected bad aderence. Especially in case of snow, I would like not to be forced to set up tyre chains again... Thank you for the patience.

Grandaal

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