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I swear to God this HHR is going to be the death of me. No, there was no accident. But with 10 inches of the white stuff on the ground I decided that it would be a good time to try and get to the store for some supplies. If you've been following my blog, then you're weird. But you know that I was stuck ON THE INTERSTATE yesterday morning. Before the snow. Well, we'd had a couple inches, but not the 10 that followed.

So I decide that going to the store is a smart idea. Now, the store is about 5 blocks away. Why didn't I just walk, you ask? 0 degrees F with a 35-40 mph wind. Kinda cold.

It takes my son and I about an hour to clear away enough of the driveway to get the car out when my neighbor got home. He pulled out his snow blower and finished it up for us. (My wife baked him brownies and I delivered them not too long ago.) I then went out and made it less than a block before I got high centered IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET because the plows haven't bothered with the lower income neighborhoods yet. Strange how it's not economic yet the wealthier parts are done already. Hmmm...

A couple of guys come to my rescue and get me moving again, one of which tells me that the streets out of this neighborhood is perfectly fine. So I decided to keep moving. I break through the snow at the end of the street and start to actually move. But there were more places like our street, so I got stuck two other times. One of the times there was less than 1 inch of snow! Now, I've driven in this stuff all my life and have never had trouble before so this is scaring me.

I parked the car at a barber shop about 4 blocks away and walked home. Since then I've helped no fewer than 5 cars get unstuck on our street. I called the city of Omaha and was hung up on twice.

One good thing: One of the cars I helped unstick was a pizza guy that I used to play D&D with. He thanked us and told us next time we called we had two free pizzas waiting for us. Score!

So now I'm sitting here trying to get warm after spending a few hours outside in the snow pushing cars, battling the elements and cursing the city government.


How was YOUR day?

My acronym knowledge fails me. HHR?

North_Ranger said:

My acronym knowledge fails me. HHR?

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Chevy's version of the PT Cruiser. (stands for Heritage High Roof)

It sits very low, is very light and is front wheel drive. Add up all of this and you have a deathtrap in the snow.

My car's not exactly suited for the harshities of Canadian swampland winters either. Luckily the dozers are quick to act here and there's always a heftly layer of lawn and paint wrecking salt and dirt on the roads too.

Stories like this make me miss my baby.



Fucking Subaru...

Dave said:

It sits very low, is very light and is front wheel drive. Add up all of this and you have a deathtrap in the snow.

Click to expand...

Front wheel drive is much better in the snow than rear wheel drive. Basically, if you are not lucky enough for AWD or FWD, you want front wheel drive. I drove up a steep hill in snow today with my Malibu. Thank goodness for new tires!

A light car isn't that good, though, you're right. You can always load up with bags of kitty litter or something equally heavy to help keep your rear from sliding around too much, though. You should have enough traction with front wheel (due to that heavy engine thingy) to be able to get going. If you're still getting stuck, it's either because you are hitting deep snow banks, have shitty tires, or are basically driving on ice.

Brand new tires but they suuuuuuuuck!

MindDetective;312447][quote=Dave said:

It sits very low, is very light and is front wheel drive. Add up all of this and you have a deathtrap in the snow.

Click to expand...

Front wheel drive is much better in the snow than rear wheel drive. Basically, if you are not lucky enough for AWD or FWD, you want front wheel drive. I drove up a steep hill in snow today with my Malibu. Thank goodness for new tires!

A light car isn't that good, though, you're right. You can always load up with bags of kitty litter or something equally heavy to help keep your rear from sliding around too much, though. You should have enough traction with front wheel (due to that heavy engine thingy) to be able to get going. If you're still getting stuck, it's either because you are hitting deep snow banks, have shitty tires, or are basically driving on ice.[/QUOTE]

My Subaru has AWD and it still compares nothing to being able to drive through 2 feet of snow with 4-low and locked differentials in my Jeep Rubicon. I miss that damn thing so much. This time next year, mark my words, I'm buying a Jeep again.

Dave said:

Now, the store is about 5 blocks away. Why didn't I just walk, you ask? 0 degrees F with a 35-40 mph wind. Kinda cold . . . It takes my son and I about an hour to clear away enough of the driveway

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I'm humourously confused: Wouldn't the walk have been less than an hour? And couldn't you have just sent your son?

Gruebeard;312462][quote=Dave said:

Now, the store is about 5 blocks away. Why didn't I just walk, you ask? 0 degrees F with a 35-40 mph wind. Kinda cold . . . It takes my son and I about an hour to clear away enough of the driveway

Click to expand...

I'm humourously confused: Wouldn't the walk have been less than an hour? And couldn't you have just sent your son?[/QUOTE]

Hahahaha

I love/dread hearing new stories about this car so much.

I think I'm a freak for actually wanting one later on down the road.

Gruebeard;312462][quote=Dave said:

Now, the store is about 5 blocks away. Why didn't I just walk, you ask? 0 degrees F with a 35-40 mph wind. Kinda cold . . . It takes my son and I about an hour to clear away enough of the driveway

Click to expand...

I'm humourously confused: Wouldn't the walk have been less than an hour? And couldn't you have just sent your son?[/QUOTE]

It had to be dug out anyway thanks to work in the morning, his work tonight (which he never made) and my wife has a job interview tomorrow.

Yeah, I knew the answer. But, well, as usual I just wanted to make the mostly pointless joke.

I've got a PT Cruiser with Traction Control - not sure if I would have liked driving in the snow we got last night (12:30 am when I left work) without it. Made a difference getting going. We got 14+ inches up here.

I disagree with the people that say FWD is better than RWD - I drove pickup trucks (parents' Dodge Ram and my own Dodge Dakota) for many years out in the country. Did better in them than any of the FWD cars we had when I was growing up. A lot of it is that a) you need good tires (my set for the Dakota 16" rims were $800 for 4), b) you need weight in the rear end (I had 5 70 lbs bags of sand in the Dakota), c) learn how your vehicle handles in skids/sliding/etc (go into an empty parking lot and try even), and finally d) take it easy when driving in snow/ice.

My parents' driveway went up at a 45 degree angle from the road, I only got stuck once with my parents' truck after I turned 16 - that was due to ice under the snow at the bottom. When I got my Dakota, I got stuck more often until I got "real" tires - it came with Goodyear Eagle LS tires on it - what a set of POS those were. I actually want to go back to a RWD Dakota when I trade in again - quad cab, since I have an almost 16 month old now (had to trade in my extended cab for a vehicle that would haul him in his infant seat).

I've only gone in a ditch once in the 14 years I've been driving and that one time was due to a rear brake freezing up on the car I was driving. Since I moved into the city, I see tons of people in the ditches because they're traveling too fast for what the conditions should be. 4WD/AWD is great to get you started/out of somewhere, but the biggest thing you need to be concerned about is stopping - which anti-lock brakes require a longer distance to stop - people seem to forget that.

I too have an HHR. But I don't have to worry about ice. If we get Ice I can eat ramen for a day until it melts.

The joys of living in NC. If it happens to snow I just don't go anywhere, (idiots around here don't seem to realize that just because you have a 4WD pickup doesn't mean you are capable of driving in the snow) and the next day it will be in the 70s.

Chazwozel;312461][quote=MindDetective;312447][quote=Dave said:

It sits very low, is very light and is front wheel drive. Add up all of this and you have a deathtrap in the snow.

Click to expand...

Front wheel drive is much better in the snow than rear wheel drive. Basically, if you are not lucky enough for AWD or FWD, you want front wheel drive. I drove up a steep hill in snow today with my Malibu. Thank goodness for new tires!

A light car isn't that good, though, you're right. You can always load up with bags of kitty litter or something equally heavy to help keep your rear from sliding around too much, though. You should have enough traction with front wheel (due to that heavy engine thingy) to be able to get going. If you're still getting stuck, it's either because you are hitting deep snow banks, have shitty tires, or are basically driving on ice.[/QUOTE]

My Subaru has AWD and it still compares nothing to being able to drive through 2 feet of snow with 4-low and locked differentials in my Jeep Rubicon. I miss that damn thing so much. This time next year, mark my words, I'm buying a Jeep again.[/QUOTE]

JEEP! JEEP! JEEP!

Well, I've been coughing horribly every day and night for over a month and have yet to see a doctor and hours have been cut at one of my jobs leaving me scrounging and scrimping to save for bills and rent as much as I can. Otherwise, just fine.

Stories like this always make me laugh, because I live in the Frozen North where we start getting weather like this in November and the last time I remember anything in my life being affected by the snow was the time it was up to my dads torso so we didn't want to open the front door and have it spill inside.

Good old Canada.

I'm bummed. That snow storm completely missed us. All we have is a dusting of snow.

Heavan said:

Stories like this always make me laugh, because I live in the Frozen North where we start getting weather like this in November and the last time I remember anything in my life being affected by the snow was the time it was up to my dads torso so we didn't want to open the front door and have it spill inside.

Good old Canada.

Click to expand...

Around here that was the old Canada. Twenty years ago this area had tonnes of snow on the ground by now, and that very snow would still be around in April.

Today, in the new Canada, there's a dusting on the ground right now, but nothing else. It'll be gone in days, we'll have another green Christmas and a pretty green January, too.

Keep that global warming coming. I'm looking forward to salt-free roads.

But Grue, I don't want beach front property.

It hella snowed here yesterday and I shoveled a few times. Fortunately I didn't have anywhere to be and my family members were prepared with snow tires back in late October.

I live just down the 401 from Gusto but there's nothing here that needed shoveling at any point. Woodstock seems to be in a weird little pocket dimension.

I feel your pain Dave. My last car, a Ford Focus, was so light that even with front wheel drive and chains on over good tires I had trouble getting traction on ice or overly-compact snow. Hell, with brand new all-season tires I had trouble getting traction on lightly rained on pavement.

I think front wheel drive used to be a lot better than rear-wheel, when cars were heavier. Now that cars have gotten so light, with composite materials and aluminum instead of heavier steel, even the relatively heavy engine doesn't provide enough weight in the front to provide good traction control. You really need AWD or 4WD; because at least with 4WD you can pack the trunk/truck bed with sand bags or cinder blocks and get a decent amount of weight pushing down on your rear wheels.

But then, I'm also firmly of the opinion that we should get the environmental engineers working on ways to update our factories and steel mills and get them fired back up. If nothing else, it would be a decent way to create some damn jobs.

Here's another vote for HHR standing for "Hate, Hate, Repeat" when it comes to those cars. Man, they suck.

FWIW, I'm currently driving around in a '94 Taurus that was T-Boned in the Summer of 2007, yet it's still going. And it'll have to for another year or so, it seems.

--Patrick