IgloONotes

One of the things this most recent snowfall has shown is me is how valuable all-wheel-drive is in the snow. After driving just a few days with our AWD Toyota Matrix, I really began to wonder how we made it through all these past winters in rear-wheel drive vehicles.

Accelerating from a stop is no problem at all, Pulling into my un-shoveled driveway with 30 cm of snow and getting all the way to my garage is no problem. Plowing through snow ridges made from snowplows is simple enough and navigating a deep, snow-drifted parking lot is no harder than adding a bit more gas. I could even stop in the middle and crawl out with ease. Its just so amazing that this car never seems to get stuck!

I am yet to get into a situation where the car just won’t move. The coolest thing of all is being able to navigate all the little side roads without any fear of getting stuck, and being able to quickly accelerate from a stop, leaving other 2wd’ers sitting around.

I sat at a stoplight, snickering to myself while I observed a silver Jetta attempt to cross the intersection. The main road that I was on was well plowed but the intersecting road was very much unplowed. Since I was at a stoplight, it was the Jetta’s right of way. The lady driver tried to accelerate into the main road, but just kept spinning her tires. She backed up a bit, then tried to get going again. Just as she seemed to have gotten enough grip, the light changed and she was stuck…again.

Last night started off with a very nice farewell dinner for a few of my exchange-student friends who were going back to their home countries after studying in Windsor for four months. We ate at the Flying Tiger Chinese restaurant and ordered some traditional Chinese food.

The food was great but of course, the best part is always the conversation. This was the coldest its been for all of them, and the most snow that most of them had ever seen. It was funny hearing them talk about how interesting it was to have to push their car out after getting stuck in the snow. Things that us Canadians are quite used to by now. I didn’t tell them, but I had an interesting time in china when the bus I was riding stalled, and the driver asked the passengers to push the bus!

It was also very entertaining listening to the Spanish student talk about shopping on Black Friday, the biggest shopping day in the US. For her, being able to fight for the clothes she wants and running into hundreds of people at the store was like a dream come true! She even bought a total of 10 pairs of shoes during her four month stay in Windsor.

She’s got her ‘New York shoes,’ her ‘Toronto shoes’ and her everyday shoes. I forgot to mention she also has a pair of everyday casual shoes. What’s the difference between everyday shoes and everyday casual shoes?

After dinner, we took a walk down to the river to enjoy a nice view of the Detroit skyline at night. It’s no Hong Kong Skyline, but it’s not bad at all. We made a few snow angels and threw one snowball which somehow made its way down my neck. I was tempted to throw one back but, I actually didn’t know who threw it!

Come to think of it, we were rather crazy to go out at night in -7 Celcius temperature with extreme windchill blowing across the river. But hey, it was fun! By the time my hands started to get numb, everyone else had begun to conclude that it was time to head back to our parked car.

I had parked at the bottom of a rather steep and slippery slope. Going down was easy, but going up was a different story. My friend had an older model Toyota Corolla and I decided to let him attack the slope first just in case he didn’t get up and started sliding backwards. As he was nearing the top, the car slowed to a crawl and all I could see was plumes of exhaust smoke. I was sitting in my car with my friends, watching, wondering…

“What do you think we should do? Should we help?”
-Silence-
“Take a picture?”

I actually wish they did because it was really quite interesting. I parked my car on the side of the parking lot to help him out. After seeing that the road surface was really quite icy, I thought the best thing to do was get behind the wheel myself to back up the car a bit and then accelerate.

It sort of worked, but didn’t quite get the car to the top. After two tries, I decided to back the car all the way down the slope where there was actually some plowed road surface and plant my right foot until I got the car going at a decent speed up the slope. I then had to modulate the throttle so the tires didn’t slip too much, but at the same time, minimize the loss of momentum. After getting my friends car on grippy tarmac and bidding my friend good luck, I proceeded to my AWD machine.

I had absolutely no worries as I stepped into my car. Despite having the added weight of three extra people (which could be considered an advantage), I had all four wheels driving my car. I didn’t even need to get a run up of speed to pull me up. I simply pointed the Matrix up the hill and lightly applied the throttle. No wheel spin, no drama, just pure grip. Behold the power of all wheel drive!

So you must be wondering how in the world this car handles snow when I’m trying to have a bit of fun, considering that I have just moved up from a rear wheel drive vehicle.

First of all, you can’t really slide the car with the same amount of control. When you first apply the throttle, the car will push to the outside of the corner, but because of the way this all wheel drive system works, power will only go to the rear wheels if the front wheels slip. So to get a slide, you have to stay on the throttle and just let the car do the magic. It’s still slightly unpredictable and so I could never quite powerslide with the same amount of accuracy as before. Nonethless, it is really entertaining, being able to perform a neutral slide with zero countersteer.

I’ve been sold on the beauty of AWD. Its advantages are worth more than words could ever express. When you live in Canada and get freak snowstorm, being able to power through the deepest of snow is very assuring, it even makes you look like a star. I’ve already forgot what its like to get stuck! Maybe ‘AWD’ should stand for; ‘Answers for Winter Dilemmas’ Unless of course, an unweary snowplower decides to totally cover our car in iced up snow...

Tags: canadian winters, driving, Toyota Matrix, Winter