But I believe most vans on the market have an AWD option. Ford Transit and Volkswagen IDBuzz both offer AWD. Toyota’s Sienna is (only?) AWD with a silly lifted trim for the off-roading soccer mom market. Chrysler’s van is AWD.
That leaves the ProMaster as the only two wheeler I’m certain about. Mazda and Kia also have vans, unsure about their drivetrain options. Did I leave anyone out?
Couple years ago I was driving through Arizona during a massive blizzard. Everyone's doing 15, and I'm doing 50 - taking things slow and careful because of the traffic.
I had people in vests standing out in the road waving at me trying to get me to slow down! And I'm going "What in the hell are you doing out in the road!? Don't you know this is a blizzard!"
I grew up in Alaska, we laugh at the snow :)
And, like you said, people think that an AWD car will stop faster. No, it'll just start moving faster, more traction doesn't make the brakes better or the road any less slippery.
I owned a single 4WD car and it was super fun in the winter, but... when it's icy, you're most likely moving faster than you would be with a 2wd, which again results in some heart palpitations when you're trying to stay on the road =)
The only people I know who think this way are made up people who exist only in the minds of people seeking to validate a purchasing decision.
I would’ve stopped to help, but I was concerned that if I lost momentum, I wouldn’t get going again.
Don't forget the people who just want to sneer at other people in ill-considered condescension! Plenty of that from the "the world outside the Bay Area and NYC isn't real and none of those people exist" folks.
What does more traction mean unless it's that the road is effectively less slippery (to my vehicle)?
> AWD inspires more confidence
Stop and work backwards and ask yourself why that is rather than doing the Principal Skinner "no everyone else is wrong" routine. In practice, all seasons on an AWD car result in less slipping around than snow tires on a FWD car. Heck, if the difference where anywhere near close everyone rich enough to have a new car would probably have snow tires because the dealership or tire shop would be able to make that sale. The reason they can't is because in people's experience they're just not necessary.
Stupid internet circle jerks about stopping distance are not the pain point or performance bottleneck for the average user. The degree to which you can enter/exit a side street that has snow plowed in front of it, navigate a steep and poorly plowed driveway, park in an unplowed space, cross the slush between lanes on a main roads or highway, those are what "real users" care about and they're where AWD shines.
>but once you are, every car still only has 2 wheels to turn and 4 to stop, which are quite possibly more crucial in snow..
These trope needs to be taken out back and shot. Regardless of your tire type the amount of traction available in snow conditions is such that "not being stupid enough to come into a situation too hot" is the dominant factor in overall outcome in braking/turning situations. Snow tires are an incremental improvement, not a categorical one. And the difference between a wet road and a snowy one is very much a categorical one.
AWD is the right choice for the statistical average person or "casual user" who's snow experience is dominated by somewhat plowed, somewhat churned snow/slush roads and is already driving incredibly conservatively. If you're driving on a frozen lake all the time like in the tire commercials or live somewhere rural and drive on a ton of fresh snow, by all means get the snow tires. But most people aren't, in that category they're better served by some random crossover and not thinking about it. And if you are one of those people, then spend a little more and get something with studs for all the ice you're inevitably also encountering.
Uh, it should be? The ability to confidently stop is far more important than to go. If you can’t get going, you’re not in a wreck. If you can’t stop, well…
You also missed another key reason to get snow tires: many (most?) vehicles do not come with AWD even as an option. Telling someone to trade their Civic in for a CR-V just so they can get AWD isn’t sensible, when they could mount snow tires and get a significant traction boost.
First off, this is the principal skinner "everyone else is wrong" take.
Second, it's just not how things work in practice. In practice what happens if you have a FWD car that can't "just go" you wind up driving way harder to make up for it. Stuff like hitting hills at speed and trying to take on-ramps at the limit of traction because you are having to work around the limitation of being unable to actually put power to the ground when you need to. Say nothing of all the sketchy situations that happen at the margin of that (backing down a hill you couldn't go up, getting stuck less than graceful merges, etc).
>You also missed another key reason to get snow tires: many (most?) vehicles do not come with AWD even as an option
I don't think that's anywhere near true for the US market.
Most companies prefer vans over trucks. Much better economics.
Either AWD/4wd is necessary when you're going to other people's property because you can't guarantee any given property isn't an icy shithole and when you're a professional being paid by them to be there for a specific purpose the last thing you wanna do is slip out trying to do a 25-point turn on their stupid sloped driveway and put a tire in the landscaping.
Even in cold parts of the US your hvac or plumber is going to be using something like a transit. Very few trade jobs opt for a truck. They don’t make economic sense and impossible to secure anything in the bed.
Sure landscaping crews can utilize trucks but even then, your mowing operation can get more value from a transit style van if they are only using pus mowers.
Maybe it’s just in my neck of the woods but if you cannot get up or down a hill because a homeowner does not clear their driveway then it’s a no go. Very acceptable boundary.
I've never seen or known a trademan that drove a van. They all drive pickups. Maybe this is a regional thing.
I am quite surprised to hear you have never seen an electrician use a van. That said there are certainly specialities where it’s more common.
90% of trade work is all on pavement and trucks suck for tools. If you are a logger yeah sure you may be using a truck to get to your equipment, similarly for lineman but for the vast majority of trade jobs companies opt for commercial vans. You are describing trade work like it’s the tv show landman.
Pickups are absolutely a regional affectation. I kinda want one, but I do not need one.
It could also be just a further deal with Quigley. You can already order from a dealer with the 4x4 option, and your vehicle will go factory->Quigley->dealer and be sold to you as "new", with good warranties.
I grew up in Minnesota driving rear wheel drive cars to start. They worked fine even in the olden days where plows would take a couple days to clear the country backroads and even rock salt was applied sparingly due to the expense.
Not a single one of my vehicles had winter tires - all seasons were perfectly serviceable. You’d get stuck once in a great while but that’s what the bag of sand and shovel in the trunk were for.
Front wheel drive came along and made it easy mode.
All wheel drive is certainly something I love these days, but it’s an extreme luxury that makes winter driving laughably easy.
A basic utilitarian work vehicle does not need to be 4WD in 90% or likely even 99% of use cases anywhere in the country.
Only in the most strictly technical "I'm not touching you" sense.
Either AWD/4wd is necessary-ish when you're going to other people's property because you can't guarantee any given property isn't an icy shithole and when you're a professional being paid by them to be there for a specific purpose the last thing you wanna do is slip out trying to do a 25-point turn on their stupid sloped driveway and put a tire in the landscaping.
Even if it's some megacorp's facility that "should" be plowed and salted, it might not be when you show up at 6am on the dot to service something.
>I grew up in Minnesota driving rear wheel drive cars to start. They worked fine even in the olden days where plows would take a couple days to clear the country backroads and even rock salt was applied sparingly due to the expense.
>Not a single one of my vehicles had winter tires - all seasons were perfectly serviceable. You’d get stuck once in a great while but that’s what the bag of sand and shovel in the trunk were for.
I completely agree but the past isn't coming back. Those standards of performance are unfortunately no longer acceptable, especially in business settings.
The average contractor servicing suburban and exurban properties in a work van is going to be able to trivially navigate 95% of all snowfalls with FWD with a modicum of winter driving skills. It's just not that hard, and very few places get the type of snow that requires a fully off road capable vehicle.
If I lived in the mountains of Colorado and servicing ranches or something of course I'd be buying for those conditions. But a standard city in the northern US or Canada? Meh. Total waste of money for a fleet vehicle. These sorts of locations are where something like 99% of all vehicle miles are put on.
For personal use now that I can afford it? AWD is on all my vehicles. It's a magical technology since it allows turning your brain off, and making some situations comically easy to navigate. But I'm not optimizing for cost efficiency or practicality there - I'm optimizing for luxury and convenience.
I'm not talking about places that can be written off because "the boonies are a rounding error".
I'm talking about some guy who owns a plumbing business in Boston and wants to reduce the number of days per year that conditions make things sketchy. $3k per truck or $4k per van is absolutely chump change compared to the PITA of having to add more buffer to winter scheduling to account for delays and inconvenience.
>for personal use now that I can afford it? AWD is on all my vehicles. It's a magical technology since it allows turning your brain off, and making some situations comically easy to navigate. But I'm not optimizing for cost efficiency or practicality there - I'm optimizing for luxury and convenience.
Baffling that someone who readily admits that "you can turn your brain off" doesn't see why people who either have to drive their own work vehicle every day, or put a vehicle in the hands of an employee wouldn't value that even higher.
I miss the hell out of my '82 Chevrolet S10 with extended cab and two-tone paint job. The extended cab isn't going to be used for hauling the soccer team, but I could put it was plenty of space for "inside only" cargo. Damn thing threw a rod and cracked the case, and I never could convince my parents to keep it and put a new engine in it. I'd like to think I'd still own it today if they had.
USA seemingly can't sell small or base trim cars.
Product of mfrs cheating CAFE standards.
Half these people still choose to buy the vehicle they do for insane and superficial reasons like "It's got a Hemi", like my uncle, even though Hemispherical combustion chambers haven't been state of the art or even good ICE technology in decades.
For the "I need to sometimes pick up large objects" use case it's hard to beat.
Sedan handles 99% of my driving, but can't really tow anything. Truck handles all of my towing stuff, but gets ~14mpg which hurts so I don't drive it.
Jeep is a jeep, it's always being worked on, but when I use it I'm using it to go ride around on dirt paths or for camping. It gets 17-20mpg when I'm driving it but I don't want to drive it often.
If the jeep was a 2000's series jeep I would totally just get a small trailer for the occasional towing things that I do with the pickup and downsize to 2 vehicles. I know I could rent a uhaul from time to time for about what I pay for insuring and titling the truck, but the $100 annual difference is worth it for the convenience of not having to deal with uhaul 4 times a year.
But I said all of that to say, that a hitch isn't a perfect solution for everyone. I would feel very uncomfortable towing an empty 4x6 trailer behind my sedan, not to even mention the occasional couch or dresser or bunch of boxes from helping a friend move.
The 2 door model unfortunately has a pretty weak tow rating of 1 ton, and I'm fairly certain I have gone well over that a few times. IIRC the four door models a few years later took that up to 5000 lbs because of the extra length.
Why? 1500 lbs rated tow hook on an average sedan should be no problem at all. And that's more than enough for a 4x6 with a couch and a couple of boxes. Might even get a slightly larger trailer so you don't have to take the couch apart.
I've towed 14' sailboats including all gear behind a Corolla, didn't even feel the trailer was there.
So I replaced it with a 5x8 trailer, which anymore gets pulled behind a Chevy Volt. I'd hesitate to load it to the max and take it on the thruway, but for most of my tasks it's actually more convenient than the truck. Loading up a riding lawn mower or a few hundred pounds of scrap metal is way easier with it being closer to the ground, and I'm mostly driving 10-15 miles over back roads so if I'm worried the load is too heavy for the compact car I don't mind taking it a little slow.
Also, it's convenient to load it while it's unhooked, piling in garbage and debris over a week or a weekend and then hooking it up to run to the dump; likewise, just unhooking the trailer full of construction materials and (weather permitting) just unloading it as you build.
I occasionally miss being able to drive it into the woods, but to be honest not being able to parallel park the trailer is a bigger inconvenience than not being able to off-road it.
[0] Since having kids I've come around on the second-row-of-seats/short bed trade-off; not being able to pick up dimensional lumber with kids in tow is way more limiting in my current phase of life than not being able to fit it in the bed with the tailgate up.
People mostly still do it though, because it's cheap and easy to do.
With an Impreza.
That included highways in the Yukon that were more river rock than gravel, backwoods of Montana and Wyoming, you name it.
It was totally fine. Especially in a Subaru, with AWD and a low well centered center of gravity. I'd do it again.
Yeah, everything about it is "solid". The longblock will theoretically go a million miles but you're gonna replace every part around it to get it there. I'm sure they're fine when new but as they age it's basically the same "replacing way too much BS because while nice it's over engineered" as the rest of german car ownership.
Source: semi responsible for keeping one running
Vans are way better in almost every regard.
Actually, I'm buying a house with a garage and I may get a bike trailer, and a tow hitch for my BMW. That would be an even simpler solution
Source: own minivan
Ironically, the Honda Ridgeline - long lambasted as “not a real truck” - can fit a 4x8 sheet of plywood, at least width-wise. You’ll have to either prop it up on the tailgate, or drop it and strap it down (which honestly you should do either way), but it will fit between the wheels.
I love my Ridgelines; had a Gen1 RTL, and now a Gen2 BE. A neighbor I used to have traded his F-150 for an F-350. The most I ever saw him haul was a very small trailer with some furniture. I’ve had a cubic yard of mulch dumped into mine repeatedly (a Gen1 Ridgeline will hold and haul this, but it’s heaped, and depending on moisture content it’s slightly over max rating, so maybe don’t bring a passenger).
After deciding to replace it, we struggled to decide what kind of vehicle to upgrade to. For our lifestyle and the side projects I like to do, another minivan was the obvious choice. Now it's a 2018 Pacifica and we're retired. The quality is outstanding, with 112K miles on it, I expect to put on another 100K before seeing what's available for the next upgrade. None of these vans ever gave us any engine or transmission trouble, despite the high number of miles I was able to put on them.
Remind me of my favorite article title: In the land of the free, why can’t we have mini-pickup trucks like the Taliban and ISIS?[0]
[0]: https://www.kansas.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/dion-lefler...
First of all I'm not convinced that the utility of the trucks is mostly unused. This seems like a trope from anticar people. But second of all and more concretely, I've done a lot of trade work that would have simply not worked in a van, so seeing your common sentiment is always bemusing.
Funny story, the guys who demolished an old bathroom for us hauled the crap & dust away in a very dirty beater van (either a small cargo van or a minivan with rear seating removed, can't remember). It was their designated demolition vehicle.
There are only two trades that use sheet goods: drywall and carpentry. Most of the time they’re getting dozens or hundreds of sheets delivered to a job site.
What are you going to do with (12) 32 sq ft pieces of sheet goods anyways, put up drywall in a half of a bedroom or reroof a quarter of a garage?
If you really want to do this, you’ll get a roof rack for hauling sheet goods.
Sprinter vans, utility vans, or even minivans are far, far more useful for trades than modern pickups. Heck, my minivan was the goat for home renovations—it’d easily fit a dozen full 4x8 sheets of drywall/osb/ply/mdf/etc and I could still close the rear gate. I always got chuckles from guys awkwardly wrangling/securing sheets onto a pickup’s bed at the supply yard when I’d easily slide the sheets off the cart directly into the van by myself.
A heavy duty pickup makes sense when you have regular towing, or large bulky transport, needs. While on this topic, I’ll take a moment to lament the demise of the light duty pickup that provided a bit of extra utility while still fitting in a normal parking space.