Vanagons in the snow.

[mrbatzloff]

I've been meaning to ask this question all winter: does everyone else's vanagon handle as poorly as mine in the snow? It's like driving a snow board, even with just a light dusting on the road. A couple of disclaimers: no studded tires this year; not super aggressive tires but plenty of tread (they're great in the rain); I have plenty of winter driving experience, but this is the first year with our vanagon; as I mentioned before, with even just a little powder on the pavement (>1/2") she has a tendency to go sideways, kind of fun, but not the best for city driving. Thanks all.

[backcountrymedic]

Keep your knees bent, weight on your front foot, and dig your toe-side edge in... Plenty of stopping power!

[walrus]

I wish we had some snow.
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1987 Syncro west. conversion
1991 Jetta gli

[Wildthings]

Having owned quite the variety of vehicles over the years, including several 2wd pickups I would say the Vanagons are by far the worst. That VW could figure out how to design a vehicle with noticeably less traction than an empty pickup is amazing. I have had mine Vanagon stuck on level ground with little more that a dusting of snow. My solution was to buy a Synchro for winter use and save my Multi for the summer fun.

[benmac]

yeah they are not good in the snow. i spun out real bad last winter, surprized it didnt flip. just keep you eyes out, some times i wish i had a syncro. best of luck

[danfromsyr]

1st step buy WINTER tires.. on a 2wd you only rally need the rears.. well if you'd like to stop get some fronts too..
ALL Seasons are NOT just that.. they are all season for baltimore, MD where 1" snow closes the city..hence you don'thave to drive in it. so it's all season..

I live in Syracuse NY, SNOW CAPITOL (per city size) of the US..
we get SUBSTANTIALLY more snow then Buffalo.. heck our airport has/had (per 2003) the world's biggest snowplow..


anyways.. we drive our 2wd vans (my camper, dad's diesel cargovan)
1st off theres a learning curve, to applying the gas/brake in conjunction with the clutch. if you just gas and go.. it'll spin.. if you take a second ease in and voila .. you'll also want thinner tires.. 205s are a tad wide for snow.. they'll plow.. like tipping the edge of your skiis..

heck even where i live people forget how to drive in the snow.. loosing it on nice days as well as days we get 6"-18" (though it's been a light winter). snow is one thing that upstate NY knows PLENTY about..

go just 15miles norht of me and they get 2x's the accumulation. 25miles north of there they get 4x's my snowfall and I get 2-3x's the snowfall that the city gets.. (living just 15miles north).. lake effect snow bands off Lake Ontario compounded by sudden change in elevation..

[Dogpilot]

Dan's right about tires. They make all the difference in the snow. The Van is not bad weight wise when it comes to traction, but they suck if you have bad tires. The diffeerence Nokian's made on my Land Rover Disco was amazing. It had the stock "all Seasons", and his claim is correct about them.

In Alaska, after the first snow of the season, you never entered an intersection after the light turned green. You waited for all the out of control cars to go spinning through, trying to stop on their all season radials. There is a 5-7 day learning curve for everybody after the snow starts.

Cheers,
James
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Geology with a Syncro rocks!
86 Syncro Westy AKA "The Bughunter"
98 Disco I
08 Range Rover SC
08 VW Rabbit S
1951 O-1G

[Paintedbus]

i cant agree more with dan and dogpilot.

while i dont live quite as deep into the snow belt as dan does, i do get a fair amount of snow (we got 32" in the last big storm), and i can tell you that i have never gotten stuck or slid off the road once in my 2wd westy.

get snow/winter tires (all season does not really include winter) and drive carefully. Gunning it doesn't work, the worst thing to do when your tires dont catch is to floor it, instead, stop and give it very little gas, and at low rpm's your vanagon will climb out of damn near anything.

remember that your vanagon isn't designed for high speed snow travel, but they do have an excellent weight ratio front to back, and are certainly capable of snow travel, better than most cars i have found.

a good winter tire combo for 2wd i have found is Nokian Hakkapeliitta in the rear and my usual hankooks (from bus depot) in the front. works very well for me. i easily climb my girlfriends driveway which is a 4" sheet of ice during winter. They all drive subaru's so they dont feel the need to ever shovel
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Champagne Edition Roadtrip monster "Juakali"

~"Paintedbus" Ken~
The Mobile Muralist
WWW.PAINTEDBUSART.COM

[stumpie]

My answer to the problem--- Thru rain, snow, sleet and dark of night I keep "Fra Clink" inside the garage.( Don't want to expose her to that nasty salt!!!!) My snow veheicle is a Plymouth voyager.

[psych-illogical]

My van came with an extra set of studded snow tires. These things are wonderful in the snow and ice. But, it's a PITA to have to change them every time the weather changes. Having a nice floor jack and a garage helps. Last winter we had record snowfall and I just left 'em on all season. This winter we've had zero snow (we're lookin' at a really bad fire season) and I've just kept my Michelin street tires on. It's been easy so far. It'll get tougher when we have a more normal winter where it snows for a while and I put on the studs then it dries out and I'll feel compelled to put the street tires back on. Then, as soon as I do it'll decide to snow again. The ultimate solution, move south.
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83 1/2 Westy waterboxer
'57 Beetle-sold
Coupla '81 BMW motorcycles (R80G/S; R100RS)
'96 BMW R1100GS

[Paintedbus]

i keep my studded tires on all winter. i dont have a garage to park my van, so it usually gets done right after the first snow fall... i get the jack out of the van and a rug so that i can sit in the snow, and just get it done once a season. sucks to do, but definately worth it in my mind.
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Champagne Edition Roadtrip monster "Juakali"

~"Paintedbus" Ken~
The Mobile Muralist
WWW.PAINTEDBUSART.COM

[pocvw]

Driving my Vanagon in the snow is no problem - she does fine. The fact that it's rear-wheel drive (where most of the weight is at) makes it no different than a front-wheel drive, imo.
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Life is a garden - dig it!

1980 VW Westfalia

[D Clymer]

The tires do make a big difference. In my experience a Vanagon with winter tires is fine. Here are a few other thoughts, though on the basic dynamics of a Vanagon.

1. The wasserboxer is light, and a 2wd Vanagon has slightly less weight on the rear compared to the front even in unloaded condition.

2. Two heavy people sitting in the front seats can significantly alter that percentage since they are sitting right above the wheels.

3. First gear is low, so it takes effort to get a soft startoff.

4. A lot of the tires still available in the 195/75/14, 205-70/14 size are very mediocre in the snow on any car. Just read the reviews on www.tirerack.com

5. The brakes tend to be biased too frontward on a Vanagon and the fronts lock very easily especially if you only have rear snow tires. With an automatic van it's almost necessary to kick it into neutral before stopping to get a controlled stop.

I've always found a properly tired Vanagon to be completely acceptable in the snow. I am an Audi quattro and VW front drive person aside from my Vanagons, so I'm obviously not gonna think Vanagons are great in the snow. I have always found them to be far better than other rear wheel drive vans and pickup trucks. I think their snow abilities are roughly equal to an early 1990s BMW 525i - another vehicle that needs winter tires to perform decently.

David

[[email protected]]

Both my stock 85 are great in the snow and handele great.
I just have some all weather tires nothing special. I think they are brigtstones. I never felt i need aall whell drive in mine.

[flyingCoyote]

Huh...my vanagon's OK in the snow, though I should admit that I enjoy a certain amount of semi-controlled fishtailing. Might not turn on a dime, but it'll doggedly push through over a foot of snow no problem, as I discovered a few weeks ago when we had a two foot blizzard.

I also remember a highway trip in my previous ('76) bus where we had a running joke for several hours about all the 4WD SUVs abandoned at the side of the road. We passed one every few minutes, but the bus just kept on like an energizer bunny.
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1985 Vanagon GL / homebrew camper (daily driver)
1974 Super Beetle (Wife's daily driver)

[getset]

I use to put two sand bags between the front seats to help even out the load. It seemed to help. Now I have a syncro so it is hard to get poor traction