I got my pickup back when I lived in the Phoenix, AZ metro and now that I've moved up to the Northern suburbs (what have you) of the Seattle area - Bothell, to be specific - I was wondering whether I should spend the money on the rear-wheel drive pickup or the front-wheel drive sedan. Granted we don't get all too much snow, but I live at the top of a hill and it's 150' vertically to the bottom of the hill at a 10% grade. I don't have the luxury of working from home.

Any thoughts? I've got a ShurTraxx in the back of the pickup with about 60gal (nearly 500 lbs) of water, so I figure that's got to be loads better than an empty bed. If I was going with the pickup - I was going to get some 18" rims and 265/70/18 studded tires. That's the closest diameter studded tire to my stock 20's that Discount Tire carries. They didn't have a 17", but they do have a 20" studded tires that are the same size as stock - but they're $200+ more for a set of four tires (plus I'd have to get another set of rims, cuz I'd like to be able to swap the tires around as I see fit. I'm paying for rims either way, but the 18's will save me $$$ in the long run.

 

Studded tires in a suburb of seattle? Seriously? Just get some decent AT tires and you'll do fine with the weight in the bed.

 

Yea not much snow.... but in the NW we get a little thing called black ice from all the rain freezing to the ground. In that condition might as well forget driving on ANY hills without studs. Always lots of accidents from the idiots that want to "brave" it.

 

You should visit, you get 20 miles outa Seattle and you're in the boonies, lots of hills, twists, turns and yes, snow/ice at times. Seattle's shielded heavily by the Olympic Mtns, but just north of that to Everett (which is where I live/travel) we have the Puget Sound Convergence Zone. While Seattle will get heavy rain, we're just 20 miles away and we get 6" of snow. Studded tires around here are already legal to have on the road because of the passes that've been dumped on.

 

True that! I live in Everett to... I have a blue trx4 with black wheels. Im going to see how my trail grapps handle on the first ice before i decide to stud them. Suppose to get pretty bad next month.

 

Used to drive between seatac and vancouver twice a month for 4 years when I was putting in transmitter monitoring for CBC. Never saw anything resembling real snow anywhere near seattle. Been south from there to Chelan in the winter, you do get some snow down that way but still nothing like a typical MN, MT or CO winter.

 

Wouldn't mind if I was on the highways all the time, but in the unincorporated zones where I'm at don't salt or plow. I-5 and i-405 were shut down in '08 and littered with abandoned vehicles. But WA is certainly no MN, MT, CO or snow/rust belt state.

Regardless, long story short - tryin to figure out if the FWD with winters is gonna get me home better than the RWD with studs in poor winter weather. We were bickering back and forth about it at work...

 

I have a 2wd truck and havn't had any issues with it in the winter, even with the stock crappy Goodyear SRA's. I just switched to a pair of Firestone destination AT in the rear for better deep snow performance.

There is no doubt that front wheel drive handles better in slippery situations - but the better question is do you need a truck or not? If not then go for the car, you'll likely save a lot of money on gas too.

 

true that.

Firestone's been having a sale on their tires including the Destination AT - seemed like a good value even before the sale. Oldjeep, you happy with the purchase so far? Good road manners and not much howl on the highway?

 

Yet another forum member that assumes he knows what he's talking about.