TrishP

Only thing I need to stop for is the moose!

TrishP

The Liberty is sooooo much fun of-road! I took it 70km ish down an unpaved road to get to Woodland caribou Park during the summer and it was cracking fun!!
But in all seriousness, it depends on how well in tune you are with the car and how you handle it. It can take a while to get the knack of driving in snow with RWD. great for pulling doughnuts tho'

Sean Boxer

Yeah yeah, well done on driving so fast.

Listen mate, I drive a bleeding fire truck so I think I'm more in tune than you about driving fast in these conditions.

Frankly, the sooner you lot stop driving like idiots, the longer it will be before I have to scrape you, or the unfortunate people you hit, up off the road. . . and believe me, I know what I'm talking about.

willmore

Psssst......happy birthday to you. Hope you had a great day!

Karma sent.

Sean Boxer

Thank you very much Willmore, everything was great until I read that patronising post from TrishB - it's alright, I've over it now.

I had a very nice day and got my first pair of longjohns - it's like wearing a pair of womens tights (don't ask me how I know this).

Souvenir

Former soldier?

iaink

Today I got to drive the Subaru, rather than the Mazda.

Mazda has snow tires, The Sube has AWD and allseasons (expensive Michelin Harmony which are supposed to have good snow performance for an all season).

Just to emphasise the difference in performance, today I damned nearly slid out the end of my little side road onto traffic on the main road. Fortunately no traffic. Not thinking I braked at the "usual" point (for the mazda), and slid gracefully on with the ABS buzzing in my ear.

Winter tires stop you MUCH faster. Even for a moose. I dont care how good a driver you are, you cant argue with the laws of physics, and winter rubber gives you much better grip. Sean is right on the money.

Sadly though I was not wearing any womens clothing at the time

Atlantic Xpat

Erm, Prehaps you should try putting it into 4WD when driving in snow?

iaink

I found it really hard to do donuts in my Cherokee in 4x4 In the auto tranny Sube you just mash the pedal into the carpet and it sends nearly all the power to the back

In the US I think there is a 2WD variant of the Liberty Sport but Im pretty sure in Canada you get at least the crapy "Command Trac" part time system that leaves you in doubt whether to risk damaging the transfer case in wet conditions, so you drive in 2WD most of the time anyway unless theres obvious snow.

The new compass looks fun. The base spec is 2WD...not very Jeep.

Atlantic Xpat

Oh its very definately possible to do powerslides and donuts in a 4WD Liberty in my experience. I think it's to do with the relatively short wheel base.

2WD Liberty is US only. Utterly pointless vehicle. Why have poor driving dynamics and excessive fuel consumption without at least the benefit of 4WD!

Oh dear. The new Compass is F-ugly IMHO. The Dodge Caliber (which is from the same platform) looks far better. The Jeep fundamentalists really don't like the Compass. Mind you some of them don't think the Liberty is a real jeep 'cos it has IFS!

Souvenir

I'm gobsmacked. I've read your post several times and I still have absolutely no idea what you are on about.

iaink

Thats OK, You have a shitfire, I wouldnt expect you to understand the various different iterations of AWD, 4WD, 4x4, 2WD, FWD, RWD...Oh my god, Ive gone cross-eyed...


Personally I thought the Caliber one of the fugliest vehicles Ive seen since the Aztek. Square at the front rounded at the back...like two vehicles welded together or something. Oh well, I guess thats why they make many variants on the same platform. I think the liberty and Cherokee have much in common...maybe I just wasnt trying hard enough...it was leased and I didnt want to damage it before I returned it and got a decent vehicle. Maybe it depends which one of the confusing array of similarly named jeep 4WD systems you have?

dbd33

I have a question about AWD 4WD. The Element has it but no knob or light to activate it. The handing and steering are very soggy and imprecise so it's hard to tell what's going on when driving but I crawled underneath and it does have lots of gubbins. It gets about 15mpg. Does this mean that it has permanent 4WD?

Also, a mate has a Cherokee he brought back from Boston. He paid $500 for it there and would take the same here. I'm wondering if we shouldn't buy that and use it instead of the Honda so as to economise. Can one expect to get better than 15mpg (imperial gallon) from an old Cherokee?

iaink

I'll bite

The Honda probably has an "intelligent" system thats mostly front drive, but send power to the back when its senses the wheels slipping. 15mpg is terrible mileage, something is almost certainly wrong. AWD adds a bit of weight and drag to the system, so efficiency is compromised a bit, but not that much!

The Cherokee will either has a slightly similar system, if its an up market one, where you can run it in 4WD all the time or push buttons on the dash to go to Rear drive or lock into 4x4, or if its a cheap one like mine was there a second gear box and a lever by the gear stick you can manually change to drive all 4 wheels (either high or low), or run it as rear wheel drive. I was getting about 17mgp out of my 97 Cherokee. At least you can (AND SHOULD!) run it in 2WD in the dry (when you can get it going), and it will get through any amount of snow or mud if you stick decent tires on it. (which will cost more that you paid for it). With the simple (cheap) transfer case models, running it in 4WD when its dry and the wheels cant slip will seriously bugger up the transmission at some point, costing lots and lots to fix.

That was one thing I really did not like about my Jeep. In the dry its obvious to run in 2x4, in snow and ice its obvious to run in 4x4. When the snow cover is patchy, or there are wet spots and dry spots on the road its really not much use to you, you either have a heavy rear drive truck, or run the risk of major repair bills if you run in 4x4 mode. I wouldnt get another with the part time system.

As for the soggy handling of the Element, its a minivan at heart, what did you expect!

dbd33

I didn't expect anything of the Element. I'd never been in a Honda before but had a vague idea that they were reliable (it is) but dull (it is). I just didn't think it would use so much petrol (despite umpteen trips to the dealer). I think we might put it on blocks and try the Jeep, it'll likely be cheaper and may well be more fun.