Us Yankees

[toxotes]

For us within the snow belt, in all honesty how do you think the Eliot will fair in the white stuff?
Do you think snow tires are an option?

 

[Ty]

Fwd should help its snowability but dragging the rear through untrained snow may not. Snow.chains should be easy enough... well, you may have to pull fenders to put them on though.

 

[Jeff Miller]

For us within the snow belt, in all honesty how do you think the Eliot will fair in the white stuff?
Do you think snow tires are an option?

If you are driving in an area where roads are plowed I don't think there will be any issues driving an elio vs. most other small front wheel drive cars. If you are driving mountain roads that get plowed infrequently I'd probably look for a backup vehicle. Speaking as somebody that lives near Minneapolis I can give you my best guesses as to what I expect the elio will do in snow in a metropolitan area that sees roads cleared on a regular basis.

When I ordered my Fiero sight unseen I had a lot of the same questions about winter driving that future elio owners are asking. The Fiero was even lower than the elio and although a bit heavier than the elio it was still a light weight vehicle. The Fiero has 4 wheels so the discussions of what happens with 3 wheels doesn't apply. However, I would like to comment that the only time I had an issue with the Fiero on snow was once when I drifted out of the rut and the drag pulled me off the road (more later).

I believe that the elio will handle as well as any other car on the road for the first few inches between plow trucks. Once the snow starts getting into the 4" or deeper range I suspect driving the elio will be as bad as most other lightweight cars in the same conditions and I suspect no worse than when I was driving that Fiero. At the 4"+ range many vehicles are running into ground clearance and handling issues and at such a point it is best to just park things like the elio, take the day off, pour some brandy in your coffee, and kick back and enjoy the pretty white stuff. If you aren't able to do that, then I'd suggest taking out the 4wd truck.

Should you decide to, or be in a predicament where you have to go out when snow gets to be in the 4"+ range, I have a few guesses as to what I think will happen.

• I'd start to be concerned about the potential of the rear wheel adding considerable drag. At that depth most cars follow in the ruts of the cars that came before them. For the elio, the front tires will follow those same ruts but the rear wheel will not have a rut to follow. Since the elio is so light with most of its weight forward it may be that the rear wheel mostly skis across the center patch or it may just add some considerable drag as the extra snow gets pushed. You won't get 84 mpg in a snowstorm but you should be able to get around.

• Remembering my Fiero experience of getting pulled off the road I suspect such an incident will be less likely in the elio. The reason being that the rear wheel drag will should act like a tiller and keep the elio moving in a forward direction. I expect that if one of the front tires leaves the rut that the whole vehicle will slow down but not lurch drastically. Of course, it will be interesting to see what this means when you are trying to leave the ruts to exit the road.

• Being front wheel drive with most of the weight on the front should allow the elio to be able to maneuver in the snow as well as other small front wheel drive cars but tire size (width) will have an important impact on this. Applying what we know from sand racing, a thinner tire should allow the elio to cut down into the snow to get better traction; fatter tires will tend to stay on top and have less traction. Speaking of my Fiero experience, it had wide tires and although the car handled well on dry pavement it was a handful on wet and snowy surfaces. The rumors about the elio tires are that they will likely be on the thin side and if so I believe it will help overall handling on snow.

Jeff

 

[Jeff Miller]

Fwd should help its snowability but dragging the rear through untrained snow may not. Snow.chains should be easy enough... well, you may have to pull fenders to put them on though.

Snow chains??? I understand people in mountain areas still use them but chains and studs went by the wayside several years ago in MN. A good snow tire (if one is available) should help considerably with traction on slush and possibly ice.

 

[GreatDanes]

It seemed like I was HEARING the studded snow tires for weeks after the snow melted here in Portland, Oregon last winter. Of course, there ARE signs all over the interstates about "chains" and there are even questions about the use of chains on the Oregon DMV test, so I a not sure which will be best for the Elio. The fenders and clearance do present an issue for further study!

 

[Lil4X]

If you are driving in an area where roads are plowed I don't think there will be any issues driving an elio vs. most other small front wheel drive cars. If you are driving mountain roads that get plowed infrequently I'd probably look for a backup vehicle. Speaking as somebody that lives near Minneapolis I can give you my best guesses as to what I expect the elio will do in snow in a metropolitan area that sees roads cleared on a regular basis.

When I ordered my Fiero sight unseen I had a lot of the same questions about winter driving that future elio owners are asking. The Fiero was even lower than the elio and although a bit heavier than the elio it was still a light weight vehicle. The Fiero has 4 wheels so the discussions of what happens with 3 wheels doesn't apply. However, I would like to comment that the only time I had an issue with the Fiero on snow was once when I drifted out of the rut and the drag pulled me off the road (more later).

I believe that the elio will handle as well as any other car on the road for the first few inches between plow trucks. Once the snow starts getting into the 4" or deeper range I suspect driving the elio will be as bad as most other lightweight cars in the same conditions and I suspect no worse than when I was driving that Fiero. At the 4"+ range many vehicles are running into ground clearance and handling issues and at such a point it is best to just park things like the elio, take the day off, pour some brandy in your coffee, and kick back and enjoy the pretty white stuff. If you aren't able to do that, then I'd suggest taking out the 4wd truck.

Should you decide to, or be in a predicament where you have to go out when snow gets to be in the 4"+ range, I have a few guesses as to what I think will happen.

• I'd start to be concerned about the potential of the rear wheel adding considerable drag. At that depth most cars follow in the ruts of the cars that came before them. For the elio, the front tires will follow those same ruts but the rear wheel will not have a rut to follow. Since the elio is so light with most of its weight forward it may be that the rear wheel mostly skis across the center patch or it may just add some considerable drag as the extra snow gets pushed. You won't get 84 mpg in a snowstorm but you should be able to get around.

• Remembering my Fiero experience of getting pulled off the road I suspect such an incident will be less likely in the elio. The reason being that the rear wheel drag will should act like a tiller and keep the elio moving in a forward direction. I expect that if one of the front tires leaves the rut that the whole vehicle will slow down but not lurch drastically. Of course, it will be interesting to see what this means when you are trying to leave the ruts to exit the road.

• Being front wheel drive with most of the weight on the front should allow the elio to be able to maneuver in the snow as well as other small front wheel drive cars but tire size (width) will have an important impact on this. Applying what we know from sand racing, a thinner tire should allow the elio to cut down into the snow to get better traction; fatter tires will tend to stay on top and have less traction. Speaking of my Fiero experience, it had wide tires and although the car handled well on dry pavement it was a handful on wet and snowy surfaces. The rumors about the elio tires are that they will likely be on the thin side and if so I believe it will help overall handling on snow.

Jeff

You make several great points, Jeff. Unfamiliar as I am with the day-to-day exercise living with the white stuff, it would seem that the Elio won't present any serious problems in snow. My first concern would be ground clearance that at 5" or so might turn you from a "autocycle" into a sled.

You're right about those narrow tires being able to concentrate what weight is on them in snow - When I'd take one of my three-ton K-20 Suburbans into snow country, I'd get around just fine on the factory-spec rims and standard "all-season" tires. Those people who put big rims and fat tires on for cosmetic purposes were in trouble.

When I worked in Amarillo, we'd have occasional snowstorms that would stop traffic for a day or two - the city had no plows, so construction companies contracted out motor graders and front-end loaders. I worked at a local TV station and spent several snowy evenings in my "company car", a 4WD Chevy pickup with cheap skinny tires and an embarrassing array of emergency lights, giant "ProNews" graphics, and a forest of antennas for every police agency in the region. When I got off my regular shift, I would spend the next few hours hauling our zoomy-looking news units (Mustangs, Camaros, even a Javalin or two) out of ditches and snowbanks where they were as helpless as a turtle on its back. That low ground clearance and the fat tires looked good, but were sadly inadequate in snow. They'd usually execute a slow-motion slide offroad - and of course the frustrated meat-puppet behind the wheel would get on the radio and start screaming for help.

 

[Jeff Miller]

and of course the frustrated meat-puppet behind the wheel would get on the radio and start screaming for help.

I love that image you just put in my head.

 

[Lil4X]

I love that image you just put in my head.

This help?

 

[aknaten]

March 1971 a record blizzard hit NW Oklahoma. The local college closed for a week. Travel was impossible until the National Guard packed down the major streets with their tracked vehicles. I dug my '62 VW out of a 4 foot snowdrift and with snow tires on the rear was able to give a neighbor policeman a ride to the station and make emergency runs to the stores until things ran out. Delivered medicine and food to shut-ins. My uncle ordered some snowmobiles emergency shipped by rail, sold them all to cattlemen anxious to get to their herds. The Air National Guard dropped feed to herds stranded on the plains.There were still drifts in the ditches a month later. With most of the weight over the wheels, the Elio should do fine, just as the rear engine VW was able to get around when almost all cars (and pickups) back then were front engine with rear wheel drive and almost useless in the snow.

 

[Rickb]

My first car a '59 VW and many after that one. They certainly had amazing traction on Ice & snow. I hope we find the Elio somewhat similar to the VW. I later drove a front wheel drive Audi and the traction sucked.......so not all FWD vehicles perform the same. I couldn't afford the AWD Quattro at the time.......which had amazing traction too.

I'll probably end up storing my Elio over the winter season.