Quote:
Originally Posted by elhigh
I'm just throwing this out there, but I'm of the opinion that northern drivers, what with actually seeing the stuff more than once per winter and getting some mileage in, know how to handle snow. At least, they are nowhere near as flat-out insane as Tennesseans.
And also in the Dakotas, there's probably more than one snow plow per road district, and more than one guy who knows how to use them.
Aero. Trucks are aero disasters so anything you can do is going to be good - your aerocap is going to yield gigantic dividends.
An air dam, as deep as you feel you can get away with, will be good for you too. Also consider adding side skirts. The underside of your truck has as much topography as the Grand Canyon, so if you can keep the wind out of there that's to your advantage.
Lockout hubs for your front end will eliminate the parasitic drag of your front wheels spinning your front driveline when you're in 4x2 mode.
Slow down! That's assuming you haven't already. Aerodynamic drag goes up with the cube of the velocity, so going twice as fast takes eight times as much power. Slowing down even a little can yield big savings, especially with a vehicle as aerodynamically noisy as a pickup.
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Love some of your word choices here.
I go pretty slow loaded, usually never breaking 50 mph except when going down large hills. An air dam and side skirts good ideas, thanks. I'll make them detachable so I can still have my ground clearance for winter. I already have manual lockouts so check that off the list.
As I said above the winter use of this pickup is limited to when the snow comes over the hood of my car, but yes I do know how to handle snow (spent quite a few years using a 4X2 pickup full time.)
Ironically however, the city I live in has only one snow plow (despite a 7,000 person population) because the only guy who knows how to run it refuses to teach anyone else because he wants the overtime. As a result all the parking lots and private roads in town are clear in less than 2 hours when the snow stops, city streets other than the emergency routes might get plowed a week later, by which point it's all smashed to ice anyway.