Snow doesnt Kill Mileage...

[mcrews]

[QUOTE=320touring;206875]

Originally Posted by robchalmers

IIRC, The real Stig (a mr Bloemqvist) took a 1600 Group N Felicia to 3rd OVERALL on the
1996 Network Q Rally of Great Britain

My brothers was fun in the snow- until you realised that drifting was a "power OFF"" skill, rather than a "power ONNNNN" one

THANK GOODNESSS for the yellow tape Human Protection Barrier at the 4:35 mark in the video!!!!!!! Had the YTHPB not been there ..........a lot of people would have been hurt

[dennyt]

Originally Posted by darcane

I also live near Seattle, and it was a mess out there. It literally took people 5-10 hours to drive 40 miles that day. Many people abandoned their cars on the freway because they ran out of gas, just idling along.

This might have been part of the problem

[Piwoslaw]

OK, taking this discussion to a higher level.
When it snows, dumb drivers aren't the only ones using more fuel. Fuel is spent in great amounts by snowplows, and by people using fossil fuel powered machines to de-snow-ify instead of the good ol' shovel. Plus salt (and the environmental penalty not only of using it, but also of mining and transporting). Plus spraying chemicals onto airplanes so they don't ice up. Plus trucks that get rid of snow by transporting it from city streets to rural areas or dumping it into rivers. Plus machines that get rid of snow by melting it. Plus heated driveways and sidewalks.

[320touring]

Originally Posted by Piwoslaw

OK, taking this discussion to a higher level.
When it snows, dumb drivers aren't the only ones using more fuel. Fuel is spent in great amounts by snowplows, and by people using fossil fuel powered machines to de-snow-ify instead of the good ol' shovel. Plus salt (and the environmental penalty not only of using it, but also of mining and transporting). Plus spraying chemicals onto airplanes so they don't ice up. Plus trucks that get rid of snow by transporting it from city streets to rural areas or dumping it into rivers. Plus machines that get rid of snow by melting it. Plus heated driveways and sidewalks.

You have some fair points there,

howeve, on your last point *heated pavements*, then this can be a side benefit from combined heating systems (e.g. steam heating in blocks of flats etc.)

Shovelling could work- but the rate of clearing isnt quick enough for the road use levels here

[MetroMPG]

Good points Piwoslaw.

320, sadly, I don't think there are any examples of such thinking in North America anyway.

[Varn]

Driving in the winter is just the tip of the iceburg. I do burn plenty of energy and am not more or less eco than any other reader of this list. We are just pretenders to being eco friendly. In addition my business burns 140 dollars in direct energy costs and untold more from vendors and taxes on value added services.

If you want to be eco then don't drive or own a vehicle. Work at home doing subsistence farming. I heat my home with wood and make my own power at home with both solar and a generator. I have two residences and other properties spreading over 500 miles. I have been trying to selling the one furthest away but with the collapse of the US economy I have been unsuccessful for two years.

[320touring]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Good points Piwoslaw.

320, sadly, I don't think there are any examples of such thinking in North America anyway.

There are precious few examples over here too!
really just trying to build on the point that gas guzzling isnt the only solution to snow clearance..

If only a change in opinion at policy and social levels could be generated..

[endurance]

It's so complicated to think about at a societal level it's depressing, but taking steps on a personal level can not only feel empowering, it can prepare you to be a step ahead when the unfolding of an oil-dependent world comes to be. I've had to make some tough choices in the last year trying to find a place that would make both me and the GF happy. Everything was a compromise; proximity to services, size of the lot, commuting distances, growing season, sense of community... They all conspired against us and her desire for horse acreage and my desire to think about a world without cheap oil.

The irony is that without the longer drive(actually only five miles longer), I wouldnt have started hypermiling, I wouldn't have started telecommuting, and I wouldnt be saving myself roughly $75 a month in fuel from when I lived closer to work. Had I not bought an extremely old home, I'd be living with a moderately efficient furnace that came with a newer house rather than a state of the art new boiler and tankless system. While the 1400' in higher elevation will certainly change my growing season, I now have room for fruit and nut trees that I just didn't have the space for before.

I'm not living a perfect zero-carbon lifestyle, but I'm getting closer and my goals are both bold and attainable. I hope to be using 75% of energy produced at home in the next seven years as well as 40% of my own food. It's not independence but it's a long way from my lifestyle of just a couple years ago.

[endurance]

Back on topic, last night I made a very clear observation of just how much winter impacts mpg, even without idling, snow, or other drivers. I was coming up the canyon in a section I always have to use WOT for about 20 seconds or I'm forced to downshift out of 6th gear. This entire tank, at 50mph I've been showing 19.1-19.5mpg in this section. However, it's been relatively warm and I climb that stretch fairly early in the evening on my commute. Last night, same stretch, same speed, I was at 18.1-18.2mpg because the air was so cold. The engine was at 213F water temperature (the engine is really working in this section and that's pretty much the hottest it ever gets, anywhere in my drive), air intake temperature was 40F and when I got home, outside air temp was 24.8F. Guess I need to work on a warm air intake... I always figured mpg was mostly lost to cold starts and road conditions.

[robchalmers]

I think why my mileage died over the weekend (Heavy snow in my region), seeing how my intake is in the wheel arch between the inner wing and the arch liner and fed through holes in the arch liner - I found snow was packing out the arch liner effectively choking the intake, that and the wetted paper filter frooze in the housing :grrr: