new GMC 1500 2x4. No one needs 4x4 anyway

We've watched rear wheel drive cars trying to slow down on packed/slick snow rolling with the front wheels locked and the rear wheels driving the car along. A lot of people don't realize that they would have better luck stopping or slowing down if they put the car in neutral rather than Drive going down slick hills.

pnichols wrote:
For 2WD or 4WD vehicles to have better slow speed traction in ANY conditions ... and if your vehicle has an automatic transmission ... try manually putting the transmission in 2nd gear. That helps feed torque very gently to the tires so as to keep wheel spin as low as it can be in keeping with the conditions - even on ice.

(However, I recently had a modern loaner car that did NOT allow manual selection of gear ratios - only Drive, Neutral, or Park. What on Earth is up with that????? Ya gotta love today's marketeers and engineers with too much time on their hands!

I find that to be rather normal. My 1952 Kaiser Manhattan with Hydra-matic transmission had 1-2, 1-3, and 1-4 selections. It always started out in 1.
My 1969 Dodge Coronet R/T always started out in low (1)
My 1954 Chevy always started out in low, then shifted to Drive.
My 2001 Dodge 1500 always started out in low.
The Ford vans (E150 Clubwagons) we had always started out in low.
Etc.
Seems to me the automatic transmissions that can be selected to start in any gear are a fairly recent innovation. The selections on most of the cars I have owned were:
P, R, N, D, and L
Well, except for the one that had Park in Reverse with the engine off. That was the Kaiser, IIRC.

For 2WD or 4WD vehicles to have better slow speed traction in ANY conditions ... and if your vehicle has an automatic transmission ... try manually putting the transmission in 2nd gear. That helps feed torque very gently to the tires so as to keep wheel spin as low as it can be in keeping with the conditions - even on ice.

(However, I recently had a modern loaner car that did NOT allow manual selection of gear ratios - only Drive, Neutral, or Park. What on Earth is up with that????? Ya gotta love today's marketeers and engineers with too much time on their hands!)

In slippery snow and ice/ mud/wet grass conditions tires are a huge factor. The right tread pattern, winter rated tires for snow and ice make a huge difference in 2WD and 4WD vehicles.

Kind of like those idiotic tug of war videos we sometimes see. There not so much about which engine has the most power, they're more about which truck can put that power to the road surface...best...in other words which tire affords the best traction.

If you don't have traction than power just spins the tire and all that engine power energy just dissipates in a cloud of tire smoke.

I've always told my kids to be sure they have top notch tires on their vehicles..because when you think about it, all you have between you and the road surface is an area similar to 4 hand palm prints...not much between 2 tons of vehicle and sometimes dangerous road conditions.

So yes, traction is essential. If you have a 4WD truck with lousy tires or a 2WD truck with excellent tires and some additional ballast weight...over the rear drive wheels...and a locking axle...or limited slip axle...I'd prefer the 2WD with the locker and ballast and excellent tires.

I had a mini panel van with FWD. With all the tools and parts I carried, it made handling worse than when empty. To get up slippery hills, the FWD would unload wheel weight and just spin out. I would drive it uphill in reverse just to make it and continue in reverse until I found a place to turn around. I’m sure my service van had some more miles on it than what the odometer told. Going downhill, I always had to make sure my heavier loaded rear did not try to pass the front - Sometimes it required more acceleration to pull the rear back on track rather than slowing down more. There were times when I only chained the rear even though it was a FWD.

Front wheel drive is great on snow packed roads.
Even rear drive with good tires and a little ballast.
I think some of the big difference of opinion comes from location.
Where I live (Pacific Northwest) we haven’t got an acre of flat ground. It’s hills everywhere.
We only get occasional snow and it doesn’t get hard packed.
4WD trucks and all wheel drive cars are everywhere here.
That front drive or those sandbags won’t cut it when you have to get moving on a steep slope on very slippery snow, that isn’t the crunchy good kind. There are times I’ve had to chain my 4WD.

In less mountainous parts of the country, you can drive a 2WD with sand in the back and wonder why we can’t.

Supercharged wrote:
Put 300 lbs. in the rear of pickup, that will work. Cheap ways to get it done.

:h and ;)

That's EXACTLY why my Dad (an avid hunter and 4X4 type guy) always maintained that 2WD pickup trucks were built backwards: "They should come from the factory with the front wheels driven instead of the back wheels driven".

Supercharged wrote:
Got wife 2018 GMC 1500. No one but famers,ranchers, ult. company, cops, logers, and people up in Canada need 4x4, just something saleman sell people who have good credit anyway. Waist of money.

Gotta' ask......did she get the 6.2 engine/8 speed tranny with the NHT package ??
My 67 year old neighbor lady has the High Country 6.2/NHT package however she has to take it in every 90 days or so.
The 6.2 intake gets clogged up with supercharged pickup trucks.

womps wrote:
I forgot. Do we need 4 wheel drive or not?

NEED??
Well, actually, No.
Is it nice to have once or twice a year?
Oh, yes.
Did I live without it for many years?
Again, oh, yes. I started driving in 1958, and got my first 4X4 in about 1972. I remember it well, it was a 1960 Chevy K10 long narrow box, gutless 6 cylinder, 4 speed manual tranny. I rebuilt and installed a 283 V8. Woke that truck up real nice. Still needed to put six 70 pound sandbags in the bed all winter!
In fact, there are sandbags in the back of my truck right now, plus a heavy fiberglass topper on it. In the current cold and snow, I would rather drive the PT Cruiser. It is warmer, and the front wheel drive with M&S tires is great on snowpacked roads!

Supercharged wrote:

Sgeorge wrote:
It doesn't snow or even rain much here in Southern California but try pulling a 6,000 boat up a wet mossy launch ramp without a 4X4. Never had a 4X4 until I bought this one, I will never have a 2X4 again.

Put 300 lbs. in the rear of pickup, that will work. Cheap was to get it done.

Quite true as Super says.

That is what we used to do with our rear wheel drive sedans and trucks, before 4WD became commonplace or even available. We would put a couple hundred pounds of weight in the back and generally didn't have traction problems in the winter...or even on wet grass.

I'm talking about when I got my first vehicles and drove in the '60's, 70's, etc. and of course in generations before...such as my dad's...that's what he did, when he got his first vehicles. He drove, starting in the '30's and he continued till the '90's.

We pulled trailers in difficult situations with rear wheel drive (only) Fords and GM's. Where I live we get snow, ice for almost half the year...5- 51/2 months.