Date:         Sun, 6 Jan 2002 00:03:25 -0800
Reply-To:     Alistair Bell <albell@UVIC.CA>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Alistair Bell <albell@UVIC.CA>
Subject:      Re: A Snow Story (Whoa-vanagon!!!) and Lessons Learned
Comments: To: Steve Sullivan <steveis@speakeasy.org>
In-Reply-To:  <B85CD2F1.15B6%steveis@speakeasy.org>
Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

Steve,

Last week I went searching for some snow (tobogganing with son) up the
Koksilah river valley just north of Victoria. My van (2 WD 82 westy with I4
conversion) has 4, 2 year old Agilis 61s on it. Finally found some old snow,
icy re-frozen stuff. The van made its way over the stuff ok until I tried
bashing through a low pile of snow to park off the logging road. The snow
was hard, the van got stuck halfway across the berm. I had a pair of
Hakkepelittas (sp), studded snows in the back and I jacked up the van and
put them on the rear. Took quite a bit of rocking to get unstuck. Back on
the road the studded snows made a big difference, could buzz around on the
slippery stuff ok except that, of course, I had very little steering
traction and once the hefty van decides on one direction it takes a bit of
convincing to get it to change!

I have always bitched about the poor traction of the 2wd vanagon as compared
to the loaf, most of the blame I think due to the weight distribution (close
to 50/50 in the vanagon, much more rear biased on the T2).

Anyway, the hakkepellitas are great, will have to spring for 2 more.

Alistair