TOM: Well, there are two issues that determine how well you get around in the snow.
RAY: One is traction. And for traction, any all-wheel-drive vehicle — car or SUV — will keep you moving on snowy roads. If one wheel is slipping on snow or slush at any given moment, one or more of the other wheels always will have enough grip to pull you through.
TOM: The other issue is ground clearance. If you have, say, 2 feet of unplowed, drifting snow on the roads, and you’re driving a Mazda Miata (or any car whose floor is close to the ground), the car can get “hung up” on a hardened mound of snow — with its drive wheels unable to reach the ground. Granted, you’d have to be pretty unlucky to get hung up so that all four of your wheels were not touching the ground. But if you did, it wouldn’t matter how many-wheel drive you had — you wouldn’t go anywhere.
RAY: But that’s not an issue for you. Six to 8 inches of snow is what those of us in the great frozen north call “a light dusting.” So you should have no trouble at all getting by with an all-wheel-drive car — some of which (like the Subaru Outback) have heightened ground clearance, too.
TOM: Cars generally are safer and more comfortable. They handle better, ride better and get better mileage. So, why drive an SUV all year if you really don’t need one?
RAY: And besides, cars are easier to get in and out of. So you’ll never have to suffer the embarrassment of stopping by the emergency room and asking a colleague to have a look at your SUV-induced groin pull.
Can kids really wear out power-window switches?
Dear Tom and Ray:
When I was a kid, my siblings and I loved to play with the power windows — up a little, down a little, up some more, down some more, all the way up. Our elders always told us to cut it out because we’d wear out the switches. Now that I have kids of my own who love to do the same thing, I find it annoying, so I tell them to cut it out because they’ll wear out the switches. But it makes me wonder — can you really wear out power-window switches, or were my elders fibbing, just the way I am? — John
RAY: I don’t think I’d worry too much about the switches, John.
TOM: No. Switches are cheap. It’s the broken power-window motors and regulators that’ll have you cursing the little rugrats.
RAY: All of those parts — the switches, the motors and the window regulators (the mechanical pieces that actually move the glass up and down) — have thousands of cycles in them. But not an infinite number.
TOM: So, let’s say you have two kids, and we’ll assume the little tykes are confined to the back seat. On a three-hour trip to Grandma’s, let’s say each kid works one rear window — up and down, up and down, continuously. That’s about 2,000 cycles right there. Or 4,000 round-trip, if the kids aren’t sleeping off candy comas after visiting Grandma.
RAY: If you make that trip once a year, within three years or so, you’re going to need two window motors. And, depending on the car (sometimes you have to buy the regulator and the motor as one unit), they can cost anywhere between $200 and $500 per window!
TOM: So, you have two reasonable choices, John. One is to invent a coin-operated power-window mechanism. For a nickel or a dime, your kids will be able to raise or lower the window once, while contributing to their eventual repair.
RAY: Or you could simply limit the kids’ playtime with the windows. You don’t want to ruin all their fun, so give them a couple of minutes to play, and then when you start to smell smoke, tell them “Time’s up,” and deactivate their window switches (which you can do from the driver’s control panel). Then, hopefully, they’ll turn their destructive instincts to something less expensive, like opening and closing the ashtrays until their doors fall off.
Send your comments or questions for Tom and Ray to: Car Talk Plaza, P.O. Box 3500 Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA 02238. Visit them online at www.cartalk.com.
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