So I have an xA, and I think it seemed pretty decent in the snow...good thing for the Boston area. Its not Super powered or 4WD, but I guess its light weight lets it handle things OK?

That's my theory. Ever since I saw a copy of that old VW Beetle ad "what does the snowplow driver drive to get to work?" I've wondered if small cars can have some advantages w/ snow roads and driveways.

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A lot of these thread lately. The xA is fine in the winter..just gotta be cautious when your driving and your fine in teh winter. I'm from Boston also and my car is lowered with summer tires and I did fine through that big storm we had.

 

Yeah...just don't watch any of Takumi's "snow" videos...you'll get discouraged

 

Shhhh.... Let think Postive Miko and don't get him discourage...

 

i hated mine in the snow. I went to Mt Tahoe in CA and OMG it was horrible. I felt the car slowly decreasing in power to where it wanted to shut down.

 

My xB was fine in the snow only cars going up 50 that could/did keep up with me were a wrx sti and a modified 2.5rs.
Light FWD cars are good in snow because they have weight over the drive wheels. Old Veedub bugs were good in snow beacuse they were light RWD , REAR engine cars , thus having the weight over the drive wheels. Get it? Light weight cars with weight over the drive wheels thus providing traction. The light weight just keep the other wheels from sinking down as much.

 

Try releasing the parking brake.

Seriously though, I don't know what conditions you were trying to drive in. Every car has it's limits. I've driven my xA in as much as 8" of unplowed snow and it did just fine. Obviously I drove real slow and careful, but I could go. That's more snow than I really need to be driving in anyway.

 

what are those?

 

xAs are the best scions in the snow all tho the abs gets annoying!
if you have an auto? the manual trans has you beet hands down!
drive safe
peace tjd!

 

I went Tahoe a couple weeks ago and it was fine. Now, I come from Toronto, so I'm used to driving in snow on a daily basis and also know what to and not to do. I even have videos of my xA drifting in a snow covered parking lot from that trip

 

well, we got a lot of snow today (about 8 inches last night) and im a high school student so i have to drive in it. i must say, its pretty damn good in the snow.... although ive driven it all winter, i thought id just point it out today.... the RS1 has traction control which helps a lot, but the xA is actually pretty good in snow. sure you lose power, but who races in the snow? (except you tak, hahaha) i have blizzak's on right now, and with the traction its a perfect combination. whats funny is that a few people thought the car was awd

 

http://www.club-swat.com/~juniorswat/Snow%20Fun.wmv

 

Which Scion do you have? If you mash the gas pedal while the tires are slipping and you are equipped with Traction Control, the TRAC will seemingly bog your car until you regain traction...

I have absolutely no complaints about driving my xA RS1 in the snow so far... Just have to avoid those anoying potholes!

 

Actually, the xB with its traction control and ASR is going to rock all over an xA in the snow (except the RS xA that has TRAC)

Sorry.

As far as a manual goes, I find it easier to drive in snow with one since you can downshift instead of braking down a hill to maintain your control (YES, I know you can move the silly automatic shift lever--- not quite the same!)

But for less experienced drivers, the auto may even be better, especially in an xA without traction control. With an automatic, the torque converter, whos job it is to rob power and kill low end response, actually helps keep the wheels from spinning off the line.

 

Seeing as how it never snows here, I can't really tell you how it would handle... however, since my xA is set up for drift.... (yes, front wheel drive drifting) the handling is awesome... I've tried fwd drifting with other cars before... (96 4door civic, 92 civic hatchback) but the xA is really responsive. True, it doesn't have control like a 4wd would or natural oversteer like rwd but I think its the easiest to correct in a situation gone bad based on my driving experience.

 

Once again I must say that my xA RS1 is excellent in the snow... I just got in from a very long drive out in a storm and I had no problems! I was even playing with the stability control just for fun... To further drive my point home, I was keeping a steady pace with an older Subaru WRX on I-93 south bound which was completely unplowed. He and I were pretty much the only ones not freaked out by the stuff doing 15 MPH in the far right lane. Don't get me wrong, we weren't doing 100 MPH or anything stupid like that, the fastest we went was probably 45 MPH when no one else was around and of course we kept plenty of didtance in between us. The most interesting part of my night was when I saw ahead of me a Geo Tracker with its hazards on violentl swerving from the far left lane to the far right lane back and forth seemingly out of control. HIt didn't hit anything, and we steered way clear of it when we passed by it. That driver was either very lucky, or very talented/cocky...

Any ways, just wanted to share my most recent snow experience.

P. S.
The playing around with the stability control I didi was only in empt parking lots or on deserted wide open streets... Gotta remember, Safety First!

 

I've been driving my Scion xA all over snowy PA, not to mention the snow we've been having in the DC area lately. It handles fine.

I used to drive a Honda CR-V, which had all-wheel drive. Nothing can match that, but the xA does fine for a car with no traction control. You just have to be careful.

 

i was doing like 75mph in my xA, the road was plowed so it was slushy. It seemed like winding up and down on the mountain made it tired. I could have the foot to the floor and the RPMs would slowly drop as well as the speed.