How Much Ground Clearance Do You Need?

[TheGreatAbyss]

Question to the Forum: How much ground clearance do I really need to make it to the ski hills and back?

I'm ready to buy another car, and I'm definitely getting something with AWD, but beyond that I'm debating. The normal choice for a ski car is a high riding SUV, but I have a few issues with that:

1) I'm a short guy - At 5'6" it's a giant pain in the a** to climb on top of these things to get my skis out of a Thule box

2) Because of of #1 I always end up throwing my skis in the car which not only reduces cargo area, but is actually quite dangerous

3) I live in Brooklyn, and having a more compact car is easier to park

I'm thinking that getting a regular sedan or hatch would be easier to get on top of, easier to park, and actually safer when it comes to transporting skis if I'm putting them on top.

Does anyone have any experience driving a regular height AWD sedan or hatch through snow storms and snowy / muddy parking lots? I'm thinking of something like a regular Impreza hatch, or the little Mazda CX-3. Does increased ground clearance really do anything for traction? I'm not going off roading or anything.

 

[raisingarizona]

I'm driving an old 2002 Subaru Legacy right now and I love it for going to the ski area and back. It trucks in the snow and it's easy to get around town in.

I like Mazda's a lot. My gf has an older 3 and it's really fun to drive. I wish the 6 came with AWD.

 

[MC2]

We have an Subaru Impreza and a Toyota 4Runner.

We end up taking the Impreza everywhere because, while we thought we would need the additional ground clearance of the 4Runner for super snowy days, it turns out that we didn't.

Plus the Impreza gets better gas mileage.

 

[TheGreatAbyss]

MC2 - Is it a hatch or a Sedan?

Also do you think the WRX (not STI) would be too low? I've always wanted one but at 4.9 inches of Ground Clearance I'm worried that might be too low for those crazy potholed ski resort parking lots.

 

[Harvey]

Do you stay overnight in the mountains? What is the driveway like, where you stay?

 

[TheGreatAbyss]

I do stay overnight at various different places. At worst they are unplowed dirt roads, at best they are plowed parking lots. The worst I've probably seen was a VRBO in Lake Placid that was up a steep unplowed dirt/ice hill. My old Ford Escape did get me up and down just fine.

Z: The legacy has 5.9 inches of clearance. Surprisingly high for a sedan. That being said I do prefer the compactness of the impreza for parking reasons.

 

[Ethan Snow]

How much ground clearance do you really need to make it to the ski hills and back?

About this much.

Anything else, it's all the same shit nowadays. The make and model is almost irrelevant, all cars are built mechanically very similar with very little ground clearance to improve fuel economy. I'm not saying to go out and buy a Fiat, I'm just saying that if ground clearance is a concern, well, It's really just what works best for you.

AWD is really just a marketing game on the vehicle manufacturers part. There's a differential between the front and back wheels in an AWD (that's how they stay in AWD all the time) so once you are really in a slippery situation and the diff spins out you aren't really that much further ahead than with a regular front wheel drive vehicle than gets better mileage anyway. I've seen AWD vehicle get stuck, and there's still only one wheel spinning. 4 wheel drive that you shift into manually when you start slipping creates a solid mechanical link between the front and back wheels, and will be the only thing that's really going to save you if you really do get into some serious shit.

Honestly, Tires are the biggest thing here. If you're looking for a small car, get yourself a Honda or a Nissan, and put snow tires on it for the winter months. I have a Nissan Sentra (and a 4wd truck) with just 2 Cooper Weathermasters on the front and that thing will shred the gnar. I've driven it on a lot of powder days this season, as well as commute every day on rough roads all winter long, and have not had any issues. Meanwhile my mom has an AWD Chevy Traverse, and i've driven it a lot but personally I think it handles horribly on snow compared to my little car. Partly because she runs all season tires. My dad has an AWD Subaru Legacy, and it honestly doesn't handle any better than the Nissan. I actually think the snow tires on the 2wd Nissan still handle better than the Legacy with whatever tires he has on it.

Basically, no standard vehicle is "designed" to handle in conditions other than pavement, unless you mod the heck out of them

 

[Harvey]

About this much.

How much is that? How far is that rear diff off the ground?

 

[Ethan Snow]

How much is that?

Not exactly sure. That truck comes stock with 9.1" of ground clearance, but that's referring to the height of the axle which is fixed. It looks like the truck has about a 7" suspension lift on it. so the body has probably close to 20" or so.

For the record, not my truck. Just a pic I had.

 

[riverc0il]

If you are driving on paved roads that receive normal plowing, you don't "need" anything more than a FWD vehicle with snow tires.

I am a storm chaser and I've always gotten by just fine with low to the ground compact cars. If anything, my current Civic Hatch might have the least amount of clearance of any car that I have owned. If the snow is so deep that ground clearance is going to be an issue for a compact car, you probably shouldn't be driving even if you have a vehicle with large ground clearance as that means the plows can't keep up and even large clearance AWD drive vehicles will have issues with travelling safely.

If you routinely drive on roads that do not receive good plowing and you need to plow through a full night of snowfall without plowing, by all means get a big SUV or a truck.

Otherwise, ground clearance really shouldn't be a factor in most people's decisions. I've been a storm chaser for almost 20 years and I have never had a single issue (excepting when I first started storm chasing as a flat lander without snows, fixed that issue right quick).