So.. only had my TL a month or so and got a rare 6" of snow here in Portland Oregon. I made the foolish mistake of sleeping over at my girl's place the night the snowstorm came through on Monday. Today I STILL can't get my car up the hill to exit her neighborhood. I've watched MANY cars make it through just fine, some of which obviously 4 wheel drive, but others that only had 2 wheel drive and were half the cost of ours. What's the deal? Every time I Try and get speed to make it up the hill my traction kicks in and stops my engine acceleration even if I floor it. I've turned off VSA and still no luck. Its an Auto and I've also tried the low gear. Any help would be nice as I had to take public transportation home today and HAVE to have my car for work tomorrow!

 

Initially I thought perhaps you weren't knowledgeable about VSA until I read the below...

Now, I'm leaning towards tires - are you running summer tires or some decent all-season tires? Hell, even if you are running all-seasons, nothing takes the place of a good set of winter only tires - especially when you're talking about 6" of snow in a short amount of time.

My TL with all-seasons does fine in the snow. I take the VSA off when I'm starting off from a light/stop and start in 2nd gear - no problems. Then I switch the VSA back on as I'm up and moving.

 

I want to test mine, however no snow yet in MA. I do remember simular issue with my 03 TL. No problem going up the little hill, however stack on the icy top (have to stop for STOP sign and traffic) , so went all the way back (25 yards) and speed up again, few times. Really sad no "all wheel" drive option!

 

Did you read my other thread about Honda using crappy OEM tires ?
I think the TL can be quite good in the snow if Acura chose to install decent tires from the factory. Not only did my wife get stuck on the hill in our TL, I was driving up the same hill at the same time as my wife, except in a Grand Prix GTP, which is also FWD, except heavier, and much much more torque. Anyways, I didn't have any problems going up the hill wearing Continental ContiExtremeContact All/Season tires. I passed about 4 or 5 3G TLs on the way up the hill.

I started the other thread out of anger, because even my G35 Coupe (which is currently wearing Michelin Pilot Sport All/Season) was able to get up our inclined driveway without shoveling it first. But I had to to completely clear the driveway before I could get our TL up.... Stupid Michelin Pilot HXMX tires.... Our 2G TL had the factory Michelin Energy MXV4 tires on it, and my wife got stuck a few times with those too, until I replaced those tires with Toyo Proxes 4.

When I rescued the wife this last time, I was totally shocked at how crappy the traction was in the TL with the stock tires (and they had a lot of tread left too). We got about 8" or so up here in the foothills. Tires totally make the difference. My Pontiac GTP wearing Contis actually faired better driving around on our hill than my Jeep Liberty 4X4 which currently has Eagle-RSAs on it. Still better than the TL was doing, but it was sliding around much more than my 2wd pontiac

One of my coworkers, (who lives nearby), I know likes to get whatever cheapo tires he can find when he needs em. Suffice it to say, he couldn't even get out of his cul-de-sac this morning..

 

On a side note, they made some interesting comments on the news last night about the snow, in relation to comments by viewers from the midwest complaining that we can't drive in snow, and how they have bunches of snow, etc...

The newsreporter said that when you throw hills into the mix (which are non-existent in the midwest), it can make all the difference.

One of my coworkers who was from chicago was saying how she doesn't understand how my wife can get stuck on a hill, and when I told her the hill was a little less than 1000ft high, and the road was a winding 2 miles long, she said, "Oh, that's not steep than, how can you get stuck?"

Here is a Video that aired on the news that was taken on 20th and Jefferson, just west of downtown Portland, which only got 3-4" of snow, but this is what happens when you add a hill into the mix.

 

Hey man! Got idea, how about lower PSI in the tires! May work for you!

 

Just my 2 cents, but it snowed not long after I got my car back in 02/06 (hasn't since ) and the car handled like a champ. Didn't snow much, at most 5 inches or so, but I had no problems at all. Hell, after a few minutes of getting used to it I had nothing but confidence, and like you, I had a decent size hill to go over to get to the highway. I even recall having a little fun by flooring it just to see the traction control kick in when the wheels started slipping.

Long story short, from my experience, these cars are fine in the white stuff.

 

Wise to pose it it as a question rather than state it as a fact....

Snow tires can make a dramatic difference. I only know the 6MT TLs performance in the snow on 4 Blizzak WS-50 tires. It's not the best car I've had in the snow but it's far from worthless in the snow. I've always used snow tires in the NE winters. I didn't even want to try the TL in the snow on the tires that came with it.

The best cars I have run in the snow were the ones with the least HP and the highest profile snow tires tires. So, believe it or not, my wife's POS '87 Corolla FX with four "75" series snows on it was only limited by ground clearance. The TL with much more HP, wider tires and less ground clearance is going to be harder to master. Learning to control/modulate the traction can be tough. Short-shifting is one useful technique commonly used with MTs in slick conditions to limit torque.

Now the tough medicine. Since you observed other 2wd cars getting through it proved it could be done. Now it comes down to tires and/or your experience in the conditions. It is always good to improve both if you can.

 

I would guess that you have a non navigation version with Bridgestone Turanzas. The Turanzas have never been as popular as the Micheline tires that come with the nav. You could also try VSA off and then start the car in 2nd gear (put it in sport shift mode). If that doesn't work, get some new tires.

 

What's interesting about this.... I remember a previous thread where somebody was arguing that AWD stops faster, and that with AWD you should point the wheel where you want to go, and floor it, in order to regain control from a slide.... Looks like that's what the guy in the video tried to do.... Lot of good that did

 

I have to argue with that remark just a little bit. I've lived in the midwest just about my whole life and driven in damn near every major city in the US and Europe and I'd have to say that even though the hills aren't quite as frequent the ones we do have are just as steep if not more so.

Hell, on my 2 mile drive to work in the "heart of the midwest" I have 2 hills that are at least a 15% grade. They aren't exactly steep, but I live in a fairly flat area and I work at an airport(read no hills).

*edit* I'd say it's your tires. My TL has been performing admirable in the few ice/snow storms we've had recently with the Potenza G009's on it, in fact I'd rather drive it than the 4wd until the snow gets real deep.

 

Tires will make the difference. My old original Michelins were TERRIBLE even on dry dirt roads. Absolutely no traction at all.

 

It's amazing how many SUVs don't have 4x4, so perhaps the one we saw in the video was 2wd only- who knows. We were at Mammoth Mountain a year ago when it snowed 4 feet and I saw first hand how many Suburbans/Expeditions/Explorers were sliding all over spinning their back tires only and fish-tailing everywhere. It was quite a site. Our Pilot did just fine with the AWD and the stock tires.

 

Not that I don't believe you, but are you sure it's a 15% grade? I've been to Chicago and rural Indiana, and I don't remember seeing any hills, especially none with a 15% grade... 15% is pretty damn steep.

Around these parts, even hills with a 10% grade have warning signs... Heck I've even seen signs for hills with a 6% grade. Within the city, they even have signs saying that compression braking is prohibited.

In the rural areas, for grades of 10% (which is considered steep) they usually have warning signs saying trucks should use low gears, and provide run-away ramps for out-of-control trucks....

But when I was talking about hills, I was mostly referring to hills like that in the video... Portland has 3 main hills in the metro area. One just west of downtown (near where the video was taken), one to the east, and one to the south. All three are around 1000ft high. Granted that video was taken fairly close to the base of the hill, not anywhere near the summit.

 

Wow, I'm sure the hill played a small role in that video but it looks a lot more like stupid driving and overconfidence to me. Thanks for that link, I might have to throw that video in my next safety briefing.

 

Definately. I just meant that driving technique on a hill, and flat streets are different, and the importance of tires is much more apparent when you throw hills into the mix... I live on one of those 1000ft hills, and it took me 45 minutes to drive the 2 or 3 miles up the hill, becuase of all the people stuck on the road, including my wife's TL.

When I was at work, one of my coworkers drove into work with a car that was still wearing summer tires... I don't want to know what happened to him on the way home.... My neighbor has an Audi S4, and he wrecked it a few years ago on our hill... AWD is meaningless if you drive around on summer tires....

 

15% might be a slight exaggeration, but they are over 10%, and do have warning signs. Hell, my driveway is 6%, and if I ever have the opportunity, I'm going to stab my builder for it.

Drive from KC to Denver sometime along I-70, sure the interstate itself has no hills and never more than a 1-2% grade, but look out your window and see a lot of the rolling hills and small valleys and realize that is where a lot of the towns and cities are built. Generally speaking the midwest is flatter than much of the U.S. but it does have it's share of steep hills.

 

I think we can probably sum this thread up with a few key points for winter driving.

1. Tires make the car.
2. Hills suck.
3. Don't drive like a moron.

 

I agree tires make a world of a difference. Good driving skills can only take you so far when you have no traction. Even an AWD car with a Torsen (IMO the best AWD system) will struggle with accelerating in bad conditions. Just remember winter tires were made to perform best at low temperatures. Summer tires perform best in higher temps wet or dry. All seasons fall somewhere in between with avg handling in most conditions and not great in any category.

 

These really make the difference.

 

People... there a world of difference between snow and ice. The eskimos have 20 odd different words for snow depending on the conditions of the snow. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO DRIVE ON ICE.

edit: Portland, being so close to the coast is going to have the wet slick icy stuff. Not the fluffy powder that is much easier to drive in.

 

Is it just me or have anyone else watch the video clip more than 3x...it is just amazing to see cars just slide down the hill.

 

Leno used part of the clip last night while he talked about the new Lexus self parking feature that needs further development.

 

I agree with you completely. The best car I have ever driven in the snow was a 1985 dodge omni. I grew up in Buffalo, NY, and that little POS Omni could go through anything, anytime, with minimal understeer. The lack of power steering, and power for that matter, made it great. You could feel even the slightest wheel spin through the steering wheel, making it very sensitive to traction loss. That car had 13'' tires (maybee 14", but I doubt it), something like 165/75 R 13's.

Let me know if you need tips on how to oversteer a front wheel drive car in the snow?

 

Illinois and Indiana are not good representatives of whether or not the midwest has any hills. Both (Illinois in particular) are relatively flat compared to areas of Wisconsin and even Minnesota.

The difference between the midwest and the pacific northwest is that our hills were formed primarily by glaciers.. whereas the hills in the northwest are primarily related to volcanos and plate tectonics.

 

Just lower the tire pressure down to about 20 psi- more surface area for traction
Then use the manul gear select for 2nd- NOT the ss mode- you want full control of the trans and manual select is how to do it

Leave tcs on, - it is applying the brake to the spinning wheel so it will gain traction
get a slow running start and ease your way out the driveway
Put tire pressure back up asap

 

Tires.

Having totalled one car and almost killing myself in a blizzard 4 years ago, I gave up on wide, low-profile all-seasons. Two sets of wheels is expensive, but I have a lot to live for.

I think it's instructive that there is virtually no market for all-season tires in Germany. When I lived there, everyone had two sets of tires. I'm a snow-tire guy in the winter from now on.

The initial investment is high, what with the second set of rims, but after that, tire expense is about the same as all-seasons. You have two sets, but only wear them down half the time. Splurge for another set of wheels.

 

I was nearly in tears watching that video, that's awful.

Anyway back on topic, using your Tiptronic shift to short shift the TL and put it in 2nd gear helps, or you could just reverse it up the hill.

 

I gave mine away after the 1st storm last year and since have been waiting for the "Big One" but I have the PZeros M&S and can say that driving in the rain I have had no problems....snow...what's that?....

 

drop the gear shift in L and moderate power. Tip control your gears and you should have no problem keeping traction. Keep RPM low and take your time. IF all else fails, back out of the street in reverse. We all know there are times rear wheel drive is better. Remember the big wheel on wet grass? go in reverse to get out of it.

 

I thought that was a mis-nomer, as underinflated tires will result in a smaller contact patch, because the inside of the tire will buckle inwards, which is why you'll get uneven treadware with the outsides wearing faster than the inside.

 

I've been there too... I took off the energy MXV4 from my old car with only 500 miles on em.... They sat in my garage for a long time. I just gave them to the new owner when I sold the house

 

Lowering the tire pressures in an EMERGENCY situation- note my post did say to reset them right away, if you are trying to get out of a driveway- this method will work

20 psi will hold the sidewall just fine for this purpose. I did not suggest going to 5 lbs or anything crazy like that

Wider and longer and softer contact patch and using MANUAL SELECT of 2nd gear- not ss which will try 1st then 2nd- you want 2nd only less torque means less spin at the wheels

I have gotten many cars stuck in many things from deep soft beach sand to ice and snow and guess what got them all out! A little less pressure and a little throttle control

 

SS mode does not give you total control over selection of 1st and 2nd use manual select only and use 2nd gear only

The times rear wheel drive is better is at the track and in full 4 wheel drift out of the corner

Its easier to PULL something up a hill than PUSH it, physics man

The Big Wheels problem was the hopeless gear ratio and had nothing to do with directionality of power application to the road surface

 

Please don't use physics as a reason why it's easier to pull something up a hill than push it, because it's not. When going up a hill, there is less traction under the front tires compared to the rears because of the incline. When going up a hill, the front wheels have to split this little traction between pulling and steering...

If it's easier to pull than push up a hill, please explain to me why my RWD G35 coupe didn't really have any problems going up my inclined driveway in the snow, but I had to shovel my driveway first before I could get the TL up....

And speaking of physics... When talking about snow, which exaggerates the handling characteristics of a car... A front heavy car will want to naturally slide towards a curb when turning on the snow, than a properly balanced RWD car. If you think you can just point the front wheels where you want to go, and hit the gas, perhaps you should review the video I linked again....

Physics only says FWD is better than RWD when accelerating from a dead-stop. That is the only time FWD is better, from a scientific point of view.

 

Physics does not say say FWD is better than RWD only from a stop. That is one of worst case situations since the largest amount of chassis torque occurs when starting from a start in a FWD since the car gearing is the lowest (highest multiplier) and appied the largest amount of torque to the drive wheel. This cause weight transfer to the rear which would puts FWD at a disadvantage but puts RWD at and advantage since more force is applied to the rear providing greater traction. That is the reason it is good to start off in 2nd gear from a stop in low traction conditions.

It's very difficult to say where FWD and RWD have their advantage since it's extremey dependent on the vehicle dynamics and road environment.
The case you said for going up a hill is correct since the weight transfer is shifted to the rear also putting less mass over the front drive wheels.

However in many other cases with FWD there is an inherent advantage in low traction cases, straight line stability is one example since RWD yaw slip from too much torque on the rear tires can cause oversteer quickly where a FWD vehicle will have understeer which most folks find easier to control in low traction situations.

 

Proper tires and experience with your vehicle will get you out of most situations. Thinking head will help prevent almost all of these.

FYI - my favorite is watching SUV's in the winter with snow and rain. aparently most of these SUV owners have different laws of physics applied to their vehicles as they seem to think 4 wheel drive means that their 3 ton vehicle can turn & stop better in wet / icy conditions. My other car is an 01 pathfinder, and I end up pulling more SUVs & trucks out of ditches or snowbanks in winter than cars - all because they did not understand how to drive their vehicles in the current conditions. (RANT - if you own an SUV you should try going off-roadin at least once with a knowledgeable party. you will elarn very quickly what you can & can't do with your vehicle in varying traction situations)

Finally - saying the midwest if flatter than the west is an incorrect generalization. saying that some of the west has much hight hills / mountains than much of the midwest is correct. (check out a topo map on-line and you can see the elevations)

Living in St. Louis you would assume that there are few hills, or that the few hills are not steep. I put 200 - 300 miles a week on my bicycle, and when the mileage is powere by your legs you quickly learn about the hills around here. i do not consider my cycling router very hilly, yet I still climb about 6000ft per 30 miles.

 

I've had to show more than a few people I've stopped to help get out of a ditch over the years how to put their truck or SUV in 4WD. Most of them weren't even aware they had a 4 wheel drive vehicle.

 

I didn't say it was. I was repeating what they said on TV. But that aside, according to Wiki, it says most people have this view. Perhaps I should've been more specific tho, as I was referring to comments from my coworkers that were from Chicago, which is definately flat.

I guess, but Wiki says the following about St. Louis:

To me, that is still basically flat. I didn't mean flat as in no hills, I meant flat as in no significant elevation change. I was referring to how in Portland, you can take a drive on a street, and go from 60ft above sea level, to over 1000ft above sea level, then back down to 200ft, all staying on the same street, going in the same direction, and still staying in the city limits. And this isn't just one big hill, there are several that go over 1000ft. If we count the greater metro area, some go over 2000 ft.

There are also quite a few bridges, as there are something like 14 bridges in or near the downtown area alone. Several of them have inclined approaches, which are troublespots when it snows. One of the more troublesome ones being the freeway interchanges, as there are 3 freeway junctions in the downtown area (two of which are over water), all of which feature banked inclines. There is always footage every year of cars/trucks sliding off the freeway into the guardrail.

 

1. Acura OEM Michleins suck in the wet or snow. I had trouble getting up my driveway (<2% grade) with them. Change them out for something better.

2. I put Michlein Pilot Sport A/S tires on my '06MT and have seen a vast improvement in wet and snow traction.

3. Cleveland gets mostly wet, icy snow and the Pilot Sport A/S's work reasonably well and are a good compromise between dry handling and wet/snow traction, but I wouldn't try climbing the Cascades in a blizzard with them.

4. A/S tires are not going to get you through a Rocky Mountain blizzard, so if you need to routinely drive in that kind of snow, you'll need snow tires. Hell, a TL with snow tires probably isn't going to make it through this kind of snow, so you might want a FWD SUV with a lot of ground clearance.

5. A hill is a hill is a hill. What matters is the grade, not how it was formed. A 15% grade means you're going to climb nearly 200 feet in a quarter mile, and I doubt a TL with any kind of tires is going to climb that in the snow. Time for the FWD SUV again.

6. FWD cars are not as good as RWD cars climbing slippery hills because when you go up a hill, you transfer weight to the rear of the car and off of the drive wheels. The RWD car will want to step out more, but if you can control the tenddency to slide, the RWD car will climb a steeper hill. Pike's Peak hill climbers are exculsively RWD cars.

7. Ditto on acceleration. Transfers weight to the rear and lessens traction on the front, so the RWD car will handle more horsepower from a standing start before it starts to lose grip. How many FWD dragsters do you see???

8. Stability control will not make traction. All it does is prevent wheel spin. This helps maintain what traction you have and prevents the loss of directional control. It keeps your lead foot from overdoing it in limited traction conditions, but if there is no traction to be had, it can make it happen.

Sounds like your problem is tires and technique.