M35A2 v A3v H1 V Suburban v Excursion in deep snow and mud?

[Maxgussam]

alfred i can tell you never drove in the snow . these guys in the vids are just playing if your serious about geting around in the snow .you need lots of clerance and chains. the only place in these vids that a singled deuce with chains might not go is where the little truck slid of the trail. and that only depends on how deep the snow is there. ive seen a little bronko with big tires drive ontop of 4 ft drifts.he broke through and hung up but it still was impressive . i drove around the drifts and pulled him out with a fully chained deuce.chains should be about 100$ a set put them on tight and you can go as fast as the road conditions will let you.and a 2 wheel drive car it would be lucky to move at all in any of those conditions unless it had winter tires or chains.

I agree.

With a large, heavy vehicle that is going to travel on the road, you are going to have to learn to "hang iron".

Chain the deuce up, put some weight in the bed, and you can drive on any road a sane person would travel.

 

[alfred10]

The A3 will go better in the snow in stock form than the A2 with no additional weight in the bed. The load area on the 14.00 singles digs down to pavement, while the duals on the A2 float on top. Add 2 tons to the bed of either the A2 or A3 and both are about equal.

As for the Hummer vs the Suburban vs the Jeep; my Suburban has part time 4 wheel drive and posies in both front and rear axles. With stock 265/75X16 Uniroyal Larado's, not a very agressive tire goes thru 24 inchs of snow with no problems.

The key to driving in snow is giving yourself plenty of distance for stopping as well as keeping yourself from getting into a position where you need to get started from deep snow.

My 78 Scout Terra with Detroit lockers and mud tires also goes great in the snow, just that any other driving rattles your teeth.

WHat year suburban do you have? Did it come from the factory with lockers?

 

[wldrbob]

im not sure what kind of snow you have but my suburban with posi and the most agressive snow tires i can get sure as **** wont go through the 26 inch snowfall we had in fact nothing moved in the whole county till the 6 wheel drive graders opened the roads

 

[saddamsnightmare]

March 21st, 2010.

Alfred10:

I note that you haven't posted what part of PA you are from. If you did we could offer some more sane advice on the potential snow conditions you are expecting to see. If you are a person with some disposable income, you can save all the questions and go out and buy a Mercedes Benz Unimog U1300L with ultra high speed axles if you must travel in snow on or off the road. They are obtainable from several reputable sources, parts are around, and their reputation for off road work is unmatched. I have a Swiss Army S404.114 Unimog (1963), and other then being slow, it has yet to find anything in the way of mud (snow in the quantities to stop a Unimog doesn't exist in Texas) that has hung it up yet. With chains and some weight in the bed the Unimog knows no equal.
I am somewhat familiar with the M35A2, and with the right tires, chains and about one or two tons of weight in the bed, they can move pretty good in mud or snow within reason. If you are in a hilly area (likely), I would avoid the NDCC tires without chains and really avoid them for side slope operations.....(can anyone say 7 ton toboggan). I drove a 1989 Ford F250 4X4 with non stock 1 or 1-1/2 ton axles in snow to places no sane person would go, but it took weight, and driving skill to do so.. AND without chains, almost every one of the vehicles you cited will hang up in snow if there is sheet ice underneath.
The Unimog and the M35 series will do very well as plow vehicles with weight, chains and sanity added. That's about all I can tell you, if you are afraid of snow, Florida does look good from November to late April, and the beaches are made for RUSTPROOFED M35's.
Just my two cents worth, based on experience.

Cheers,

Kyle F. McGrogan

 

[jdr2710]

Since there's not much comment on the H1, I'll throw in my .

I keep my deuce parked in a meadow on my property at about 7,200 feet in Colorado. The meadow is pretty flat, but gets a fair amount of snow. This winter I went to pull out and was having trouble in 10" of snow, but no weight and purely highway ribbed tires. I did get it out with some back & forth and the front axle engaged. In contrast a couple of winters ago I needed to use the tandem axle trailer I have parked in the same meadow next to where the deuce now lives. I drove in and backed up to the trailer through 2 feet of snow in the H1 and hooked onto the trailer with no problems. I did need to put the H1 in low to get enough wheel spin to clear the tread while pulling the trailer out, but it came out without chains. The H1 does have BFG all terrains on it, so considerably better traction just from that. I've only ever put chains on the H1 once, and that was due to mud and that same 3,000 pound trailer with 1,200 pounds of gear on it pushing the rear end around some nasty mountain roads downhill around the corners.. I've driven the H1 through 24" continuous snow with no effort, and pounded my way through 48" drifts with a couple of runs to get enough momentum (the drifts were on my property, so no worries about hidden obstacles).

My guess is that chained up the deuce would out-perform the H1, but for something you can hop in and get through some pretty nasty stuff, the H1 does a fine job. It is AWD so even the wife can drive with pretty good results. However I have learned that as well as it does getting out of trouble, it is just as good at getting into it. A couple years ago I was headed up to Denver with some slight weather, cruising with traffic at around 65ish, as we came around a bend I saw traffic stopped. I applied as much brake as I felt I could, and realized I wasn't going to be able to stop in time, so I gave it just a little more and she broke loose. So there I was going sideways at 50mph, luckily the cars around me were able to get clear. So I casually let up on the brake, checked over my shoulder and got it slid into the right lane (surreal slow motion memory of that event is still engraved in my brain). I had it under control again, but there still wasn't enough room to stop my 7,500 pounds. I looked at the fast approaching rear end of that white bronco and thought "That poor bugger doesn't deserve to get rear ended just for being in the wrong place at the right time," so I put it in the ditch. Once there I was able to get enough traction to stop decently, while traversing a side angle that would rolled a jeep. Once I got her slowed down, I pointed her up the side and got back on the shoulder and merged with traffic. I wish somebody would have had a video camera for that event, I would love to see the sideways slide and the casual trip into the ditch and back out! Once traffic crawled along I went past 5 accidents, the initial one followed by 4 more from poor buggers trying to stop just like me. The moral of the story is the H1 will go through anything but won't stop for squat.

Given the choice, for casual cruising, I take the H1, but if I needed to haul some serious cargo I'd chain up the deuce and feel quite confident that I'd get there with my 5 tons of gear.

 

[saddamsnightmare]

MArch 22nd, 2010.

jdr2710:


Ditto for the deuce and Unimog (at least the S404.114 series), they will go fairly well, especially the singled deuces, as they have too much tire on the road in the tandem duals to do much without weight and without chains, and the NDCC's don't handle on wet or snow covered roads worth hoot...... I think that the U1300L's might have a more sophisticated brake system, but we should bounce that question off Mike Pop if he's still on here. I know the Unimogs will go places that most H-1 and HMMWV's cannot go due to ground clearance issues (engine & transfer aren't hight enough, neither is the frame for ramp breakover angles in rocky terrain)..... But the H-1 does have power steering,s omething a stock M35A2 and S404.114 never heard of....

Cheers,

Kyle F. McGrogan