Iced over roads- Settings for traveling in such

[CrazyOldMan]

View: https://youtu.be/0Wo4sEMoauU?si=mhy5Eleg98ccgt01

 

[Glen]

Agreed and everyone to their own though. I definitely wouldn’t be using low ratio in slippery conditions if I could help it. I find higher gears reduce wheel spin especially when initially pulling away.

In super slippery conditions with a manual transmission, I'll skip first gear from a stop to access a lower amount of torque and avoid wheel spin. This in conditions like water on ice or light snow on polished ice 10° either side of 0° F.

 

[Glen]

Regarding the brakes I can not see the benefit in locking any diff.

I have many years of driving in Alaska on a variety of slippery surfaces. Locking the center diff is very helpful when the only braking available is of the skidding type. ABS simply cannot cope with near-zero traction situtations that you can encounter on extremely slippery surfaces. Examples: water on ice or very cold snow on polished ice. And I'm talking about really good snow tires with or without studs. I have thrown my transfer case into center lock to get enough braking to avoid going through an intersection or rear-ending the car ahead literally dozens of times when I got surprised by road conditions and ABS was going to lead me into a crash.

I also like a center diff lock for high-speed gravel ops. Canada has many high-quality gravel roads that you can do 60 - 70 mph on for hours at a time. Locking the center diff makes things a lot more predictable and helps smooth out intermittent left / right differences in traction ( especially if you accidentally get into the gravel build up near the edge) without inducing a lot of understeer.

 

[Rupert]

Thank you all for the guidance and advice! I weathered the storm with no issues and Rupert handled it like it a champ.