Tag Archives: ice

Drifty Brick

With my lower ground clearance I’m finding that little patches of snow between ruts on the road are scraping the underside of my brick. Parallel parking is a particular challenge, as I just jam it into reverse and plow over snow drifts until I can’t move anymore. The snow I drove into last night had been deep enough to slightly elevate the chassis and gave the rear wheels even worse traction than usual. I had to rock back and forth about 5 minutes before breaking free.

Driving around town is fun tho. Not as exhilarating as the rubber-burning brick seen above, but as much fun as you can have w/ RWD, no traction control, tight streets and vast sheets of ice.

Next Year: Snow tires

The Brick’s anti-lock brakes have engaged twice as much this winter season than in the 6 years I’ve owned it, combined. The past few years have had low snow fall and good plowing. This year, not so much. I used to be able to just let the car hibernate in the winter, but now that my kids go to school further away and we have to drive to gymnastics every weekend it’s become more of a bother. I just fishtailed around Hoboken and there’s barely any accumulation.

I hate the feeling when the ABS engages. It feels like someone threw a bunch of rusty ball bearings into my rotors, and swapped the pads with sandpaper. I thought they might be screwed up but a mechanic tested them and me they were fine, that’s just the way they feel.