I'm officially ready for winter! No more cold, wet feet or hands for me. And, I can now drive safely in pretty much any conditions. Before the snow hit last week, I thought that my old two wheel drive Tacoma might do ok in winter, not great but ok. Usually the safety of a vehicle is determined in its ability to stop. But, I soon realized that two wheel drive is actually dangerous when you're in the delicate balance between maintaining momentum and maintaining control.
Last Friday, we got several inches of snow in a just a few hours. There was an 18 wheeler jack-knifed on the highway going into town, and there was a small truck flipped over in my neighborhood. My truck couldn't make it up the first hill at the entrance to my neighborhood, so I ended up parking by the highway and hiking about a mile to my house. It wasn't a big deal, but next time I might've gotten stuck much further from home. So, today I traded it in for another Tacoma. Oversized snow tires and four wheel drive should handle just about any situation, but there's also a rear differential lock and four-low if I ever need to plow through the deep stuff.
It's an older truck with quite a few miles, but it drives nicely and should have plenty of life left in it. Also, it might be my favorite configuration of the Tacoma. It's a V6 with a manual transmission and a manual transfer case. It feels a good bit smaller than my last truck, and there are no rear doors. Not that anyone wants to sit in the back seat anyways. The bed is actually slightly longer and wider. So my sleeping platform doesn't have that snug fit anymore, but it works. I'll miss my old truck, but there's plenty of adventures to come in this one.
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