Re. Ben Swann and his driveway

[Ben Swann]

With over 3' of snow, there is no way.  I did park at the top knowing what was coming.
Usually I don't bother, mostly because I don't want any plow or other car to hit my
cars.  Since the road remained unplowed from last 2' storm, I figured they weren't going
to come down for a few days.  The last storm there were 3 plow attempts and even the
last Giant International plow ended up stuck and had to be pulled out - there is simply
no room to manuever or turn around.

I can usually make it up the driveway with snow under 5", but generally shovel first.
Ironically I usually get my cars out with snow or ice and the steep grade, yet my
neighbors nearly new BMW 3 series regularly spins tires on their nearly flat driveway.
Yet they wonder why I like my "old" cars.

That last 2 snows, I ended up doing donuts around the cul-desac until it was fairly
compact.  The same BMW as well as other newer supposedly 4WD and FWD cars tend to spin
tires.  There was left about a 3" compact base for this latest storm to deposit over
30".  I dug the car out today, but the road has tire ruts from some larger trucks and
the car gets hi-centered - the high part is pretty solid stuff, not the fluffy kind that
can be pushed out or smashed down.  This type of snow a 4WD with snow tires and a lot of
ground clearance does better than the Q for a change.

Snow tires on the quattros would help.  The UrQuat has some wide Kumho summer tires, and
the '91 2C20Vtq avant has some Bridgestone RE60's.  This time the avant does better -
usually it is the other way around.  I have yet to try the Eurovan with snow tires, and
wouldn't be surprised if it gets down the road withoug getting stuck since it is much
higher and should clear those high spots.

In the past few years, there has not been much snow to speak of, so I have not really
prepared myself for this winters series of snow and ice storms.  This is certainly a
snow storm for the books -  probably a record breaker for the Annapolis area.

Ben

[Date: Sat, 06 Feb 2010 20:54:38 -0500
From: George Selby <gselby4x4 at earthlink.net>
Subject: Ben Swann and his driveway
To: quattro at audifans.com
Message-ID: <E1NdwMB-0007TD-2o at elasmtp-spurfowl.atl.sa.earthlink.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

So Ben, can you get out of your driveway today?

George Selby]