This is why I have AWD...

Makes sense - Much less likely to spin the tires with AWD versus FWD, and more traction.

Yeah, my friends with FWD vehicles who visit typically have to take a significant running start, and they still spin several times and rut it a little bit, but that heavy minivan coupled with the bad tires, and her half-ass running start, she stalled out 2/3 up and just rutted the hell out of it. I even warned her. Her last words before asking me to help her drive it out of the ditch were "My old grandma car gets me places just fine". I should have been more pro-active, but part of me just wanted to watch the world burn. I then had to fix it, but...worth it?
 
Yes that's steep.
I live at the top of a hill like that.

The story is that photos make it seem a lot "flatter" than it is...nothing more to the story. Anyone who visits me without AWD has issues if they don't get a running start. This might help add perspective:

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Yes that's steep.
I live at the top of a hill like that.

I dunno how steep it is, but without awd, the only thing I've seen go up it without spinning has been a dully, and my zeroturn commercial mower, but its built like Alexis Texas with the engine over the back axle and all its weight in the ass.

I will use my inclinometer ap on the way home and compare readings sitting on my console to the drive vs. Garage, and find the difference discounting any error induced by the console not being true.
 
A long time ago I bought a house on an even steeper hill than I live on now.

At the time I had a rear wheel drive Mk1 Cortina, about 5 years old, it failed twice to get up onto my drive midway up, same with a Mk4 I bought later at two years old, even with a run at it and a boot full of coal. I bought FWD cars after that and never failed to get up.

Since buying an Audi Quattro at age 50 I have never even considered any car without AWD or a turbo. In fact my last 5 cars have been AWD. I've read all the augments re winter tyres etc, but know for sure what my choice will always be.
 
Using the above method, my drive averages 14.5 degrees incline, or a 26% grade, in "road-speak". The steepest road in the world is roughly 4 degrees steeper, to put this in perspective. And my drive is gravel, not paved. AWD is almost necessary for long-term sensible use.
 
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1:4. What would scare me is coming down that on one of those snowy days in your photos. I’m amazed you haven’t totalled it.
 
1:4. What would scare me is coming down that on one of those snowy days in your photos. I’m amazed you haven’t totalled it.

Handled it just fine even with 3/32 remaining on my CrossContact LX20's. Good tires make all the difference! Now I have Nokian WRG3 SUVs. Should be even better! My plan, should it get problematic, is to simply take my foot off the brake and use my front yard as a landing zone, lol, it's 100 yards from the end of the drive to the creek. Also, the stability logic in the CX5 is pretty amazing at "keeping it straight". You can cram on the brakes in snow and steer just fine, even trying to act a fool.
 
Yes, if you’re confident you’re not going to meet somebody conic up I suppose you can just point it in the right direction and let it go. I still think I’d get a truck load of stone and bank those edges up though - a bit like one of those wonderwheels tracks that kids have!
 
Yes, if you’re confident you’re not going to meet somebody conic up I suppose you can just point it in the right direction and let it go. I still think I’d get a truck load of stone and bank those edges up though - a bit like one of those wonderwheels tracks that kids have!

If I meet someone coming out of my drive-way, there will be more problems than vehicle logistics.
 
...and a dumbass insurance rep who couldn't even keep it on the gravel..I mean what an epic failure by her. But maybe someone just told her to squeal like a pig and she was driving frantically, idk- just searching for clues here!
and yes everyone's an expert but my paved driveway is probably twice as bad as that..similar steepness but almost no runway at bottom (couple car lengths) and an even steeper falloff (like flip your car steep) on the side just to make sure you're paying attention..she pretty obviously wasn't.
 
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Yea by driver error I mean the insurance rep. I got around just fine in my fed with snow tires but getting stuck behind the idiots in minivans while in the subdivision (which typically has the steeper hills) is so frustrating. They never seem to under stand the concept of maintaining momentum.

Not disagreeing with you either. Our CX-5 is AWD also.
 
The other problem is that Honda’s locking diff isn’t really a locking diff. They use the abs so in a case like this it will just alternate between spinning the left and right tire..... which isn’t really helpful. That’s the problem with a lot of the junk AWD setups out there as well. Fortunately for us Mazda has one of the better ones.
 
Yea by driver error I mean the insurance rep. I got around just fine in my fed with snow tires but getting stuck behind the idiots in minivans while in the subdivision (which typically has the steeper hills) is so frustrating. They never seem to under stand the concept of maintaining momentum.

Not disagreeing with you either. Our CX-5 is AWD also.

Momentum in/on ice and snow is one thing I've thought long and hard about. Some of the roads I drive are hilly, and banked. In the ice, maintaining momentum "flattens" a bank. I actually have slid less going faster because of this. I just don't have the balls to tackle some of those hills/banks at the speed necessary to "maintain neutral weight" on them! That, and once you come out of it...I imagine it would be similar to unintentional throttle-lift oversteer with an older Porsche 911.
 
Let’s hope the fire trucks in your district have awd.

The hell with that. All they need to do is get DOWN the road. They can get UP the road at their leisure. Honestly though, I doubt it would matter. I'm so rural that if I cannot put it out by myself, they can't put it out in time.
 
The other problem is that Honda’s locking diff isn’t really a locking diff. They use the abs so in a case like this it will just alternate between spinning the left and right tire..... which isn’t really helpful. That’s the problem with a lot of the junk AWD setups out there as well. Fortunately for us Mazda has one of the better ones.

You realize that Mazda does the same thing, right? It just has the ability to send 50% of the available torque to the back axles to do that same thing with, as well. It's not a real AWD like a Jeep/Audi/Subaru/etc.
 
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