Hill Climbing!

[WReed82]

Hi Folks,

We live in the mountains of western North Carolina, USA.
Our house is at the foot of a mountain and easily accessible.

Our neighbors are at the top of a rutted, dirt/gravel road that is quite steep and curvy.
Our front-engine, front-wheel-drive Honda Fit can make it up there, but
it is a bit of a challenge, with a fair amount of tire slipping.
I've also driven a 4wd truck up there, again, with a lot of slipping.
On a recently rainy day I drove our rear-engine, rear-wheel-drive Maeve up there and
she went right up with almost zero slipping.
I thought I might have to slow to a 1~2mph crawl to prevent slipping, but mostly was going 4~6MPH.

Reminded me of my old rear-engine/drive VW days, except the VW wasn't capable of
going super-slow on really steep roads - had to keep the engine RPMs up.

The pulling action of FWD has the advantage in snow, but
if I had to choose one or the other, it would be Maeve for year-round usefulness.

Thanks and good health, Weogo

 

[JoeS]

Thanks for the report and glad it worked well. Don't forget you also have the ASC (Active Stability Control) disable switch to play with.

As someone who's partial to FWD (my '67 Saab has 2/3 of its weight over the front wheels and is unstoppable!) I've been pleasantly surprised by the i-MiEV in iffy conditions, especially since it has LRR tires.

 

[WReed82]

Hi Joe,

Thanks for the ASC-disable reminder, though my guess is ASC may actually be helpful in the situation described.
With aired-down snow tires I bet it could go up any steep dirt road around here,
limited only by ground clearance, on the really rutted roads.

Mitsu could say the I-MiEV is sorta like an electric Porsche 911 and increase sales : -)

40 years ago a friend had a '67 Saab with the 850CC three-cylinder, two-stroke engine.
Fairly light and fast, with good traction. Left a blue wisp of smoke wherever it went.

Thanks and good health, Weogo