Impreza WRX in the Snow

Posted January 3, 2014, 12:07 a.m.

WRX in the Snow

I’ve had my trusty Subaru Outback 2.5i since 2008, and it has always been amazing in the snow. The symmetric all-wheel-drive system that Subaru uses in almost all of their cars has an uncanny way of working just fine in the most adverse conditions. Back in the record-setting winter of 2009-2010, when the Washington, DC, metro area got slammed by three separate blizzards, I was cruising around and getting where I needed to go without any trouble.

Well, now there is a second Subaru in the family. We bought a used 2004 Impreza WRX to serve as a ‘fun’ little car for zipping around on the weekends, and so I could try my hand at being an amateur mechanic on a car that doesn’t really need to be in working condition at any given time. And with today’s three or four inches of snow, I finally got the chance to see how it performs in less-than-ideal road conditions.

And it was . . . fine. With the same basic drivetrain as most other Subarus, including my Outback, it just drove like normal. I was able to get it going a bit sideways by pushing it too far (on empty streets and parking lots where it was safe to do so), but that wasn’t the car’s doing. The big difference between driving the Outback versus driving the WRX in slick conditions is that the WRX is much more powerful . . . which means you have to go really, really light on the throttle or you’re going to spin the wheels and fish-tail. Again, not the car’s fault, it just needs a bit more finesse on snow and ice than the less-powerful Outback 2.5i does.

During my hour-long drive in the snow, I got stuck behind a Ford Fusion (front-wheel drive) that was unable to make it up an incline on a rural, unpaved road. When I arrived, two of its occupants and some helpful neighbors were pushing it up the hill. As they were finally getting out of the way, one of the neighbors walked down to me and asked if I needed a push too. I said, “No, I think I’m fine. Thanks!” I put it in gear, gave it some gas, and let off the clutch. The little hatch-back struggled a bit to get a grip, but then it dug-in and crawled up the hill just fine. No pushing required.

I wish we got more snow around here. . . .

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.

Quotes

Children’s talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.

Faith and reason are indeed interdependent. One of the great secrets of the universe is that reason leans on faith every bit as much as faith leans on reason.

We often hear that love, happiness, or personal contentment constitute the means of a good marriage and reasons to redefine marriage, but these things are the fruits of marriage, not the nature of marriage.

If he asks for money, he is a false prophet.

Don’t worry too much about what the world calls victories or defeats. How often the ‘victor’ ends up defeated!

It is the idea that rejecting God . . . will somehow lead to freedom, to complete human fulfillment. As a result [he] is replaced by fleeting human idols which offer the intoxication of a flash of freedom, but in the end bring new forms of slavery and death.

If you do not know how great marriage is, you cannot know how terrible divorce is.

For creation without the Creator fades into nothingness.

One can shuffle inanimate objects around; one can compel individuals to be at certain places at certain times; but one can hardly compel individuals to put forward their best efforts.

Creation of the universe from absolute and complete nothing marked the beginning of space, time, and matter. Theology has held that position for over three thousand years. Cosmology in the last decade or so has come to agree.

There are always values that some people think worthy enough that other people should have to pay for them—but not worthy enough that they should have to pay for them themselves.

Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves.

But if it should happen, as it often does, that the temporal power and authorities . . . should urge a subject to do contrary to the Commandments of God, or hinder him from doing them, there obedience ends, and that duty is annulled.

One may say [that] the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.

The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder.

I have come as light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.

[The] truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it, ignorance may deride it, malice may distort it, but there it is.

If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost.

The laws of God, like the law of gravity, do not depend upon how I feel about them. They are inexorable, and God has willed them to be knowable, even in the absence of strong emotion or apparent miracles.

I don’t believe in process. In fact, when I interview a potential employee and he or she says that ‘it’s all about the process,’ I see that as a bad sign.