Conzumel? Las Vegas? Iceland? Staying at home looks good
Christmas time is the perfect time for taking a family trip. But for our family, this year we might journey no farther than to an Up North hockey arena, if we venture out at all.
This time around, the perfect trip is to do a little shoveling, or maybe a lot of shoveling, do a little driving, visit with some friends, and don’t travel too far.
It’s amazing how much enjoyment you can get by waking up and watching the sun rise over Lake Superior, especially on one of those really cold mornings where a cloud of lake-effect fog hovers over the water and delays the first look at the hazy sun for an extra few minutes.
Watching one of the late-season freighters make its ghostly way through the hazy gobs of vapor rising from the big lake, nearing the refuge of the Aerial Bridge, is another highlight.
Trying to be unobtrusive enough to spot the deer that tend to walk through my yard each day and/or night is another element of adventure for me.
Or, just gazing in wonder at the pile of snow building to beyond a foot on the picnic table I should have put away a month ago, is pleasurable. So is the wind-chime, which seems to have a distinctly different higher, clearer pitch in winter than in summer, and takes on a different look when the snow from the last blizzard adorns it.
Those are simple pleasures of nontrips over the holidays.
When you live Up North, and you actually enjoy and appreciate the change of seasons and the cold winters, that doesn’t mean you still might not take the family on a week-long trip to some warm and sunny place. Somehow, that can give you the incentive to face the rest of the frigid winter with more than the usual cheerfulness.
We have done that, quite successfully, in our family. We went to the Florida Keys for a weeklong rental of a house, and another time did a time-share rental of a condo on Key Largo, and still another time went to the Naples, Fla., area and hit the exotic beaches of Sanibel, but our favorite place to unwind and rewind is Key West. On the West side of the map, we have enjoyed Northern California and Southern California, as well as Arizona and Texas.
I would have agreed to go for another dose of any of those, but my family demanded a recount. With George Dubya getting elected, we decided that just to be patriotic we should refuse to count all of the money in our budget, in case there might not be enough.
So we moved on. My wife and our two sons and I always have a lot of laughs and good-natured heckles on such ventures, so it came time to discuss our variable options.
That’s where we ran into a bit of a snag. We disagreed more than we agreed. Our older son, Jack, finally said he flat couldn’t go during the Christmas holidays. His only vacation time would be after the first of the year, and he had a trip he’d been planning. Without us, he didn’t need to add.
That ended the debate for a brief time, but then we decided that the other three of us shouldn’t suffer because Jack couldn’t go along. So we reinstated our discussion.
We ultimately decided we would go, and what the likeliest dates would be. Then it came down to our destination. We all spent a day or two thinking about it, and then we reconvened to make our final decision.
I volunteered to go first. We’ve never been to New Orleans, so we could take a neat car for an extended road trip and drive there. It would only take a couple days, and we could drive leisurely, stopping wherever we wanted. It would be the least expensive way to go, and it would be quality time together as we drove.
I’m not sure if I heard correctly, but the response from Joan was something along the lines of “over my dead body.” I might have heard it better, but when spoken through clenched teeth it didn’t sound like the type of phrase it would be wise to inquire about.
Joan chose Conzumel. Conzumel? That’s in Mexico, right? Right. She had found a good deal, a special air-plus-hotel deal, and we could do it for less than $2,000 apiece.
It was a suggestion that made me realize I should write down my favorite fragrance for smelling salts, just in case.
I offered a counter-idea. We could arrange for a swift vehicle, to be picked up at some far-off spot, then take a special discount air trip to meet it at some warm city, say, Las Vegas. We could then take off from there, do a little desert driving, head for Southern California, wherever we wanted. We could do the vagabond thing on a budget.
Not bad, I thought, because at least the concept was not met with outright refusal and/or scorn.
Jeff’s turn. “I’ve got it,” he trumpeted, as he descended from upstairs in triumph. “We can get this unbelievable deal on air tickets, and we can stay anywhere from three days to a weekÂ…”
“Where?” I answered, all perked up.
“Reykjavik,” he said.
“Isn’t that in Iceland?” I said.
“Yeah, and it’s really great,” he said. “Remember I stopped in Reykjavik on my trip to Europe, and how I said I’d love to go back there?”
I remembered. I also remembered that we’re talking about late-December or early January, and when its cold in Minnesota it might be UNBELIEVABLY cold in Iceland. I mean, I’d dearly love to go to Iceland in July, some year. But not during the Christmas holidays, not right now, this year.
Agreement isn’t mandatory, but is it possible to get any more divergent suggestions than Conzumel and Iceland?
So we’re staying home. We’re going to not spend a lot of money and time and bother to hire airline baggage guys to skyhook our luggage into the bins, and we’re not going anywhere.
As a compromise, we’re going to try to gather the whole clan out on top of the hill in Lakewood. We’ll put a fire in the fireplace, see if we can get some takeout enchiladas at Hacienda del Sol, so Joan can pretend she’s in Conzumel, and we can look out at that wind-chime with its little towers of snow, and beyond, to the little holiday lights outlined by the solid white field of snow, so Jeff can pretend we’re in Iceland.
And we’re planning on enjoying it. Merry Christmas.
Ford Escape takes on Acura MDX, Toyota Sequoia for top truck
Light trucks account for 46 percent of all vehicular sales in the U.S. these days, so the annual Truck of the Year award takes on more significance than usual each year, rather than being a willing subsidiary of the Car of the Year event.
For 2001, the three finalists for Truck of the Year award are, alphabetically, the Acura MDX, the Ford Escape and the Toyota Sequoia.
All are impressive, all deserving. In fact, you could make the case for several non-finalists as well.
Along with the MDX, Escape and Sequoia, other candidates were the Ford Explorer SportTrac, the Hyundai Santa Fe, Mazda Tribute, Mitsubishi Montero, Nissan Pathfinder, GMC Sierra Heavy Duty, Chevrolet Silverado Heavy Duty, Toyota RAV4, and Yukon Denali.
Pretty impressive bunch.
In interaction with the committee, I have lobbied to add minivans into the truck bracket, rather than run them with cars. My theory is that cars are cars and trucks are trucks, but when people start choosing whether to buy a truck, they might buy a compact sedan and a minivan, just as they might buy a sedan and a pickup truck. The one-of-each crowd might replace a pickup or an SUV with a minivan, but it’s not likely they would own a sedan and an SUV and trade the sedan for a minivan.
But my request to have light trucks include pickups of all size, SUVs and minivans has not yet worked out. So Chrysler’s reinvented minivans all competed in the car category, while one of them might well have been a major contender among the trucks.
My personal vote, as the only member of the international jury of automotive writers in about five states, was spread out. My top pick was the Escape, second the MDX, and tied for third was the Sequoia and the Toyota RAV4. One point below, another tie, with the Silverado HD and the Sport Trac deadlocked, and another point behind those two came the Montero and Pathfinder.
The Escape is the perfect compact SUV for the times. The times are with the buying public slowly becoming aware that the huge SUVs, fortresses of safety and security in a collision with a smaller and lighter vehicle, are not at all safe if driven too aggressivly. With tire problems that may well be coming from the weight overload of hefty SUVs, and with the tendency to roll over at the slightest loss of control and resultant over-correction, 85 percent of light truck fatalities are in single-vehicle incidents — meaning loss of control and/or rollovers.
Well, the Escape, designed by Mazda and built by Ford, is front-wheel-drive when not all-wheel-drive, which means, simply, that there is never a time when the rear wheels will strive to pass the front wheels, as they do in conventional four-wheel-drives that start out with primary drive to the rear. On top of that, the Escape starts out with a very safe structure, and along with lighter, more agile handling, it also has the interior room of the current-but-outgoing Explorer. For the $20,000 range, the Escape gives Ford the perfect way out of its Explorer/Firestone hassle.
The Acura MDX, meanwhile, is Honda’s first all-out attempt to build a normal-sized SUV, and it put it into its elite Acura line. The MDX rides and drives more like a luxury sedan but and has the anticipated high-tech engine from Honda. So it gets decent mileage, has decent power, gives you luxurious interior appointments and comfort, handles well, and qualifies as an ultra-low-emission vehicle.
The Sequoia is another all-new SUV from Toyota, giving that manufacturer possibly unexcelled control over every level of the SUV spectrum. There is the RAV4 at the most compact end, the 4Runner in the middle and the Land Cruiser at the top of the Toyota line, along with the RX300 and the LX430 in the Lexus line. Adding the Sequoia was logical, and Toyota took its extremely impressive Tundra pickup (my top choice as last year’s truck of the year; it didn’t win), and used it as the rock-solid base for the Sequoia, which is large enough to be aimed right in the midst of the large SUV segment dominated by the Chevy Tahoe and Suburban and Ford Expedition.
As such, the Sequoia does it all, and in style. It is tight, well-made, loaded with all the best creature comforts of the largest SUVs, and with the power of Toyota’s splendid 4.3-liter dual-overhead-cam V8.
The RAV4 set the stage for the compact SUV boom, followed eagerly by the Honda CR-V, the Nissan Xterra (last year’s truck winner), and others. This is the first major makeover of the RAV4, and it not only is thorough, but impressive, in that it takes on the only major criticisms of the original RAV4 — quirky styling and a bit underpowered — and smooths out the styling but with an edge, and adds enough punch to make a performance difference.
The Silverado is Chevy’s new pride and joy, a huge truck with massive power, and if you need that sort of heft and power, the Silverado 2500, particularly with the big diesel, can tow small villages into the next county.
Ford has covered all the bases with SUVs, too, so it took its popular Explorer and its popular pickup truck and came up with the hybrid Sport Trac, which is two-thirds of an SUV, but with a pickup box behind the full four-door body. It works, it’s different, is far more flexible than a normal pickup, and I gave it points.
The Nissan Pathfinder has been a favorite SUV of mine for years. For some reason, I seem to fit into it better than almost any other SUV. The new one is no exception, upgraded in power and styling. It may look a little more generic than its predecessor, but it is better in every way, and deserves credit for that.
Mitsubishi’s Montero also is entirely new, considerably larger, and yet has never outgrown its self-stated demand to be capable of conquering the most rugged off-road stretches without ever losing its on-road manners. Impressive, indeed.
Because of my personal vote, obviously I can’t disagree with the three finalists, especially when my ballot ranked them 1. Escape, 2. Acura MDX and 3. Sequoia. I would predict they will wind up that way, when announced at the Detroit Auto Show.
[[[[[CUTLINES:
1/ Ford’s Escape may provide the company with a compact and worthy escape from the hassles of Explorer/Firestone inquisitions.
2/ The Acura MDX has the appropriate luxury expected from the Acura line, but with the technology and toughness Honda could compile.
3/ Toyota took its big, strong and impressive Tundra pickup platform and built the Sequoia SUV on top of it, with predictably impressive results. ]]]]]]]]]
PT Cruiser, Honda Insight, Toyota Prius are car of year finalists
The 50 members of the jury have cast their votes, and the finalists for the 2001 North American Car of the Year have been determined. Nobody will know the winner until dawn on Jan. 8 in Cobo Hall in Detroit, when the North American International Auto Show opens with the unveiling of those named car and truck of the year.
As for the car of the year award, we have to be impressed that the jury went for trendy but also high-tech. The three finalists are, in alphabetical order, the Chrysler PT Cruiser, the Honda Insight, and the Toyota Prius.
There can be no surprise that the PT Cruiser made it. Chrysler’s latest concept-come-to-life made a spectacular splash at its introduction, and people were understandably dazzled by the fact that it could meet the requirements of a station wagon, a sedan, a minivan, and even most desires of an SUV. Consumers then were surprised to see how compact the Cruiser is, with a bluntness that makes it shorter in overall length than a Honday Civic or Neon, but with the tall interior volume about double of such compacts.
On top of that, the thing that may make the Cruiser most attractive, is that all of those assets can be obtained in fairly well loaded form for under $20,000. That sent buyers scurrying to get on waiting lists. I know a fellow who talked to me about it before it was introduced, and I encouraged him to go for it. He got his name on a list and got his by early last summer, and when the first display model wound up in his dealership, his wife insisted on one, too. So they ended up trading in two SUVs for two PT Cruisers, and both are happy and well-satisfied.
The Honda Insight and Toyota Prius represent more of a surprise as finalists, for two reasons. First, there are an unprecedented number of impressive competitors eligible this year. That may sound trite, because all cars that are sufficiently redone or introduced are eligible every year, but this year there not only are a number of good new cars, but they are of a quality and level of technology to be strong contenders for consideration.
The Insight and Prius, both from Japan, are the absolute pinnacle of technology, however, because both are hybrid vehicles — which means they are powered by combinations of gasoline and electric motors, linked by amazing technology that solves the (supposed) neverending dilemma of how to make electric cars function when their advantages in power, silent efficiency, and emission-free performance were so compromised by their need to be recharged.
It is a little-known fact that almost every electric prototype being experimented with by automotive companies were clean-running vehicles harboring a dirty little secret: If they were successful in the marketplace, rather than merely as public-relations facades, the need to plug them in overnight for recharging would cause coal-burning power plants to produce so much more energy that the resultant pollution from the plants would be far more hazardous than the combined lowering of emissions from the cars themselves.
Toyota and Honda, however, solved the dilemma by combining a small but efficient gasoline engine with an electric motor, and while they use different techniques of combining them, the result is that the electric motors’ battery packs get recharged by the gasoline engine even while being driven. The Insight gets over 70 miles per gallon, the Prius around 50 in EPA ratings.
The Insight runs on a 3-cylinder, 1-liter gas engine with the electric motor kicking in when you step on the gas, giving you plenty of zip, and then disengaging when you don’t demand power and getting recharged when not being utilized. Twin “fuel” gauges give you how much gasoline you have left on one side and how fully-charged your battery pack is on the other. In my test-drive, I was able to edge the cruising speed up to 70, and — for scientific purposes only, of course — even up to 78 miles per hour without the battery chipping in. When you want to accelerate down a freeway ramp, however, the Insight takes off as if it has a much larger engine.
The Prius is a four-door, four-seater, which coordinates a 1.5-liter, 4-cylinder gas engine with a similar electric motor, with an engine management system that goes back and forth, combining the two and offering a center-dashboard screen that displays where the energy is coming from at all times, so you can watch the electric motor either contributing to the drivetrain or being recharged.
It is impressive that 50 automotive journalists, none of whom has a bias or financial interest in the outcome, have independently agreed in principle that such high-tech advances should be rewarded with enough votes to be among the top three. Unquestionably, a factor is that both the Insight and Prius are priced right about at $20,000. That means all three finalists are available to families on tight budgets, because all three can be had for $20,000 or less.
As a jury member for something like eight years now, I can appreciate how difficult it was to vote this year. I can be accused of always tending toward advanced technology, because I think it’s of utmost importance to all of our futures. But consider the temptations of other vehicles, some of which are far costlier, and many of which are off the scale in comparisons of luxury features and creature-comfort items.
First of all, the new vehicles that qualify are first assembled. Then the jury members make a preliminary vote for their own top 10, and from that the original list is filtered down to a final group. That final list showed: Acura 3.2CL coupe, Audi allroad SUV/wagon, PT Cruiser, Chrysler Sebring sedan, Chrysler Sebring coupe, Chrysler Town & Country minivan, Chrysler Voyager minivan, Dodge Caravan minivan, Dodge Stratus sedan, Dodge Stratus coupe, Honda Civic, Honda Insight, Lexus IS300, Lexus LS430, Mercedes C-Class sedan and CL coupe, Oldsmobile Aurora, Pontiac Aztek, Toyota MR2 Spyder, Toyota Prius, Volvo S60 and Volvo V70 station wagon.
That is a strong crop. Chrysler gets the PT Cruiser in, but does not get the very impressive Stratus and Sebring coupes or sedans, or the minivans, into the final field. Toyota gets the Prius into the final three, but fails to get the very impressive MR2 sports car, or the Lexus luxury LS430 or sports-sedan IS300 in. Honda made it with the Insight, but didn’t make it with the all-new Civic or slick Acura 3.2 CL coupe. Audi’s allroad quattro is costly, but it also offers every imaginable technical trick to combine an onroad station wagon with offroad SUV capabilities. General Motors got blanked, although the new Aurora is impressive and the Pontiac Aztek drew a lot of attention from a love-hate or controversial standpoint as an SUV. Volvo’s S60 is a superb sedan and the V70 is another onroad wagon with offroad pretensions.
The way we on the jury vote is that we each get 25 points. We are allowed to divide them up any way we choose, with a maximum of 10 points to one, but only one, vehicle, and fewer points to others considered among the best. We are to judge vehicles against others in its particular competitive segment, rather than to compare apples to oranges, and give points to those that seem most significant overall.
My personal method is to establish criteria — styling (looks), performance, handling, comfort, price, plus fun, which is a very subjective area of how much actual enjoyment do you get from driving and living with the vehicle. Combining such objective areas into subtotals can give you a very interesting result, sometimes surprising yourself.
In my vote this year, I split up my points probably more than ever before. My ballot gave the most votes to the PT Cruiser, with the Insight, the Stratus sedan and the Audi allroad quattro tied for second, then the Mercedes C320 and the Lexus IS300 tied just behind them, and the MR2 and the Caravan tied with my final points.
My reasoning for the PT Cruiser and Insight have already been explained. I chose the Insight at the expense of the Prius, only because in my tests the Insight performed better at highway cruising speed, and had much snappier acceleration. Those advantages may have been because the Insight comes with a stick-shift only, and the Prius with an automatic only, or it might be enhanced because of the difference in collaboration between gas engine and electric input. But based on my tests, if I had to choose only one of the hybrids, it was the Insight.
The Sebring and Stratus were both impressive, both in coupe and sedan form, and I went with the Sebring because I guessed it might be the higher-volume of the two, and it has a couple of very slight handling/performance edges. Overall, I believe the Stratus/Sebring are the first midsize sedans from a U.S. manufacturer that can take on the best from Japan or Germany from the standpoints of technology and driveability, and they do it at a price under $20,000.
The Audi allroad quattro, which will be the subject of a more expansive column soon, costs $47,000, but it is absolutely the most stable vehicle I’ve ever driven. It has a twin-turbo 2.7-liter V6 that has all the high-tech goodies, right down to steering-wheel automatic shift buttons, and it has armor-plating under all the vitals, plus an adjustable suspension that can raise ground clearance to 8 inches and allow actual off-road use. Such technical excellence applied to real-world uses costs money, no question.
The Lexus LS430 is the costliest car of the batch, and while it exudes excellence, it could only have split my Lexus vote, becaue the IS300 is half the price, at $30,000, and it is a Japanese version of a BMW M3 — swift, fun to drive, great handling and large doses of power. While the LS430 is the latest in an established luxury boat, the IS300 is an all-new venture and the more impressive of the two, I thought.
Mercedes might have outdone itself with the C320, another vehicle that will be the topic of an upcoming column. As the smallest, and least-expensive Mercedes (at $30,000 for the base model), the new C-Class borrows some of the best styling and performance concepts from the larger E-Class and S-Class and incorporates them into a tight, enjoyable sedan that never lets you forget it is a real Mercedes, and why Mercedes is considered the standard of the industry.
Both the Lexus IS300 and the Mercedes C-Class deserved consideration, I believed, and deserved even more, but they have front engines and rear-wheel drive — something that is not necessarily a problem, but falters when compared to front-wheel-drive in the Up North snowbelt.
As for the MR2, it is inexpensive, in the $20,000s, and is an all-out blast to drive. It will compete with Mazda’s tried-and-true Miata, but also can challenge such costlier vehicles as the BMW Z3, Porsche Boxster and Audi TT from a fun-on-a-budget standpoint with its mid-engine balance.
The Caravan Sport I drove at introduction time was the best-handling minivan I’ve ever driven, and such new touches as a power tailgate that stops its closure if it even touches an object are highlights of an entirely rebuilt model line. The Town & Country and Voyager can come with similar equipment, and some unique touches of their own, but the ones I got for test drives were lacking in the pizzazz and features I recall from the introduction of all three. Still, the minivan segment is extremely competitive, and the Caravan, with its Sport version, and an available all-wheel-drive unit, may have retained the top echelon with the new model.
That doesn’t mean that the others didn’t deserve some points too, but the ranking had to run out somewhere, and I had run out of points. Still, our automotive future might depend on technology, and we don’t ever want to overlook the fun and flexibility of vehicles, so I can’t argue with the three finalists — especially when two of them were my 1-2 picks.
[[[[[CUTLINES:
1/ The PT Cruiser draws a crowd wherever it goes, or parks. This one was on the beach at San Diego at introduction time, where passers-by joined assembled automotive journalists for a closer look.
2/ The Honda Insight seats only two, and comes only with a 5-speed manual transmission, but its electric-motor-boosted power augments the 73-miles-per-gallon gasoline engine for easy cruising.
3/ Toyota’s Prius (PREE-us) seats four and comes with a constantly-variable automatic transmission to send its hybrid gas/electric power to the ground. ]]]]]]]
Nokian Hakkapeliitta Q provides new answer to wintry driving
A lot of people who want the best cell phone choose a Nokia, because of its reputation. A lot of people who want the absolute best in winter driving tires ALSO buy Nokia, also by reputation.
To separate its tire business from its cell-phone operation, the company recently changed its name to Nokian tires, and their reputation for Up North winter driving is unexcelled. And we’re talking Up North whether you’re in Minnesota, Wisconsin or Finland. Nokian tires are made in a high-tech factory in Nokia, Finland, which is a suburb of Tampere. Nokia tires were — and still are — the choice of rally drivers, including the maniacs who love to drive 120 miles per hour while hurling their vehicles around curves in a four-wheel drift on courses somewhere north of the Arctic Circle in Finland. Not a bad test facility.
The primary Nokian snow tire goes by the wonderfully melodic name of “Hakkapeliitta.” Its tough, rugged tread blocks were designed to hold studs in a compound hard enough to last a lot of miles, but tough enough to take a beating. A few years ago, Nokian came out with the “NRW,” an all-season tire with a tread that I’ve found works better in winter than most every other all-season tire and better than some winter tires.
A year ago, Nokian introduced an all new tire, called the “Hakkapeliitta Q,” a studless tire designed to run with a softer compound, which retains its flexibility even when the temperature goes well below zero, giving it a much-improved tendency to stick to the road, whether it’s dry, or covered with ice or snow.
Mark Strohm, a partner in running Foreign Affairs, the repair shop at 722 East 9th Street on Duluth’s hillside, also sells an assortment of automotive equipment, including tires. He’s been selling Nokias, and then Nokians, for over 15 years. When the company came out with an all-new winter tire, he obtained a set to put on the Volvo S40 sedan his wife, Deb, drives.
“She’s my test-bed,” said Strohm. “She knows that everything I hear about and want to try, her car will be our test-bed. She loves these tires so much, she wouldn’t let me drive the car. The other night, we were driving home on a street that hadn’t been plowed, and the radio and the fan blower were off, and I heard something I had never heard before. You know how, when it’s cold out, the snow squeaks under your foot? Well, I heard that same squeaking under the tires of the Volvo.”
So Mark put the truck version of Nokians on his Dodge Ram Turbodiesel.
I learned of his endorsement after I already had bought a set of Nokian Hakkapeliitta Qs, which Foreign Affairs installed on our personal car. I had bought some earlier Hakkapeliittas and NRWs in past years, and they worked so well I also got them for my two sons’ cars. It helps them get through winter, which helps our peace of mind.
After spending the first weekend trying out the new tires on the steep and snow-ice covered hills of Duluth, I am convinced that the new Qs will be hugely successful in providing the secure feeling that we all crave in winter driving. Several other Up North outlets handle Nokian tires as well, but Foreign Affairs sells them for $97 apiece — that’s a bargain, for premium tires, and it’s about the same as the NRW and only a few dollars more than the more rigid Hakka 1s.
WORST FEELING OF ALL
Maybe you’re on the freeway, driving as delicately as possible because of the snow or sleet coating the roadway. Or starting from an icy, uphill stoplight, where you’re more likely to spin than to move. Or, perhaps you’re just trying to get in or out of an inclined driveway, and you know that without a run, you are destined to spin. The ultimate, of course, is when you come to a curve in the road during a storm and you turn the steering wheel, but the car feels as if it’s on wax as it chooses to go straight ahead.
You know the feeling, and there’s nothing worse. Instability can turn into danger, which is only a hair’s-breadth away from tragedy when you’re driving in icy conditions.
Because I drive a wide variety of vehicles every year, I feel comfortable with almost any set-up, but I have come to realize that front-wheel drive is vastly better than rear-wheel drive, and that all-wheel drive is the best of all. But that is just for going; stopping is a whole ‘nother ballgame. No matter how well you can get traction and accelerate, there is no assurance you’ll be able to stop in an adequately short distance.
No matter what the configuration of your vehicle’s engine placement and drivetrain, the most important element in successfully negotiating winter driving is your tires. I had first sought to find tires that would provide maximum security in the foulest of weather, and over the years, I tried exotic Michelins, Goodyear, Vredestein, BF Goodrich and others, with mixed reviews. Then I found out about Nokia, and the first Hakkapeliittas we tried were outstanding.
Bridgestone came out with the new Blizzak, a unique tire made with a cellular tread that is designed to decompose as you drive, and those little cells make abrasive edges that help the tire stick to the icy roads. I’ve tried them, too, and they work very well, while also allowing you a surprising ability to stop on ice. However, Blizzaks also wear out quite rapidly, because no matter how severe the winter, most of our driving is on bare pavement, and that decompozing tread compound decomposes in a hurry.
The best technique for handling winter driving is to buy a second set of wheels, mount snow tires to use from November to April, then swap back for the best-handling summer tires. However, some of the best all-season tires, such as the Nokian NRWs, work so well both summer and winter they make an effective compromise. Besides, the last couple of years, we’ve become spoiled with our winters without winter, so to speak. Light snowfalls, moderate temperatures — it was joke. Who needed winter tires?
Ah, but payback is here, this year. Extreme cold and heavy snowfalls, although the Up North area has so far been spared the heft of snowfalls as close as the Twin Cities. We had about 15 inches of snow in December, while the Twin Cities had about 40 inches, according to reports I heard. Strohm said his shop sold more batteries last month than it did the previous two years, but that tire sales have only increased marginally, by less than 20 percent. That means some are trying to get through with their existing tires.
But for me, it was time to make the move, and get the optimum winter tires. After checking thoroughly, I decided the Nokian Hakkapelittaa Q was the best, so I went for ’em. On Day 1, I thought the tires spun a bit, but I wrote it off to being too exuberant with the clutch and putting too much power down. On Day 2, they didn’t spin. On Day 3, they churned through plowed-up snowbanks and unplowed driveways, and held remarkably firm on icy parking lot attempts to swerve and spin.
It’s a great feeling. Bring on the blizzards, we’re ready for the worst.
TECHNICAL SUPERIORITY
In the tire business, over a dozen elements go into the construction of the tread compound. All tire companies, understandably, want their tires to last the longest, handle the best and run best when heated up at high speed. In order to accomplish that, the compromise is made with the tread compound, altering the mix for firmer, tougher tread. The tradeout almost always has been that making a harder tread to work and last longer means that it loses its warm-weather flexibility when it gets cold out — as in subzero.
That’s why some of the biggest companies, with the best reputation for long wearing and high-performance cornering, have a lousy history of cold weather traction. Those of us living Up North in the snow belt are too few in number to affect the mass-production of the largest companies.
That may be why Nokia has worked out so well for Up North driving. In Finland, it gets cold, especially farther north. A tire company making a tire to work in Finland has to start out being good in winter driving, then it can go after the high-performance end of the compromise from there.
As for the new “Q” tire, Pat Greer, a Nokian distributor in Chicago, explained it. “In going to a studless winter tire, Nokian made a softer compound, because it didn’t need to be hard enough to hold studs,” he said. “The secret to success as a winter tire has to do with siping, the little grooves that go crosswise in the tread. The sipes can cause the tread to flex, which helps traction, but too much flexing causes the tire to wear faster, too.
“So Nokian has put a sophisticated compound on the ‘Q’ and it also has put in spiral sipes. The sipes are cut into the tread, but every ¼ inch, the groove turns 90 degrees, then turns back, so it’s a zigzag sipe. Doing that gives the ‘Q’ less flexing, and takes away the squishy feeling you’d get otherwise from the tread flexing. As it wears, the zigzag sipes also give you more edges to bite into the ice and snow, too.”
Greer, and Strohm, assume the new “Q” will wear out at a faster rate than the other Nokian tires, but not as rapidly as the other competing premium snow tires with softer tread compounds. If it is good for 30,000 miles, and you switch out of them every spring and back into them in the fall, you should get four or five winters out of a set.
And those will be winters free of that horrible, white-knuckle feeling of losing control or spinning every time it snows.
[[[[[[CUTLINES:
1/ This may go down as the Winter of Blizzards, which causes treacherous times and scary feelings for drivers.
2/ Nokian, a Finnish tire manufacturer, has created the new Hakkapeliitta Q tire, which seems perfectly suited to Up North winter driving.
3/ The Q combines a special tread compound with “spiral siping” for the cross slits to enhance ice and snow grip.
4/ Aggressive tread block pattern effectively puts the unique compound to use to bite into snow and help handling on ice.
5/ Mark Strohm, co-owner of Foreign Affairs, tried out Hakkapeliitta Q tires on his wife’s car, with impressive results.
Mercury Mountaineer’s stable handling proves biggest surprise
At the end of an introductory day of test-drives of the new Mercury Mountaineer, the assembled media types gathered at the large, paved parking lot at Phoenix Municipal Stadium, where Ford folks had assembled an interesting mix of sport-utility vehicles.
There was a Mercedes ML320, a Lexus RX300, a Jeep Grand Cherokee, and a Dodge Durango. Plus about a half-dozen 2001 Mountaineers. And there was a group of Bob Bondurant driving school types who had laid out two different pylon-lined autocross courses to thoroughly test the acceleration, braking, swerving, steering, controlling tendencies of all these vehicles.
Now, the Mountaineer is Mercury’s version of the new 2001 Ford Explorer, which is a completely renovated and improved midsize SUV. There are some significant differences, including the style touches that give the Mountaineer front end a bold, almost concept-vehicle look. Another large difference is that the Mountaineer has full-time all-wheel-drive, while the Explorer has the switchable differential that allows you to drive in rear-drive and flip a switch on the dash to engage 4-wheel-drive, and also has a low-range lock.
The biggest improvement in the Mountaineer (and Explorer) is the new design of the frame and rear axle, where engineers fitted the half-shafts through the broadest beam of the frame an directly to the wheel on either side. That allows for the amazing feat of lowering the side rails and therefor the floor, while raising the ground clearance by one inch. Is it any wonder why the previous version — and almost all other SUVs — have a too-high center of gravity?
Still, I thought Ford had made a tactical blunder in bringing out the selection of competitors it chose. I checked over the Grand Cherokee and the Durango, and noted that while they had good power, they had the base suspensions, so obviously they would be easily outclassed by the upgraded Mountaineer suspension.
But we all know about the superb handling of anything by Mercedes, and of Japan’s best copies of Mercedes products, by Lexus. Besides, I’d driven the Mercedes ML430 at its introduction, at Road America’s race track at Elkhart Lake, Wis., and I was able to send it flying into tight corners at 110 miles per hour, as well as churn through the off-road portion of the test. And the Lexus RX300 handles so car-like, it should almost be considered a quirky station wagon than an SUV.
At the same time, we know far too much about Ford’s problems with rollovers of the Explorer/Mountaineer vehicle, which is somewhat due to a problem with Firestone tires, but also might have something to do with the inherent stability of a top-heavy vehicle when driven too aggressively.
And here I was, about to drive too aggressively on purpose. I climbed aboard, quite sure that the Mountaineer would be overmatched. First I drove the RX300, and I accelerated hard to the three stoplight lanes, one of which turns green as you enter, and you must swerve abruptly to make it through the proper lane. The RX300 leaned steeply, but swerved accurately enough to make it. Same with the other tests, where I zoomed through them, a bit surprised at how soft the suspension seemed, and how much the RX300 leaned, but always confident in controlling it.
Then I got in the Mercedes, and I hammered the accelerator. The thing flew ahead, and it was touch and go whether I’d make the properly lighted lane. I did, but barely sparing the pylons that I thought I would collect. Later, we agreed that the power of the larger-engined Mercedes SUV gave it so much acceleration that I got to the lane-change area at such a high rate of speed, I scarcely had time to make the swerve.
It, too, leaned quite a bit on the turns, but was easily controllable. I know that Mercedes and Lexus both have aimed their softened suspensions at U.S. buyers, so I wasn’t shocked at the amount of lean. I did screech the tires and make it through the rest of the course.
Then it was time for the Mountaineer. I took off, quite swiftly with the new 4.6-liter, overhead-cam V8 power, and darted through the lane change to hit the proper lane as the light changed with amazing ease. It was remarkable how flat and stable the new Mountaineer stayed, even during that harsh swerve.
Around the other cones, through the intricate curves and braking areas, and I was very impressed.
So I switched to the other course, which was longer and faster, but with a couple of very tight turns. Same order, I thrashed the RX300 around first, and while I literally hurled it into a couple of turns, it was predictable and handled well, even though it leaned over quite a lot.
The Mercedes did the same. Very swift, and I had to toss it into the hairpin and steer like crazy while staying on the power in order to complete the turn with the tires screaming for mercy. The fastest part of the course was easily covered, but I had to get off the power at a couple of turns, or risk losing it and knocking cones flying.
Still, both were very impressive. They both leaned a lot, but they are SUVs, not race cars, and I anticipated a fair amount of top-heavy leaning.
Then I climbed aboard the Mountaineer, and I was off. It was swift through the first bit, which included a washboard-rough stretch leading into the hairpin turn, and it sailed through the fast part, but what was most amazing was that it stayed flat and stable through the tightest hairpin turns, and was, by far, the most controllable of the batch. I swept around the final turns and parked it, thoroughly impressed.
It hit me later, about how far the SUV industry has changed.
German vehicle builders always have had firm, secure suspension systems. Japanese companies have made lighter cars, but since they’ve gone after the best competitors, they, too, have firmed up their suspensions. U.S. companies, meanwhile, are still stuck to some degree in satisfying the aging customers they have long had, who prefer a softer, squishier ride than the firm — stiff, to some — ride and handling of the import companies.
But now we get to the latest generation of top-shelf SUVs from Mercedes of Germany, and Lexus of Japan, and the new Mercury Mountaineer is the stiffest and best-handling of the three, with the least amount of leaning and the flattest attitude in the tightest of turns.
Ten years ago, if you had suggested that a vehicle from Ford would handle more firmly than the best from Mercedes and Lexus, you would have been considered out of your tiny little mind. And now it’s happened.
[[[[[[CUTLINES:
1/ The 2001 Mercury Mountaineer leaned only slightly, considering it was driven hard enough to screech all four tires during a media test.
2/ The mountains of Sedona, Ariz., formed the perfect frame for the 2001 Mercury Mountaineer at its introduction in October.
About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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