Good morning! I don’t know what the weather is like where you are, but if it’s anything like where I am, we got a little bit of snow. And by a little bit, I mean damn near a foot. Fortunately, I don’t have to go anywhere in it, so I can just stay inside and look at it being all pretty and stuff. But it does remind me of all the years I spent having to drive through this crap, so today I thought we’d look at a couple of cars that represent different philosophies of how to get around in the winter.
Yesterday’s competitors were both a little bit embarrassing, but apparently the overwhelming majority of you feel that tacky add-ons are less of a sin than wrapping a car in bright pink vinyl. The old Mercedes won in a landslide. Some of you even suggested leaving it as-is and leaning into the purveyor-of-illicit-substances look, just to mess with people. I think in certain neighborhoods, that could be a lot of fun, actually.
Me, I couldn’t leave it looking how it is, but I’m definitely on team Mercedes here. I just have no interest in an automatic Eclipse, no matter what color it is. The old SL would take some work, but you’d have something at least remotely desirable and interesting when you’re done.
Now, when it comes to winter vehicles, there are a couple of different schools of thought. One is to get the biggest, nastiest 4×4 you can find, because of course that’s what should work best, right? The other, and the one I typically subscribed to during my years in the Midwest, is to find something front-wheel-drive and low on power, preferably with an automatic transmission, and just make sure it has decent tires on it. Which method is better? Well, I’m going to leave that up to you, after we look at an example of each.
2000 Ford Excursion Limited – $4,300
Engine/drivetrain: 6.8-liter overhead cam V10, four-speed automatic, 4WD
Location: Anoka, MN
Odometer reading: 351,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives well, needs a few things
Around the turn of the century, SUVs were big. And I don’t just mean the sales numbers; the trucks themselves had grown to truly ridiculous proportions. Chevy’s Suburban had been the biggest SUV on the road for decades, but in 2000, Ford one-upped it with the Canyonero – I mean, Excursion – based on its Super Duty truck chassis.
A big truck needs a big engine, and the Excursion did not disappoint – Ford’s 5.4 liter V8, the optional big engine for the F150, was the smallest engine available. This one adds two cylinders and a bunch of displacement, with a 6.8 liter ten-cylinder monster under its tall hood. It evaporates a gallon of unleaded once about every ten miles, but it’s got enough power and torque to move this big monster at a frightening clip. There’s enough, there’s wretched excess, and then there’s the V10 Ford Excursion. This one runs and drives fine, but it could use front brakes; the rotors are a little bit warped. Also, fair warning: some owner in its past removed the muffler and installed a straight pipe. All the better to scare pedestrians with, I guess.
It’s the fancy Limited model, so it has power everything and leather all over inside. I get the feeling that the front seats are less than pristine under those covers, but that’s to be expected on a family hauler with 350,000 miles on the clock. The photos in the ad show it full of stuff, which I guess means it’s still in daily use. Hopefully they clean it out before the sale, including that mysterious cinder block in front. Let me know why you think that’s there in the comments – wrong answers only.
It’s a Minnesota vehicle, so it’s no stranger to snow – or road salt. The rocker panels are shot, but the seller says the frame is solid, and the one photo of the underside seems to corroborate this. It’s a decent twenty-footer, at least.
2005 Ford Focus ZXW SE – $1,600
Engine/drivetrain: 2.0-liter dual overhead cam inline 4, four-speed automatic, FWD
Location: Milwaukee, WI
Odometer reading: 293,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives well
Back when I lived in California, I massively overpaid for a 2005 Ford Focus. It was a really good little car, but the bad deal soured me on it. I remember thinking that, even though it was not worth the price I paid, it was going to make someone a good cheap beater someday. The intervening twenty years have proved me right; cheap Focuses with a bazillion miles on them have served a lot of used-car buyers well. This one is well past its prime, but it looks like it has one or two more winters in it.
The Focus started out with either Ford’s ancient CVH four-cylinder, or the raucous twin-cam Zetec, but in 2005, the standard engine was a Duratec 20, Ford’s version of the Mazda MZR, which is well-known for racking up the miles. This one powers the front wheels through a four-speed automatic. We don’t get any info on its condition or history, but considering that it’s closing in on 300,000 miles, it must have been well maintained.
It’s the mid-level SE trim, which means it has power windows and locks, cruise control, air conditioning, all that good stuff. At this age and mileage, it’s anyone’s guess how much of it still works; the seller sings the praises of the heater, but that’s all they say. The interior does look surprisingly good. I would not have guessed a Focus interior would hold up this well, frankly.
As clean as the inside is, the outside definitely shows its age. It’s rusty, beat-up, and shedding paint. But it’s also only sixteen hundred bucks. Use it and abuse it with abandon, and send it on its merry way when it gets too crusty.
Travel any Interstate in the Midwest during a snowstorm, and you’ll see a bunch of cars in the ditch. Overconfidence and too much speed land a lot of drivers in hot water – or rather, deep snow. Too often, the cars you see marooned are 4WD SUVs; they’re great at getting out of snowy parking lots, but they’re not invincible on slippery roads. And honestly, I always did better with a simple little FWD clunker. But today, the choice is yours: will it be the big tall 4×4, or the dirt-cheap rustbucket?
(Image credits: sellers)
I voted for the Excursion. It’s like my F250 but I don’t have to care about it and it starts better in the cold. Also, while not completely necessary, 4×4 is great because you can throw it in 2wd and do some good donuts/drifts. Big trucks drift surprisingly well.
How is that excursion that cheap? Seriously this is like a 60% discount on my local going rate for these things.
The rust must be bad or this is a great deal.
I concur on the “front wheel drive for snow” thing. When my family lived in the mountains, we never had AWD. Just chained up in unplowed snow. Also, with 50 lbs in the back, my 84 Camaro got it done.
That said, I think the Excursion is less likely to turn into a pile of rust on the way home.
Answer to question: so they can use it as a prop for singing Brick House during cars and karaoke.
Excursion. They need to restart C4C just to get rid of that Focus.
Nope.
My winter beater was a ’64 VW Baha bug with garnet tires. Loads of fun in the snow!
Focus for me, it’s easier to push when I do something dumb and get stuck.
The cinderblock is obviously a cupholder, because there’s no way an industrial-grade stanley is fitting securely in those cupholders.
I think the assignment is “wrong answers only.”
Would have picked the Focus because I hate the Excursion, but it looks decidedly EoL. Not voting for either.
That cinderblock looks like a great way to ensure driver foot & leg injuries in a crash… yikes
I vote neither. Would never pass smog. Need repair once a month. Might as well make payments on something in better shape and lower miles. 200k… maybe…but here in Cali both of these would at PicknPull.
Even though these are both Fix Or Repair Daily’s/Found On Road Dead’s, this was easy- I gotta go Excursion since the rusty Focus is ugly and a total TRASH car in general. That “Scursion” is an awesome beast especially w/ 4X4 and the V10…
Gasoline forever!
I’ll take the Excursion. I don’t know why, but I’ve always kinda wanted one to beat around on. That Focus looks tired.
I’ll take the focus just so I can pillage interior parts for my Focus of the same generation/facelift
Oh and the Cinderblock is obviously to stuff in the giant potholes in the great white north to get unstuck.
I have an irrational hate for the Excursion as well as the gas guzzling Ford V10. I once rented a moving truck with that stupid engine and the rate it guzzled gas made the GM 8.1L big block V8 (that was in a different van I rented) look fuel efficient.
So the Focus gets my vote by default. Plus it’s cheap, practical and surprisingly roomy.
forgive my ignorance, and i take your other criteria for a winter beater as givens, but waht is the advantage of the automatic? i’ve only ever had one automatic that regularly faced serious winter usage (I was 18; that was a rwd 79 aspen with crap tires, so i’m prejudiced probably), but i always thought my sticks were better. Feathering the clutch in second to move off a frozen bit when necessary, or if truly stuck, rocking back and forth from first to reverse to break loose from a drift. Do automatics give better control with a driver that knows how to drive in snow?
“ Do automatics give better control with a driver that knows how to drive in snow?”
Not for anyone who knows how to drive a car with stick.
On older cars, I suppose it’s easier to use left-foot braking techniques (or any newer cars that haven’t been Toyota-fied to override the throttle when the brake is pressed thanks to a bunch of dipshits hitting the wrong pedal or who were outwitted by a slipped floor mat) and they didn’t have a ten-minute delay between engaging D and R to allow rocking out of a snow bank unlike the stupid electronics of many new cars that second guess the driver every step of the way and process information at the speed of a snail with dementia.
Related point. When trying to gain traction on snow or sand in a modern vehicle, make sure you go the thirteen menus deep in your settings and disable stability/traction control. All it does is use the brakes against your best efforts. Once in motion with a bit of speed, it will usually switch back on automatically anyway.
I bought a Focus ST over another 5MT SE not for the power so much as the button to kill all the nannies. The SEs didn’t allow you to kill anything but TC and it was a joke in the snow because the stupid stability system would fight any kind of corrective action, either amplifying or countering driver inputs. Driving 25 mph and tying to initiate a simple tail out move to counter the inherent understeer on a turn with snow tires, had me fishtailing back and forth up the street like a learner in a muscle car with summer tires. The GR86 also has a nanny-kill button and that’s pretty much how I drive 100% of the time even with the dumb track mode display that forces me into. Junk tech, which it seems is all we get nowadays.
Not ignorant, correct. I kind of twitched when I saw the AT suggestion too. The MT advantage is not in choosing your gears, but in being able to quickly and instinctively (when trained/practised) disengage the engine from the driveline. Very helpful in skid control situations which require a response that’s faster than remembering how to select neutral in an increasingly complex AT vehicle.
I have many decades experience slaying (pun intended) the snow in MT FWD cars and some RWD, all with proper winter tires. I was in fact taught this in a wither driving school. Best two days of driving education I ever got (send your kids!). I pity all those AWD fools who think they now somehow have twice the stopping power of a 2WD vehicle. LOL.
If the Focus had a stick, or half the miles, it would win. In this case I went Canyonero because I’m a man and I need a cinderblock to use as a cupholder for my Super Extra Ultra Giant Gulp drinks and keep them from tipping.
The cinderblock didn’t fit in the measly cargo area so they had to put it there.