Ok here’s my situation.
One of my jobs is nighttime delivery of the Buffalo News. I am probably what you would call a power courier because on Sundays I deliver ~600 papers. Regardless of the amount of papers, I put on 120 miles daily with my routes alone, not counting transit from Newfane to NT warehouse to pick them up. All total, I would say around 150 miles every night. The good thing is, I deliver rural and mostly to tubes and mailboxes in the Pendleton, Lockport, Newfane area. The bad thing is, there is constant stop and go so that wears heavy on everything from brakes to gas. The first winter I did this, I had around 300 papers on Sunday and I did this on a Corolla. Then consecutive years I did it on a Chevy Uplander.
The Corolla was nice because of the gas, but winter time, I was getting stuck everywhere. The issue is that out in the country, the plows don’t come out sometimes until 5am when there’s already over 1 foot of snow on the road and I start at 1am. The corolla was usually in the red end of the tach and I bet people knew when I was coming around when they heard the “ne-ne-ne-ne-ne” drawing nearer. Eventually that blew up. (about 30k miles of abuse).
The Chevy was a bit better because it sits higher so clearance is better but getting stuck was still an issue, especially after the plows go by and dumb snow right on the bank where I tend to drive. The downside here is that it is much heavier, so stopping is terrible and I would constantly slide past the mailboxes.
Now I do more papers than I ever did and so the only way I can do that through winter is if I can continue doing it fast enough. What would be my best choice of car that is relatively cheap (preferably less than $2k) and has a good record in terms of being reliable? What is the biggest factor in starting and stopping power in snow? When there’s 1 foot of snow on the ground?
My plan so far is this, on the days when there is just light snow, I will drive my 2001 Prius with studded snow tires that were on it when I bought it. I’m guessing the combination of not being a very quick car, being very light, and regen brakes should give it some good stop and go in the snow. It cannot handle Sunday papers however.
For Sundays and days when it is snowing heavy out there I’m thinking something along the lines of a 1994 Cherokee or an older Wrangler? How prone are the Cherokee’s to flipping? I was thinking of a cheap older Geo Tracker but that interior space isn’t so great. I’ve taken a Chevy 3500 4x4 (with a plow on) out before, it was nice but stopping sucks and I believe it’s a V8 so gas was terrible. I’m thinking gas will be terrible either way but any thoughts would be helpful.
On a side note, the Corolla was nice because the middle of the night with snowy country roads= fun driving. I sometimes think maybe I should grab a 4x4 Subaru beater or something and have fun with it.
Any help is appreciated!
Edit: Before you ask, in my position, yes, this is all worth it for a paper job! The money is pretty good, and I get back what I lose in operating costs with the amount of miles I put on.
