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How does the Kia Niro handle winter weather conditions?

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2017 - 2024 Kia Niro
karip

I live in New England and commute 50+ round trip miles daily to work on a combination of paved roads and highways over hilly terrain and a two lane bridge. How well does the Niro handle snow, sleet, ice, and winter driving conditions, particularly when paired with a good set of unstudded snow tires? For comparison, my current vehicle is a 9 year old AWD Forester. I drove it with all season tires my first winter, but have had unstudded snows on in the past couple of years, and previously I had a cheap front wheel drive Saturn sedan with snow tires.

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Response from NormT

10:13 am December 22, 2017

Can you charge it at work?

Here is one review in thr cold.

"The Niro Plug-In performed admirably despite having only 26 miles of all-electric range. It's a far cry from the Chevrolet Volt's touted range of 53 miles, but it is still better than most of its competitors."

http://www.automobilemag.com/news/first-drive-2018-kia-niro-plug-in-hybrid-ex/?sm_id=organic_fb_AMAG_trueanthem&utm_campaign&utm_content=5a3d1df54b738500071bba5f&utm_medium&utm_source

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Response from Member4064

1:19 pm January 3, 2018

It should handle about the same as any FWD car with winter tires. Keep in mind that if one front wheel loses traction, all the power goes to that wheel and you are stuck. For that reason, you will need to carry a plastic traction ramp (about $25) in the rear hatch. Last winter my wife's Mazda Protege slid off the driveway while coated with ice. With the traction strip, the car shot back onto a clear spot almost instantly. The strip has toothed extrusions on the bottom to grip the snow, and special traction grooves on the top.

Another trick with FWD is to drive up a hill backwards. If you loose traction, the weight of the car pulls you back down and you don't slide off the road.

Now that I finally have a Subaru, I no longer have to do that. I am running the new Pirelli Winter Cinturato tires. On the Mazda, we run Dunlop WinterMaxx.

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