No need for any Ballast in the truck. With added weight you just get worse fuel mileage and longer stopping distances... I run with an empty bed and K02's.....killer in the snow!

 

I don’t put extra weight in the bed , if your in an accident all that extra weight can become pretty dangerous flying around . I swap to a set of 17 inch steelies with snow tires , they perform better than any all season or all terrain tire for our Ontario winters .

 

 

If mini vans had gun mounts they would replace humvees

 

Must be some strong margaritas ! Lol

 

Friends mom had a Ford Windstar that would die. We drove it Florida and back once, he drove it there another time and she put diesel in it probably more than once. Went over a year without an oil change more than once. She sold it with 200k miles with no tranny or engine problems.

 

I'm in Rochester, New York and we get a lot of snow. As a lot of people have said, tires make a world of difference. I put snow tires on mine (General Grabber Arctic). I also have 4wd. The combination of 4wd and snow tires makes the truck handles great in the snow.

My problems in cold weather are (1) I never know what door locks will be frozen, so my doors may not open or close. (2) I don't know when my washer fluid nozzle or check valve will be frozen, preventing me from washing the salt spray off my windshield. (3) I don't know when I can use parking assist because water freezing in the sensors causes them to fail.

Ford makes a great truck as long as you don't get it wet and cold.

 

Wife's previous van had Nokians and she would drive over big mounts of snow just for the fun of it. It was unstoppable!!
She sold the van and gave the tires to nephew who had an "omnipotent" smile on his face for passing by some 4x4's with $*itty tires...
The new van has good winter tires, but not even close to Nokian's performance.

Anyway, stop free publicizing that brand and let me be another one check marking that the OEM Hankook Dynapros are $*itty snow tires - surprisingly! But NOT surprisingly wayyyyy better than the Pirellis I had before (will miss those for summer though) ...

 

Hope this helps somebody.

I have a 2018 Lariat Screw 3.5EB short bed. This is my first pickup truck. I've put snow tires on my cars since I was in college. I've also driven 4wd or AWD cars since college. My dad thinks I'm nuts.

I drove a bit on the 20" Hankooks in the snow. They were ok. Nothing special. Not great on ice. Not awful. Lots of traction control kick in.

I put 17" General Grabber Arctic (P-metric XL) in 265/70/17 on XLT rims. I have a tri fold tonneau and a bedrug and that's it for weight in the bed.

I'm outside Boston, I drove ~100 miles in the ice storm before Xmas. I never had to turn on 4wd. On Ice, those grabbers did very well. Some of the parking lots were wind polished ice. The truck just went. My house is near a reservoir, so they don't salt my road. I saw a few car skid marks where folks went off the road and the truck (still in 2wd) did just fine.

Yesterday I took my kids sledding and parked in an unplowed (~6 inches) of powder on top of ice, in the parking lot. I had to use 4wd H. In powder the treads on the grabbers clogged up pretty quickly. I think there are better options for powder driving, but they still were ok. The parking lot is actually just a field. I think some of the issue was the truck was breaking the ice layer and sinking in a bit, maybe?

I did look for the LT version of these tires, but I couldn't find any in stock for a reasonable price. I think they're tread depth is 16/32nds vs the 12/32nds I have. Hopefully they last ok on such a heavy vehicle. Time will tell. I had LT tires on my 4runner, but they rode rough, weighed a lot and were loud (but that probably has more to do with tread pattern). My wife hated them. P-metric is fine for now.


Hope the helps!

T

 

Yes because GM and Chrysler's windshield spray nozzles and back up sensors don't freeze up like only the fords do