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Cottonwood, AZ Car Consumer Discussions

Need 4wd?

by geoffdgti on Sun Nov 26 05:38:24 PST 2006

We live in Chicago, so we need a 4 wheel drive. Why would that be? Chicago is one of the flattest places in the known universe. Snowfalls are measured in inches, not feet and roads get plowed so ground clearance isn't an issue. Any FWD car with modern snow tires will work perfectly well. The AWD in a A4Q, G35x, or Passat 4Motion with stock tires is going to be useless braking and cornering in the snow or ice. None of them have more than 5" of ground clearance so you're not going to venture out in any of them in true snow driving conditions. You're going to be on plowed roads. "Need" 4WD? Nope. If you lived in a big snow microclimate... say, drove up Little Cottonwood Canyon to Snowbird every day, you'd "need" 4wd for the climbing traction and ground clearance. ...and the 4.2" ground clearance of an A4Q would be a big problem no matter what you use for tires.

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by redmaxx on Mon Sep 04 20:12:02 PDT 2006

Labor day weekend brings out the speed traps. :) I'm taking the highway between Cottonwood, AZ and Prescott, AZ, which involves changing highways. I make the switch and see a SL sign for 50. So I start moving up from what I thought was the SL of 35 and get up to about 45, when no more than 1/2 mile later I see a cop on the side of the road next to a 35 MPH sign! Then taking the reverse course, there is a 50 MPH sign in the middle of all the switch backs heading down the mountain. Not 1000 feet later is a squiggly road sign stating 35 MPH. So I clear those and start speeding up to 50, not a 1/2 mile later, guess what? Speed reduced to 35. WTH is up with putting a 50 where it obviously can't be used? I also took I-17 from Phoenix to Flagstaff. I was watching and saw an umarked cop in the median, at night watching traffic coming the other direction. It was at the bottom of the small hill, where one's cruise control could easily get overzealous trying to hold the 75 MPH SL. The only other issue is AZ's penchant for setting highways with two lanes in each direction and a generous median to a SL of 65 when it could easily be 75.

Re: gas prices go up [jjacura]

by ksoman on Wed Sep 07 09:45:54 PDT 2005

having lived in arizona a long time and having hiked everywhere from the san juans to the arches to almost every named canyon in AZ & UT and then all the way into yosemite several several times and having driven from durango to flagstaff and down to scottsdale many many many times, i will have to say it's not a downhill drive. is it like never ending? maybe, but downhill it is not. i'd be excited with that mileage reading on the RL. now flagstaff to phoenix valley is mostly downhill except for the sudden 4000 odd foot climb just past the sedona exit (going southwards over the mingus mountains). Flagstaff to hoover is mostly downhill too. on that note, if you ever drive up from the phoenix valley to sedona skip I-17 and drive up over 89A. go catch it in prescott & go over the mingus mountain into Jerome, make sure you get some time there, then down into cottonwood, then into Sedona. Then if you have time, keep up on 89A all the way into flagstaff. And of course, to bring it back to topic, make sure, to either drive in a convertible or in your LPS.... ;) ksso

Finally somebody like me

by miagarfunckle on Sat Aug 20 21:56:42 PDT 2005

Marine2 every car I have ever owned in Arizona has consistently gotten 3-5 mpg worse in the summer then any other part of the year. I do believe though that theh govenor last summer got it passed that we don't have the additive anymore. I believe it is officially out of the gas. I can say one thing. If you use Chevron you should over five tanks notice a gradual climb in mileage to total 2-3mpg. That is what I noticed on all my cars. I moved down here from a cold state and had a car with no a/c and a stick shift. This car routinely got 30-31 mpg in mixed driving in temps that were not hot and not really cold. As soon as I moved to AZ in the summer my mileage dropped instantly to 26 mpg. I had no a/c in the car. It is partly the additive but mostly the hot air. So far with the 3.3 I can get like I posted 24 mpg in mixed freeway and highway with a/c on. Now take away the heat and you are now up to 26-27 and that is not all freeway. This drive I will tell you I got gas at 101 and 51st ave in north valley where I live at Chevron. Got onto the 101 and then took the I-17 to Sedona and then 89A up through Cottonwood and Jerome and then through prescott and down through wickenburg and back to Surprise where I live. If you know AZ you will know that the 89A is very steep and winding and very slow. Takes a lot of gas. I still averaged 23.9 not to bad.

Re: Barely Jeep Related. [jeff62301]

by mtngal on Sat Aug 06 15:38:44 PDT 2005

Would your neighbor like to take a road trip out to California? I could sure use that fire truck to trim a couple of cottonwoods in my front yard. There are high branches that grow over my driveway and drop sap on my soft top! I didn't mind so much with the hard top because cottonwood sap seems to disolve in water pretty easily, but I wouldn't think it would be good for the soft top, would it?

Back From Colorado

by twrx on Tue Jul 05 18:42:56 PDT 2005

I too have been off the boards for a while. Susan and I drove the Legacy wagon to Beuna Vista Colorado on the 25th of June and just returned today. What a great touring car! I reset the B trip odometer and at the end of the vacation today I had logged 3750 miles and the average mpg was exactly 30. Not too bad with the price of gas. Actually the price of gas was not too bad. I made sure to fill the car up in Colorado Springs any day we got near there. Gas was only $2.01 there. I used the A odometer to check each tank. On fillup was in Fairplay CO at almost 10,000 ft altittude.(at $2.29 it was the most expensive tank of gas I bought) We drove Canon City which is about 6000 ft. Talk about cheating the mileage with the force of gravity. When we got there the average read nearly 40 mpg. We did a lot of rockhounding and I came back with 100+ pounds of rocks. Drove on a lot of dirt roads and had a very dirty car most of the time. The engine did well at high altitude. Yes it is not as powerful at that height and my WRX performed better last year. But if you keep the RPMs up you can do OK. That is where the sportshift came in. In over 20 years of visiting Colorado, Wyoming and Montana this is the first time I was not driving a manual shift. Sport shift does pretty well in the mountains. I wish I had the 5 speed one though. Second gear is too high to be as effective on descents as second usually is on a manual. You can downshift at 60 mph with it and I found myself doing that often (Monarch Pass. Hoosier Pass. Need I say more for anyone who has driven those passes?) We overpacked as always and then Susan bought one of those chainsaw carved bears and I had bags of rocks scattered all through the car but we got it all home. Like last year's trip out west Colorado is the land of Subarus. Talk about hitting the target audience out there. Buena Vista on the Arkansas River is a prime destination for whitewater rafters and kayakers. There are so many Outbacks there it is unreal. Many have either kayaks or bikes on top.The whole area looks like one big Subaru promo. As I noticed last year the other popular car is the Legacy in the first generation before the Outback arrived. WRX wagons (also loaded with boats and bikes are quite popular). In fact I saw as many of those as Foresters. And yes the XT for the thin mountain air is selling out there, especially the Outback XT. It's funny, few SUVs I saw out there were carrying bikes or boats but the majority of the OB's were. Anyway we did not go rafting but we did: 1.Get to about a half dozen abandonded mine sites and collect granite, pyrite, rose quartz and other nice rocks. 2. Ride the Royal Gorge dinner train. Expensive but the most incredible view of the 1000 ft deep gorge. 3. Try to get to the top of Mt. Antero. The jeep tour we took could not get to the top of the 14,000 ft tall mountain because of snow. Susan and I were planning on prospecting for Aquamarine. Antero is known for its gem quality Aquamarine and other Beryl gemstones. But it was a nice trip to the 12,000 ft. level of the mountain. 4. Get to meet wolves up close at the Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center. 5. Cross every high mountain pass we could: Poncha, Hoosier, Monarch, Wilkerson, Cottonwood, and Marshall. All in all a great time. TWRX