Most worthwhile mod for Yaris?

[skoolafish]

for what it's worth, i'm glad you all started arguing because i got some good info out of it...

i feel enlightened

i was going to get lowering springs, but i think i'm going to pass on those for the time being...bad snow area

[sbergman27]

Originally Posted by skoolafish

for what it's worth, i'm glad you all started arguing because i got some good info out of it...
...
...bad snow area

Well... I'd been debating whether to make this post or not. But since you've provided such a perfect lead in...

So, at the risk of stirring up a hornet's nest, a funny thing happened on the way to Sandia. I was headed from OKC to Albuquerque on I-40 last Friday night. (Recall the late season snow storm we had in the Rockies and midwest.) Things weren't *so* bad... until just past the Flying C Ranch, traffic was suddenly backed up to a stand still. Both lanes. And it wasn't any normal traffic jam. I waited for about 30 minutes... and there was absolutely *no* movement. None, whatsoever. Both lanes were absolutely still for as far as the eye could see. It was about 10pm, I think. No sign of any sort of authority. No highway patrol cars. No highway maintenance trucks. Just us, the dark, and the snow. No place to exit the highway. Next exit was 7 miles away. It's the first time that I've ever seriously wondered if I might be stuck in a traffic jam for over a *day*! I'm not kidding. It was kind of scary.

Finally, some of the more adventuresome drivers with SUVs formed a new lane on the left shoulder. The snow there was uncomfortably deep. Not feet of it, or anything, but uncomfortably deep, nonetheless. After sitting and fretting for a while longer... I took the plunge. It was *not* an easy drive. We slowly, slowly drove past *miles* and *miles* of stopped cars. Weaving from left to right shoulder where necessary and possible. And it became apparent that many (most?) folks had completely given up. Lights off. Engine off. Everything dark. People literally asleep at the wheel. It was like some sort of "ghost highway". Really weird. I asked myself several times if maybe this was really just a nightmare, and whether I might wake up.

Conditions were bad. I barely made it. Many times, I truly thought I was stuck for good. The crunching sounds made me afraid to even think about what my front air dam looked like. It went on for literally hours. I saw at least two 4WD SUVs get stuck trying to do what I was trying to do. (Of course, they got careless and went off into the ditch.) Several overturned and jack-knifed 18 wheelers lay on the median between east and west bound lanes. I'd never seen anything like this. And in mid-march, no less.

Finally... there was Clines Corners. (A sort of travelers' trap which I despise and normally wouldn't stop in.) It was acting as a sort of emergency shelter for several hundred people who had made it that far. Shortly after I arrived, some paramedics showed up and asked if anyone was having a stroke. Apparently someone had called 911. An older guy came forward and said that his wife was having a flair up of amnesia... but he seemed uncertain that she would be the one they were there for since it was just a routine flair-up of amnesia, and not really a stroke. (Yes... it was that kind of night.)

I decided that even being stuck on the highway in the middle of nowhere would be preferable to being stuck at Clines Corners with 300 other random travelers. (I'm not a people person.) So I got back to the car, found a way out of the completely clogged parking lot, and continued on.

Now. beyond Clines Corners, there was virtually *no* traffic. And the roads were ploughed... right down to a layer of sheer ice. But I wasn't one to complain at that point.

The roads near Albuquerque were in great shape. It hadn't snowed there. So I bypassed Albuquerque and headed straight for Las Cruces... where it was beautiful, sunny, and about 70 degrees the next day. I washed and waxed the Yaris. And the air dam turned out to be fine. Minor damage at the very bottom.

What was the point of this long, rambling story, you ask? Well... to be honest, it was pretty stressful, and I wanted to tell someone about this strange and slightly scary night.

But more on topic... if I'd lowered my Yaris by any at all... I honestly think that I would have spent all night, at least into morning, stuck on I-40. As I'm sure that many people did. There's no way in the world they could have gotten a snow plough in there with all those miles of stuck cars. Only the sun had any chance of improving conditions.

So... no lowering kits for me.

-Steve

P.S. Shadow, my terrier mix traveling companion, seemed to be enjoying every minute of the adventure. As I drove on, he spent most of the time with his front feet on the dash, examining all the stuck cars that we went by. A few had dogs in them.