OT: Driving a 4 cylinder car in the Rockies?

[ncbyrne]

DH is retiring. We are planning a 2+ month cross country road trip (NJ to Northwest - down Pacific Coast - across a southern route to FL and then back north) including two days in DL and 4 in DW! It is our dream trip - we've been saving for decades! Our problem is we need to buy a new car and since we have never driven in the Rockies, we are concerned what to get.
Has anyone had experience driving a 4 cylinder NON turbo engine, with an automatic transmission, on mountain roads? (We're seriously considering a 2009 Subaru Forester, but the turbo engines require 91 octane premium fuel! We don't want to have to pay those outrageous high test fuel costs. But we need to know if the regular 4 cylinder engines can manuever the mountains before we commit.

 

[clh2]

Is it possible for you to rent a car for 2 months with unlimited milage? Then when you get back from your tirp - you can buy exactly what you need for the next 5 or 10 years, as opposed to buying exactly what you need for a 2 month trip, and then being stuck with it for the next 5-10 years.

It sounds like a ton of miles you are going to be driving, and I would hate to have a fairly new car - with THAT many miles. Your warranty will be done before you know it.

 

[Plantlady]

Years ago, we went to colorado springs, in our early 1990's Ford Tempo. 4 cylinder.

It did make it everywhere we asked it to go.. but, we wondered a time or two.

 

[3goofyboys]

I live in the foothills below Rocky Mountain National Park, so we mountain drive every weekend. We often take our 4 cylinder Saturn up to the park and haven't had a problem yet. Subarus are super popular car around here, so I'm guessing they take mountain driving very well.

 

[ncbyrne]

Bump

 

[Michelle67]

I've done it, no problems. We've sorta done your trip in reverse a few times (going to Long Island from Washington), and I've driven from here to OKC many times. I've crossed the Cascades in a 4 cyl more than the Rockies, but I crossed mountains a number of times and the car went many many miles before it retired, so it must not have been horrible on it. Not all of those trips were in a 4 cyl, some were in a 6 cyl, but to tell you the truth I didn't notice all that much difference. The 6 cyl struggled to maintain speed sometimes, and so did the 4. You might find yourself going a little slower than you'd prefer up some of the rises, but you won't be going as slow as the semi's are. Subarus are very popular here, as well. You see a lot of them going up to the ski areas at Mt. Baker, and up to Mt. Rainier.

 

[mtblujeans]

We live at the base of the Rockies, in Montana, and you won't have a problem with mountains any where as long as you are passing through in the summer. Some of the mountain passes in Montana get windy but the roads are nothing you would have a problem with in a 4-cylinder. Have a good trip...the highway along the west coast is my dream trip...someday!

 

[ncbyrne]

I live in the foothills below Rocky Mountain National Park, so we mountain drive every weekend. We often take our 4 cylinder Saturn up to the park and haven't had a problem yet. Subarus are super popular car around here, so I'm guessing they take mountain driving very well.

Does your 4 cylinder have a manual transmission?

 

[angelmav]

Driven 4 cylindar cars in the rockies many times, as long as your not planning on 4 wheeling to the top of a peak you will be fine. For the last several years cars have come with a sensor to adjust the fuel mix to the engine at altitude, its called a MAP sensor (Manifold Absolute Pressure ), so youll be fine.

 

[ncbyrne]

Still wondering about a 4 cylinder automatic transmission.....I've been doing a lot of reading on the subject and the posters are talking about "shifting gears". I don't want a stick shift.

 

[nuke]

We just did this with a 4 cylinder automatic PT Cruiser. It was a rental and it did just fine. A couple of times we had to gun it to get it to move but we made every summit.

 

[3goofyboys]

Does your 4 cylinder have a manual transmission?

Sorry, I was offline for a bit. No, our 4 cylinder is automatic. FWIW, we also have a Ford Expedition with a V-8 and for the type of mountain driving you're talking about, I've never really noticed a difference other than the fainting feeling I get when I fill up the Expo with gas.

 

[IDoDis]

Yes, you can do it. Will your automatic have a "1" and a "2" on it? Most automatics have at least one of these which allows you to drive in a lower gear without the car shifting back and forth into the highest gear. There are some mountain passes that might be slow, like Raton Pass which is the passage from Colorado to New Mexico, but going west you would be going downhill. I've driven it many times for years -- even when I was a teenager and drove it in a little 1983 Toyota Starlet which was a 1.3 liter engine 4 cylinder car! Yes, it was a stick shift, but the engine was wayyy small! The car got over 40mpg -- It drove great through Colorado and the mountain passes. I wish Toyota would bring it back on the market (redesigned of course)

 

[DOOM1001]

I drove to Lake Tahoe in a rental Chrysler Sebring and a couple of times on the mountains with the foot all the way down on the gas I was going maybe 40mph tops.A manual car would have been better but they don't really rent those too much.

 

[ColoradoMom!!]

I've driven over the Rockies from Denver to LA too many times to count in a 4 cylinder Toyota Camry automatic - my first - a 1994 and my current 1997. I've really had no problems.

Sounds like an awesome trip!