Cross Country Winter Road Trip questions

So we have an opportunity to move from Arizona to PA in the next two months with my wife's job. We are originally from PA and just had a baby here in Arizona in May. While we absolutely love AZ, the COVID world we're living in has really made it impossible for family and friends to visit and meet her safely so we have been trying to find a way to move back sooner than we originally planned.

I'm trying to figure out the safest and most effective way back east. My wife's company will be moving all of our stuff and will ship my truck for free as well. My wife has a company car (2019 Equinox FWD) that we drive anywhere and everywhere. If it wasn't a winter trip I would drive the company car back to PA without a second thought. The possibility of winter weather has me wondering if I should take my 4x4 truck instead.

Move will be sometime Jan/Feb. We will be driving east from Phoenix, AZ to the Philadelphia area in PA. Normal route we've taken before:

The 17 North from Phoenix to 40 East at Flagstaff
40 East to 44 East in OKC
44 East to 70 East in STL
70 East to 76 East in Pittsburgh, 76 East to Philly.

Anyone have any experience traveling this route in the winter time? When would I be at risk for snow? Worth taking my truck and paying for my own gas/putting miles on the truck or would I be fine in a front wheel drive Equinox. Is there a better snow-free route to take?

Take the truck:
Pros: 4WD, can fit more shit in the bed
Cons: Have to pay for my own gas, I have a double cab but it is TIGHT with a baby seat, puts miles on my truck, more concerned about wear/tear because we own it, if we do have any mechanical issues it's out of my own pocket.

Take the company car:
Pros: Gas paid for, drive it like I stole it, much more comfortable in the cabin for a long trip, roadside assistance, free maintenance, worry free
Cons: Front wheel drive if it snows, slightly less cargo room.

Truck is a 2017 TRD Sport 4x4 DCSB. I have put minimal miles on it since I purchased it 4 years ago because we have the company car at our disposal and I started working from home 6 months after I bought it, so this would be the biggest trip by far for the truck. It just rolled over to 20k miles last week. Equinox is at 20,500 miles and is a 2019 we got about 14 months ago. We'll be given a new vehicle after 3 years or once it hits 45k miles.

Appreciate any thoughts/input - thanks!

 

I'll also add, if anyone knows anything about Bucks County PA, specifically the towns in Central Bucks school district, please let me know. That's where we're targeting to move and would love some unbiased information.

 

@PennSilverTaco is your man on this one.

 

Honestly, from Indy East to Philly is where I'd expect the worst potential weather, maybe a small pocket around Missouri as well. I think unless you drive head first into a wicked blizzard, the equinox will do just fine and the benefits more than outweigh the potential cons.

 

@HomerTaco ^^^^

 

I think (living very near to the center of your path) that you would be fine with the Equinox if you have a flexible amount of time to make the trip. With weather forecasting these days (not perfect, but pretty good) you can tell whats ahead for the next couple of days when traveling. If something pops up (winter storms), with the flexibility of time -you could stop and wait it out a day. Remember -once you get out of the Southwest you are driving on interstate highways in fairly populated areas. In other words there are lots of motels along the way.
In summation --if the have the time and have the flexibility of using the time- Take the Equinox -If under some kind of tight time deadlines, take the Tacoma. Remember even with the best traction -you could get stalled.
Be patient -drive safe and you and your family will make it fine. I have been stuck in the middle of Kansas in a blizzard where the State Patrol flat CLOSE the interstates. We got a motel for the night and arrived 12 hours later than planned . No big deal!

 

One more question to you and your wife -- How does her company get away with the unlimited personal (sounds like this -the way you describe) use of a "company car" ? I thought the IRS cracked down on these perks years back? I drove one for years , and everything had to be documented, and we had limits , otherwise it had to be added as "income".
I am not a IRS spy -- just curious, and happy for her and you guys if this is what she/you gets from her company!

 

@PHLinPHX

I’ve lived here in Bucks my entire life and as chance would have it my wife works for that school district.
Happy to assist with any questions you may have if I can.

 

Best district I ever attended school in, in my opinion; However, I have Aspergers Syndrome which is a form of high-functioning of autism, so I dealt a lot with the special ed system...

“Bad” is not the right word to describe it, but as a high-functioning borderline normal autistic adult with a driver’s license, a college degree, and a job, looking back on it I feel like the system and people working within it often treated me like a retard. That’s not to say it’s not good, just not well-designed for people like me.

I don’t know if you have any special needs kids, but overall I’d rate the CBSD a solid 8.5 or 9 out 10.

 

Also as a Navy brat who attended school in six different school districts across four different states, I also have to point out that high-functioning autistic kids are treated like they’re dumber than they really are by faculty and staff in special ed programs no matter how good the school district actually is...

 

I guess I should clarify it's not entirely free. She reports her personal vs business mileage and we pay a small fee at the end of the year based on the breakout. I forget the exact science of it, but its something like the percentage of personal mileage, applied to fair market value of the corporate lease, which is incredibly low when you're leasing 1,000s of vehicles at a time. It's never amounted to anything even remotely close to the cost of actually owning a vehicle, insuring it, paying for gas, paying tolls, maintenance, etc.

 

Where in Central Bucks district did you live? We're interested in the district itself, and attracted to Doylestown borough for the shops and restaurants, etc. We used to live in Manayunk and are hoping for a more grown up main street vibe in Doylestown. We also have no reason to commute into the city anymore as I work from home and my wife will be out of Dresher.

CB district seems like a great fit for what we're looking for. Highly considering putting an offer on a house that is coming on the market this Friday, but it's in Chalfont. It's the same distance from the borough to this house in Chalfont as it is to a few Doylestown neighborhoods we're targeting as well (Hearthstone, Cold Spring Hunt). Any thoughts on whether or not there's a major difference between any of the CB towns? We originally thought Doylestown or bust, but seems like it may not be as important to have a Doylestown address as we thought, especially considering almost every Doylestown neighborhood that has the type of homes we want is 10-15 mins from the borough. Is there a stigma being from a certain area or do any of the towns have a better or worse rep?

 

I only went to CB West, from 2005 to 2007; Doylestown Borough is incredibly pricey so you’re better off living in Warrington. Some of the subdivisions speckled around Doylestown are cheaper.

 

Doylestown is the only community of its type in Central Bucks; Chalfont is a mixture of subdivisions and commercial retail, and the same is true of adjacent New Britain. If you moved to Warrington and you have high school age kids, they’d be going to CB South instead of CB West.

 

That makes sense. I’m looking at a house with a doylestown address that i think is technically in

thanks. I’m looking at a house with a Doylestown address that i think is technically Buckingham Township and feeds into CB East and a house in Chalfont that feeds into CB south. Aside from the schools, they are both 12 mins from the Borough. On paper seems like I’d be in a very similar situation with either house, but curious if Doylestown is actually “better” if that makes any sense.

 

Buckingham > Chalfont IMO.
Also traffic-wise I think its quicker in & out of D-town from Buckingham.

I'm about 12-15 min from D-town

 

Buckingham house listed this morning, had a virtual showing, wasn’t exactly what we wanted and before we could even consider putting an offer in they had multiple offers over asking waiving inspections. So that house is out.
Is Chalfont bad? Would most people have the same opinion that Doylestown or Buckingham is better? On paper both houses are very comparable. Trying to determine if we can afford to let the Chalfont one go and keep waiting for Doylestown. We need to sell in AZ and move cross country so we really would like to get under contract asap because we maybe get 1 new house in our search portal each week that matches our criteria in all of central bucks. The market is nuts.

 

No, Chalfont's not bad at all. Just saying if you can get Buckingham it's better IMO.

 

I notice there’s several active quarries throughout the district. Do you know if there are Any concerns living within a mile or two of one? Loud/annoying?

 

All the quarries I’ve seen around here don’t have more than a couple houses in the immediate vicinity.