Ahh... winter must be on it's way if someone is asking about driving in snow... (and the people at Tractor Supply thought I was nuts to be buying snow plow parts yesterday).
As far as what works and what doesn't, I'll try to give you a good run-down (maybe I should make a tech article out of it sometime). I spent several years running a 2000 Ranger 2wd around both around the Pittsburgh, PA area, a year around Akron, OH, and a couple years up in the Erie, PA area.
Tires
Tire selection becomes quite critical for a 2wd if you want it to perform in the winter. I've found the summer tread patterns and some AT tread patterns to be next to worthless (including the BFG AT). No matter what the manufacturer claims, it's just too easy to break a rear tire free with a 2wd pickup and then you're fawked.
Dedicated snow tires if they are of a more aggressive pattern seem to do quite well (my buddy runs them on his 97 Ranger supercab 2wd with a 4.0L and 3.08 gears). So far I can't remember him calling me for a tug in the winter since he's been runnin 'em. He's running 225/70/15 tires on his and leaves them on year round.
My personal preference is an aggressive patterned All Terrain. Something with bigger gaps between tread blocks and bigger tread blocks with factory siping in the tread (those little slits). The first set that I ran (and with great success) was a set of Sport King AT tires. The pattern looked sort of like a mud terrain, just shorter tread blocks and siping. They took me nearly anywhere I pointed the truck and I ran 235/75/15 tires. I did have some problems with starting out on hills but when I swapped to a limited slip rear axle (packed clutch disks ftw), I did much better. I had a 5-speed manual trans and 3.73 gears.
Mud tires work great in deep snow. I'm talking 6" or more of the white crap. But put them on snow that's been packed down or on an inch of snow and they are next to worthless. I tried running them for two winters before it started to sink in. (ran mud tires on the rear and aggressive AT tires on the front). My front would go anywhere that I pointed it but the back had trouble getting a bite. Unless I wrapped chains around the mud tires... then I had a tank - literally! (more than once I drove through snow as high as my hood with chains wrapped over mud tires and an open rear diff). But chains limit your speed, are noisy and rough to ride on, and most states anymore don't want you to run them on the road unless conditions are REALLY bad. (I still carry a set of chains with me every winter).
I'll usually run my tires at 30 psi for local driving in the winter and 35-40 psi for highway (depending on the type of tire, what pressure it's rated for and what kind of a load I'm carrying).
Weight
For summer treads, the more weight the better usually for trying to get traction. I ran around 400-450 lbs when I had the crappy stock summer treads (firestone wilderness ht - ht supposedly stood for High Traction, yea, right). They did ok with that weight as long as we didn't get more than an inch or two at a time.
For aggressive AT tires, I usually stick between 100-250 lbs. Thats what seems to work well for me. More weight will give you better traction when there is a lil snow, but seems to hurt you if the snow gets deeper.
For Mud tires, you'll want as little weight as possible in the bed for deep snow and it doesn't seem to really matter how much you put in, it just doesn't do well on the little stuff.
I would highly recommend NOT putting anything solid in the bed without securing the crap out of it for winter weight. I've seen guys run with a lump of steel or some concrete blocks or something in the bed before. If you slide off an icy road into a tree though, those things could come through the back of the cab to join you up front! Not something I want to have happen!
If you run with an open bed and don't really use the bed at all in the winter, by all means, pack it full of snow! That's probably the safest thing you can run for weight because it will conform to the inside of your bed and not move at all.
I couldn't do that because I used my truck on a regular basis. I tried running tube sand, tried filling 5-gal buckets with sand and tying them to the front of the bed, tried using bags of washed decorative gravel, etc. But all of those left me with a problem since I needed my bed for hauling things. They just took up too much bed space. Then I found a solution. Bags of lead shot (the sort of stuff used to reload shotgun shells). One little bag weighs 25 lbs. I'd lay a couple in front of and behind the wheel arches to achieve the weight I was looking for. They don't move because they are so heavy and even in a wreck (don't ask!), they stayed nearly exactly where I put them (the lead will shift against itself in the bag and absorb some of the energy it's imparted with rather than shoot across the bed floor). Of course, that only works well if you have a tonneau cover or cap on the bed all the time (the bags will rot out if you don't).
Driving style
KEEP YOUR FOOT OUT OF IT!!!!
lol, if you get stuck, spinning your tires faster will not help. Use your gears and your head to try to help you get going. If I was on a fairly level spot and first gear wasn't helping, I'd try second gear and slip the clutch a lil. Sometimes that was just enough extra resistance to things to turn the wheels slow enough to get myself out. That sort of thing also helps with auto transmissions - just select a gear on the shifter. Another trick that can be used (especially with limited slip rear axles) is to put the e-brake on. Not hard to the point that you can't move, but just enough to offer some resistance (on old ones it would just just be a click or two down). Sometimes that will force the spinning wheel to stop spinning and transfer the power to the other side - even with an open rear axle.
Any questions?
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in the snow. Just get a little weight in the bed, and you should be good. I don't even use snow tires, just all season tires, cus I can't afford them. I drive extremely slow in the snow. As far as getting stuck, better get yourself a snow shovel, lol.
