There was lots of snow here in Binghamton New York. I had to move my 2008 Prius from the street to my landlord's driveway. The city hadn't gotten around to plowing so there was 8-10 " of snow on the street. I'm not sure if I have the all season tires or not; I assume nt since they came with the used car. In any case, I could not keep the front wheels going straight! I would start with them pointed straight and the car would slew to the right or the left. In trying to correct for each change of direction, I lost track of what was straight and what was not. Going extremely slowly helped. Backing up was a lot easier, which made me think it was the front wheel drive that was the problem. A search online confirmed that front wheel drive is really bad in such conditions. I've never experienced anything like it. Don't try it without something like snow tires. I'm looking into tire socks. A lot cheaper than snow tires for the occasional freakish event like we're experiencing now.
Your ground clearance is only around 5 inches; so with 8-10 inches of snow on the road - your basically a snow plow. IMHO; snow socks isn't going to help much in those conditions. Wait for them to plow the road or follow another low slung car to blaze the trail for you. The reason you can back-up straight is because you already packed down the snow. Work smarter, not harder.....
Let me disabuse now of the notion that FWD gives better traction backing up. By that logic, going forward is easier with RWD. And in my experience, driving a RWD in snow is cruising for a bruising.
Most newer cars also has a lot of under-carriage aero-shields; so backing up in deep snow would turn those into snow scoops.... That's how most people loose their belly shields - and those rebars sticking out of those parking blocks. Don't be lazy; dig out the car.......
A bunch of years ago for work we couldn't get up an icy-ish driveway in a front wheel drive car. Not big snow or anything, but slippery. The driver turned around and backed it up the hill. It worked. More weight on drive wheels. But again, no snow relating to ground clearance.
We didn't have cat litter in the car. On another note, my slightly inclined driveway was a skating rink a few years ago. It's amazing what just a very small amount of sand, cat litter, wood ash, etc, will do as far as getting moving. You don't have to lay it on thick at all. I have a 5 gal pail of wood ash, pre sifted with a magnet ready to go
For snow or ice traction, use only old-fashioned non-clumping litter, which acts like small gravel. Common clumping cat litter can turn into a slippery greasy mess. Or get a bag of real sand.
sounds like someone has a cat. I keep forgetting these old tricks don't work with our new n 'improved' stuff. You can also spend a little more to see if your driveway has liver or kidney issues, if it changes colors.
I drove my '65 Corvair in maybe half an inch of snow. Once. It was either 1975 or 1976. This was in the California Bay Area, where it "never" snows at low elevations. There were wrecks at every intersection from this single freakish snowfall because the idiots were driving at speeds like it was a normal day and skidding into the intersections when they couldn't stop. Anyway, that car had most of the weight in the back, and it is rear wheel drive, and it was much like you described. (There is so much weight in the back that the steering was always light and easy even with no power steering.) In that little bit of snow (and some ice probably) the front wheels were going left and right quite a bit, but the traction on the back was decent. The tires were, I certainly don't recall, but for sure they wouldn't have been winter tires and probably weren't even "all season". In short, it wasn't a front wheel drive versus rear wheel drive issue. It was probably a "not the right tires" issue. In both cases.
