Let's get it out of the way: Your "I drive my Z06 on Hoosiers in the snow" story (just for Kenny)

It's winter. Youtube is rife with vids of Joe Blow in his M3 on snow tires pulling away from some poor schmuck in his WRX with bald summer tires. Nobody will admit that they drive an AWD car with deep-tread winter tires - because that's pretty boring, right? But everyone will freely tell of how they dominated "the Blizzard of XX Year" in their 240SX wearing corded Hoosiers, with a broken heater, no weight in the back, all while wearing shorts, a t-shirt, and flip flops.

Because we all know we're "just that awesome"

So let's have it out, right here, right now and pre-empt the snow-driving arguments for the next three months. Who is the true winter-driving God here?

GO.

I'll start: e30 on star specs. I totally owned my cul-de-sac.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDSTVuek6KU&list=UUZDzORFSilgFFHMqcT8uyIA

I'm driving a Mark VII I'd rather not bounce off of things, on cheap all seasons with an open diff... I hope we don't get much snow. I'd be screwed.

The wife's Outback is on summer tires.

Um... I grew up driving in snow. I like it. I have done many retarded things. Some turned out really poorly. Some were so awesome, I can't even believe it. Mostly, it happens and I just deal with it using the best equipment I have at the time.

Is that what we were going for here?

bah. i've been plowing for years. all but one of those years i had 2wd plow trucks. the other year i had a 4x4 k5 blazer with a 3.08 front diff and a 3.73 rear, because the 3.08 rear exploded and that's what i had to put in. i had to leave it in 2wd except for the most slippery parts or else the transfer case made nasty popping noises from trying to drive 2 different ratio axles the same speed. bald as can be fronts on that one and commercial highway treads on the back.

i'm smarter now, as soon as it snows i put snow tires on the car. the avalanche is fine on M+S tires, and the 2wd big block truck with normal tires does not leave the driveway. i don't want to die, i almost got killed a few years back by leaving the summer tires on my p71, pulling out onto a slightly uphill road, and barely getting out of the way of a plow truck.

Is this because of what I said in the other thread? Lol

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: Um... I grew up driving in snow. I like it. I have done many retarded things. Some turned out really poorly. Some were so awesome, I can't even believe it. Mostly, it happens and I just deal with it using the best equipment I have at the time. Is that what we were going for here?

I haven't decided if I'm being serious with this thread (e.g. I actually want to hear the epic wins people have done with unlikely cars in snow conditions), or if I'm being sarcastic and just want to roll my eyes at some of the stories people tell.

I've had both epic fail and epic win.

Fail/win: 1987 Integra in college on well-worn all-seasons. On a road with 1" of snow going about 45mph. Slight curve. Rear end starts coming out, I can't stop it. I spin 180* and come to a complete stop facing traffic in the middle of the road. Car I am facing randomly happens to be my ex-GF riding with her BF. She gives me the bird. Months later I talked to her and she said she was sure I had done that on purpose just to show off. I didn't tell her otherwise

Fail/win (not really mine, but I was there): Same 1987 Integra. We're on a long road-trip, and in upstate NY with slushy highway. My buddy is driving his leg of the trip north. We're going 60-ish on the highway in the middle lane in heavy traffic. He goes to get left to pass a car, gets caught in slush. Car spins several times across traffic. I wake up from my nap midway through as we're facing backwards with a truck bearing down on us. Car continues to spin, my buddy frantically doing whatever he can to recover. We come to a stop on the right side shoulder, facing forward. Passenger mirror lightly touching the guardrail. Other buddy in the backseat wakes up from his nap and says "guys, why are we stopped?"

I've never had anything particularly exciting happen in the WRX in the snow, but that's because it always has proper winter tires on it and since it's my DD I don't hoon around much in it, since I really don't want to wreck it.

For the maybe five days a year here that we get enough snow at the right (or maybe wrong) time, my strategy is to work from home and subsist on whatever happens to be in the pantry.

Every year I shop snow tires, but it just doesn't seem worth the expense, so I just make sure the cars all have decent tread on their tires before winter hits. My E-150 with Michelin LTX2s and the LSD holds its own pretty well. The only time I ever had a problem with it was last year when the guy in front of me decided to stop short in the middle of a steep hill. Had to slowly roll back down the first half of the hill so I could get a little momentum. Otherwise, they do just fine if I happen to get caught out in it.

My last van did have a couple minor snow-related mishaps, but it wasn't the fault of the tires: I clipped a corner a little too close and what I thought was a soft, puffy snowbank turned out to be the great-grandson of the iceberg that took down the Titanic and wound off ripping off a hunk of running board. On a different occasion, a hour or so after I had gotten home from work, I looked out the front window and noticed that my van was sitting in the middle of the road, after having slid back down the driveway.

Trackmouse wrote: Is this because of what I said in the other thread? Lol

lol no....what you said in that thread just reminded me of a 45-minute snow-driving argument I was subjected to by a couple of our interns at work today, which was the most inane collection of bullE36 M3 stories by 18-year olds whose entire snow-driving experiences consist of a couple small mid-atlantic storms in the last year or two. But the way they tell it, they were apparently doing the Alcan 500 Winter Rally in Miatas or something, lol.

Just reminded me of the stories that always come up on car forums. I get both sides of them being here, on e30 forums, and on WRX forums....

On the e30 forums, everyone claims that an e30 can do anything that a winter-spec rally car can - because, hey, it's an e30!!

On the WRX forums, everyone claims that snow cannot be driven in without AWD. Period.

On GRM, everyone claims that snow can only be driven in using whatever car they own that is, in reality, the absolutely worst-suited for it (in my case, that would be my Triumph GT6).

My daily grind is a Chevy work van, without snow tires its terrifying and I get stuck ALL. THE. TIME. With snows, I can manage... Still get stuck though. I'd like to see my Celica on snow tires, since it does so well without them

Also, for every "perfect drift" I've ever completed in the Celica, I've had twice as many times getting stuck, this car HATES the slush...

In my 20's I went through one Illinois winter in a gutted '86 Mustang GT with bfg kdw tires.

My butt had a firm bite on the seat during the entire drive.

The_Jed wrote: In my 20's I went through one Illinois winter in a gutted '86 Mustang GT with bfg kdw tires. My butt had a firm bite on the seat during the entire drive.

My roommate back in the late 90s had a Camaro SS that I think was on KDWs (or something like that). I distinctly remember him trying to turn around in our condo complex parking lot with 2" of snow on the ground to go to work. After about 10 minutes of this, he pulled the car mostly back into the spot it came out of, walked back inside, and said "berkeley work, I'm not trying to die today"

The_Jed wrote: In my 20's I went through one Illinois winter in a gutted '86 Mustang GT with bfg kdw tires. My butt had a firm bite on the seat during the entire drive.

if you're going there, when i was 20 i did winter in a 89 crown vic with bald fronts and 20 year old hard as rock rears, and did not get killed. did some sweet drifting though. the year before that i had to do most of the winter in my 71 caprice with bald fronts, questionable rears, and no heat. if there is a pattern here, it's that i did not value front tire tread in my younger days.

After that I bought a Subaru.

We bought my Miata from a friend who had the Miata as his DD, and his Z06 was his autocrosser. After we bought the Miata in November (with snow tires), he was driving the Z06 on summer tires in Chicagoland in December and January.

Long story short, don't drive a Z06 in Chicago in the winter with summer tires. It ended up off the road at least once.

I was almost killed in my friends '72 Camaro running wide/bald summer tires on ice. Spun 3 times across 8 mile road west of Novi, MI. Never again.

Well now I feel obligated.

Not mine but a classmate in high school, yes, that's a third gen trans am. No, he was never late for school, which was canceled only if it was too cold for the buses to start, or too snowy for them to get out of the lot(8" or so). Yes, he was a Yooper.

I wrecked my moms prelude in the winter because I spent the whole summer drag racing it and never bothered to change the tires out, went to go around a roondaboot, and understeered for what must've been 150ft. Smashed the street sign, inverted the front bumper, AND the group of hot girls from school laughed at me.... I floored it and went home to face the music...

Coming home from skiing in the mountains in Colorado in my 93 vw fox. Following my buddy, who was driving a Jeep Grand Cherokee. Road was icy, but the sun was out. Beautiful views of mountains.

We're both going the same speed, about 30. he takes a left turn, no problems. I take the same left turn, slide out (mostly understeer). Nearly crap my pants as I watch myself slide toward the edge of the road (and edge of the mountain). All that stands between me and 500ft of free fall and certain death is a puny guardrail.

I did not effectively control my car. I only hit the guardrail, bounced off, and resumed driving. I probably didn't even change speed through the whole maneuver because it was downhill. Talk about a pucker moment.

I never drove in snow until I moved here, 15 years later I feel I am competent but I am still wary of the "other guy" and his all season shod, tired Winter beater.

I have driven at least 40K per year in Winter since being here, about 6 years ago I tried snows, what a revelation. I drove RWD auto Panther bodies for the first 12 years and the last three in my FWD manual Elantra. I have never been stuck unless the car was snowed in overnight.

Snows work, simply because the compound in them is still flexible when regular tires are transformed to hard bands of frozen rubber.

Of course there are very few hills in my area.

Kenny_McCormic wrote: Well now I feel obligated. Not mine but a classmate in high school, yes, that's a third gen trans am. No, he was never late for school, which was canceled only if it was too cold for the buses to start, or too snowy for them to get out of the lot(8" or so). Yes, he was a Yooper.

makes me recall a couple winters ago, there is a "valley" in a main road around here (3 lanes each way) and it became a death-trap (figuratively) for about 20 cars when an unexpected snow dump came during rush hour. I managed to cut onto an access road in the WRX and go around a shopping center to get to the other side since it was all blocked by wrecked cars. But as I am coming out to the main road again, I sit there and watch a guy in a yellow 350z who has it absolutely floored trying to get up this hill. I watch for about 5 minutes. He never lifts. He is moving at about 1mph. He finally gets to the top where it flattens out and lets off as if he's exhausted from the effort. It was truly impressive that he got up the hill. Even with AWD and wintersports it was pretty damn slippery for me.

OK, I'll bite.

In 1991 I had an '89 IROC with some flavor of goodyear eagles on it. I lived on a dirt road near a pond on top of a mountain north of scranton, PA. I had a date with a "young lass" who lived in town at the bottom of the mountain and I was determined to get to her house. Whilst I was getting determined we got about 2" of that greazy snow you get when the temps are below freezing and the township already mixed in a pile of salt. That slippery-as-cat-schyte mess between snow and slush.

The car was a 5 speed so I could pretty much pull out in 3rd gear to get rolling and it was nose heavy as berkeley so it would only steer with a lot of premonition. There were a few close calls and a few real cringe moments in the 6 mile drive down the "No Truck Route" hill but I managed to get to her house and stick it in a snow bank right out front.

The long/short of this story is that her father walked out on the porch and declared the weather unsafe for his baby girl to go anywhere in that weather, nevermind the tool with the camaro beached in the snowbank. I slept on her couch. I cannot remember her name, but once... I thought she was worth wrecking for.

My dad had a Volvo 760 Turbo (lease takeover from someone at his work that quit) that would get stuck in perfectly flat parking lots in winter. He only had it for one winter though. Not sure if it was on all-seasons or summer tires.

I went through a number of Illinois winters in a 2wd Nissan Hardbody without issue. 80 pounds of salt in the back seemed to make a huge difference. Had Sears branded all seasons.

Having driven around in my wife's H2 in this weird white stuff I really did not notice and difference than when I drive it on pavement. What is this thing you call snow.

I'm a dedicated snow tire convert, yet here in the Mid-Atlantic it seems as if most enthusiasts think dedicated snows are a waste.

A couple years ago, I lent my girlfriend my prepped winter ride since the wintry mix we were expecting was supposed to come after I'd gotten home.

It didn't.

So, I drove an R-comp shod Probe GT home from work and my 45 minute drive was doubled. I was completely drained, and slept nearly 12 hours after that run.

slowride wrote: My dad had a Volvo 760 Turbo (lease takeover from someone at his work that quit) that would get stuck in perfectly flat parking lots in winter. He only had it for one winter though. Not sure if it was on all-seasons or summer tires. I went through a number of Illinois winters in a 2wd Nissan Hardbody without issue. 80 pounds of salt in the back seemed to make a huge difference. Had Sears branded all seasons.

I call bad tires, and I'd bet a nickle they were Michelins. The problem with Michelins back then is that the tread would never wear down, so they looked good, but when they got old, they were hard as rocks.

Volvos were meant for snow. They have a lot of snow in Sweden, you see. I made it through many a Michigan winter with RWD Volvos and Scandinavian-made snow tires, like Nokias, Gislaveds, etc. I pulled a lot of SUVs out of the ditch back then.