All Weather or Snow

[erod550]

Yea when I'm trying to get around in the snow I will turn the DSC off a lot of times because I'd rather control the spinning myself than have the car try to do it.

[tsx_guy]

Apologies for thread necromancy, seemed like the most topical place to post...

So I finally took my 2010 Mazda3 with its Yokohama Avid S3.4 all-seasons out on the snow. Or rather, got caught with my pants down when I drove out for a quick lunch (work at home on Tues/Thurs) and upon heading home, found 1/2in of fresh snow on the last mile of twisty road where I climb from maybe 8200 to 8700ft elevation.

A couple of principles reaffirmed, a few new (to me) ones established:

• All seasons with tread kinda-sorta work on the snow if you're driving on a flat snowy paved road surface, but will tend to surprise you with how little grip they have on curves and grades. Serious and unexpected understeer (or would you just flat out call that 'slipping off the road'?) on curved roads, tendency to break traction on braking/acceleration, the usual.
• It's still scary to unexpectedly break traction at low speed on a corner with a guard rail or ditch on the outside. It's still embarrassing to be passed by someone because you're stopped in the middle of the road on an uphill grade on account of no grip to power your way forward.
• FWD's one saving grace remains that you can occasionally *pull* you way out of a bad situation when you've otherwise lost control, but this is an order of magnitude better with winter tires.
• DSC isn't just unhelpful for handling, it actually works against you for delivering power to the wheels. If the only way to go forward is to spin your tires, you will not go, period, with DSC enabled. If you're trying to drive up, say, a steep grade of freshly snow-covered asphalt, your engine will lose power until you're stopped, tires spinning very slowly, even with the gas pedal to the floor, RPMs limited steady at 1250. I'm scratching my head at what sort of scenario DSC was intended to be helpful for, but it certainly isn't driving on snow up steep grades with all-season tires, and I'm pretty sure it would work against a similar scenario on winter tires too.

Hope this is helpful. Dunno, nothing new here really, but I guess I had to see some of this firsthand with the mazda3. Mazda3 daily driver winter tires are not optional in the winter Colorado foothills, period.

In unrelated news, drove the Honda to work today for the first time since August.

you had me at "honda".

[Huzer]

you had me at "honda".

That statement doesn't work when it's nearly the last word in the post.

[tsx_guy]

That statement doesn't work when it's nearly the last word in the post.

let me rephrase, all i read and comprehended was "honda".

[MazdaTom]

I can't wait to try out these bad boys in the snow:


They have the snowflake symbol on them so they should work quite well in the snow. Plus I can run them year round. And not to mention, they work very well offroad. They aren't too bad on dry pavement as well.

[erod550]

I had All-Terrain T/As on my '85 K5 Blazer and had no complaints on any surface.

[geo2maz]

Just put on the Hankook Icebears Snow-tires + Drag dr-31 17" wheels that I got from M00se, Tested them out plenty with this last snow storm and i r happies

[erod550]

I prefer separate winter/summer sets on the MS3 but I run all-seasons on the Miata year-round and these Falken Ziex 512s have gotten me around decently in the snow so far this winter. I did a few donuts in this huge empty parking lot after stopping at the mall, hehe.

[dommo_g]

[erod550]

^^ Hehe I have some similar ones of my SRT4 from 2006 when we got dumped on every weekend for the whole winter. This winter has been pretty weak comparatively.

[dommo_g]

I'm pretty sure my car plowed more snow than the whole city of Aurora plow team did.

[iani1.1]

yea those falken ziexs do pretty decent in the snow. they worked well on the silver rx7 when it had tread lol

haha almost looks like the meeting spot

[erod550]

It's the parking lot outside the Citadel food court.

[Operator]

Winter mode:

[Hschlick84]

I've never rode on winter tires in my life, always been with AS. Too lazy to change wheels every fall and spring for summer and winter tires.