quick questions about this car in snow
 

Im in the toronto area and our winters can get pretty bad and i have my 2014 frs as my DD so i will be taking it through the winter. Just wanted to know how this car holds up in winter with proper snow tires? I only have experience driving FWD cars in winter with all season/snow tires so a bit worried about the upcoming winter.

Also i was curious about rust-proofing. I've been told that i don't need to rust proof the car just keep it clean by washing it every other week, just undercoat the bottom with a spray which i intend to do at the end of october. Any insights on this? I came from a rust-bucket mazda which even rustproofing couldn't save.

I'm in the same boat as you, just opposite side of the country. First RWD in the winter. Would be great if we could get some member experiences/ opinions in here! :)

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Problem?

http://i.imgur.com/vAxVcdz.jpg

I'm thinking the LSD is going to be very helpful in the winter, at least you won't get stuck with one wheel spinning. That said the killer is the ride height. Anything more than an inch of loose snow and the front bumper is going to be plowing. That's not gonna work out too well. Maybe we should consider a lift kit? :D

I live in Calgary and had the chance to drive my BRZ a few times last winter on brand new Hankook W310s I have laying around, much better than my 2008 135i in terms of predictability and taking off from a stop. Downsides are ground clearance, and even with traction control/VSC fully on, I feel the car is allowed to slide too much before it intrudes.

Im also from toronto and i had a set of michellin snow tires last winter and had no issues at all..did not get stuck even one time..traction and stability control are the saviours


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I had a moment of snap oversteer even with the traction control fully on. Was accelerating in a straight line over ice/snow and the rear end came around quickly. I countersteered and saved it (thank you track driving) but I was surprised how TC let the car get sideways in a hurry.

The irony is I feel traction control has the opposite problem on a dry track. Way too intrusive, even on sport mode.

Would have been better for Toyota/Subaru to create a separate snow mode rather than a one-size-fits-all TC.

What's the snow button do then? Just start it in second gear (for the automatic)? I thought it did something with the TC

<- DD a FRS in Toronto... and through that horrid winter we had last year. Hadn't been stuck a single time.. in fact during the blizzards i was passing people on the left lane :bonk: Just need a good set of tires (i have Xi3) and be a bit more careful on the throttle when accelerating (but not around corners :bonk::bonk:)

Enjoy! As for rust proof. I can't tell ya. I got krown rust proofing prior to last winter and the underside of my car was covered in rust when i replaced my exhaust.. they said it's just surface rust.. but still... i guess nobody can really save us from the nuclear salt they put on these dam roads..

No idea - I've got a MT so I don't have a snow button. :bonk:

I just looked in a stick and saw it wasn't there, learn something new every day!

The snow button in the auto just starts u from 2nd gear. U could just that manually in a manual car


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Snow tires = no problems.

I'm going on Winter #3. I'd suggest not going with a snow sport tire if you get some serious snows. I did snow tires the first year, sold them and got a snow sport and was disappointed with their light snow/packed snow performance.

i live in buffalo, and DD my FRS

let me tell you, on stock tires, you will get stuck, everywhere

i made the mistake of not getting snow tires last year(luckily i work from home so i dont really HAVE to leave the house) but this year i have a set on order!

About to enter 3rd winter (that went fast) and with Blizzacks on all 4 corners, have not had an issue.

What gets interesting is if you are out in the deep stuff where you might be plowing a bit of snow, and say turning left across a busy road, the traction control will keep you moving, but it is going to be slow moving. Its not the traction that slows you, but rather the computer responding to every little slip in a situation where one tire is already going faster than the other (any turn will do that) I generally turn it off if I have to make such a left hand turn. Same applies for when I pull in to the neighborhood where the streets are not plowed.

The car does step out pretty quick if the nannies are off, so pretty much leave them on.

This car is horrible in the snow for anything but goofing around in a couple inches of snow. I dont care how good you are at drifting or driving its just plain dangerous in the winter. It's too light and too low to the ground. I live in western ma where its hilly and snow usually comes either as wet heavy crap or 4"+ at a time and this car is absolutely useless no matter what tires are on it. Everyone tries to justify driving it through winter but I'm a first responder and often have no choice but to drive in heavy snow and this thing will either get u stuck or killed, or crashed, in anything more than 2" of snow. This year its staying in summer/track form and being winterized and stored under a cover i'm not even going to bother trying. I have a truck with a plow so its not an issue for me but if i had just the BRZ i would definitely be buying an awd or fwd car for a winter beater.

I have to agree with you. Though I drove mine through two winters here in MN (bad ones at that) I didn't have any issues or got stock, but I thought it was very sketchy. It was very difficult to start from a stop most of the time. Once rolling it was manageable, and braking was great, but anything over 2" at speeds over 45mph, the car was just everywhere. I am no longer driving it through the winter. Not worth the stress for me personally.

Here is how I see it: Car rarely ever crash in the snow because of the orientation of the drivetrain (RWD, FWD, AWD) cars crash because they cannot stop or turn….most of that is on the tires and weight of the vehicle. I would be far more concerned with the weight of our vehicle, being able to gain traction for stopping and turning, then I would about it being RWD. Just be careful accelerating and swinging the tail around.

It’s all about the tires.

If your winters are anything like Syracuse NY winters (average 115 inches of snow annually) than I highly recommend stock suspension (or lifted if you can) and winter tires are a must. The stock tires wont get you anywhere.

I love RWD in the winter. I have wintered both an FC RX7 with wide summer tires and a 240sx Convertible with all seasons with out a problem. My winter rat blew up last year and I was forced to drive the FRS in March and with stock tires. It wasn't easy.

http://www.city-data.com/top2/c464.html - My city is #1 in suckiest winters. Yay me.

The flaw in your logic is that mass (which is what most people wrongly call weight) is the major component of momentum, and momentum is what keeps you sliding when you break loose. The kinetic energy of a car that's sliding on a wet or icy road with wheels locked does more to keep it sliding than its kinetic friction (a fraction of the car's weight) does to stop it. And the heavier the car is, the greater this deficit is - so a skid with locked wheels will be harder to stop on a heavier car than a lighter one unless the heavier car's tires have a much higher coefficient of friction than the light one's.

The math is simple - the kinetic friction of a locked, skidding tire is only 10 to 30% of the car's weight, but the contribution to momentum is 100% of the car's mass. So a lighter car should be much easier to pull out of a skid than a heavier one but only slightly more prone to skid with equally capable tires. Example: a 3500 pound 350Z weighs 40% more than a 2500 pound FR-S, so the extra half ton is a 40% greater contributior to momentum in a skid. But the same tires in appropriate sizes on the two cars will differ in kinetic friction by no more than 20% of the weights of the cars, which is only a 200 pound difference (which is only 20% of the contribution of the added weight to momentum). So weight contributes about twice as much to maintaining a skid as it does to starting and stopping one. All other things being equal, a lighter car should be better in snow than a heavier one. That's why you pass so many big 4x4s that skidded off the road while thinking they could turn and stop better than 2WDers.

See the illustration below. Weight is a measure of the pull of gravity on mass and can be measured as kinetic friction at the tire-road interface because that friction is a fraction of the car's weight.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu...h/frictire.gif

ABS - my tires aren't locked up when I'm sliding, the ABS system is working to keep them digging into the snow.

I used to drive a P71 crown vic and ill tell you that was a beast in the snow compared to the BRZ. It was a heavy car and it got good traction. The BRZ/FRS sucks in the snow period. Its marginal at best with snow tires. I had blizzaks on mine and i barely made it up my street every time it snowed, got stuck twice, tried every trick in the book. My old crown vic never missed a beat however. Dont tell me based on math that a lighter car is better in the snow. The heavy car has the weight to displace the snow and get down to pavement and it tracks better in ruts. The brz has no chance.

Which Blizzaks did u have? I had LM-60s on an RX8 and could only make it up hills if no more than 2". Once the plows and treating come its tit of course.

I don't get these people that say they can drive in 5" in a RWD on "performance" winters no prob. They must be lying even if all the roads were flat.

Looks like I'm either gonna head south, or spring for a set of WS80s and suffer the dry handling..

HMMMMM

I drove this past winter in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and had no issues. I ran 16" Michelin X-ice Xi3's.


I only ever had issue with 4" of loose snow or more, but that will be the case with just about all cars that aren't CUVs/SUVs. Our cars have a short height, but the ground clearance isn't particularly lower than other similarly sized vehicles.


The torsen was a huge help, and I think that the car would suffer badly in the snow without it. One warning is that if you do spin wheels, keep in mind you are spinning both rear wheels and you lose some lateral stability. Without a limited slip, the tire that wasn't spinning would still help stop you from sliding sideways.


The snow mode on the automatic locks out first gear. This works in both manual and automatic mode. It also makes the shifts softer and seems to lock the torque converter less aggressively. I definitely found it useful if the roads were particularly bad.

i appreciate all the feedback however I'm still curious about the rust proofing. Those links provided and my searches just found information about where to get it done if you've decided to do it. Is it a necessary thing for these cars?

That depends how long you want to keep the car. 10 or more years? Sure do it. Less than that I wouldn't bother. I'm sure the future owners would appreciate it though :)

Wow those are some skinny tires!!!

I wonder if a thick coat of clear plasti dip is durable enough for rust proofing? Clear so you don't have that gross black tar under the car and plasti dip so you can undo it if you need to.

From what I've read on here about people trying to work on the car after being through a winter or two, I'd recommend it.


I didn't end up getting mine rustproofed last winter as I bought the car while I was just about to get into December exams in school and afterward it already had been through plenty of salt.


I do plan on rustproofing this year. I think I'm going to go with Corrosion Free. Their website lists the dealers for it and if you can't find an independent shop you can get it done at Crappy Tire.


I haven't read anything bad about the product and it is clear and does not drip like Krown or Rust-Check. It isn't like the dealer wax rustproofings that are supposedly good for the life of the car, it's supposed to still be think enough to get into the nooks and crannies of the panels, but viscous enough not to drip everywhere.


Take a search in the Canada subforum, there have been plenty of rustproofing discussions.

Yes - they are functionally "locked up" when sliding because they're sliding at an angle greater than their slip angle, which is basically the maximum angle between the direction in which a rolling tire is trying to go and the direction it's actually going (see here for a more detailed explanation of slip angle). When you turn on a surface against which you have normal traction, your tires are turned a bit past the angle between dead straight and the path you're traveling because of the force vectors acting at the contact patch. Tires are technically skidding sideways a tiny bit whenever you turn, but the rolling friction at the contact patch keeps them going in the intended direction. Once they begin to slip laterally beyond their maximum slip angle while maintaining traction, rolling friction is gone and ABS cannot affect this.

Slip angle (i.e. the difference between the intended direction of a rolling tire with traction and the actual direction in degrees from straight ahead) is important for dry road handling. Tires with smaller slip angles are more responsive to steering input, while tires with larger slip angles are slower to react and more forgiving near the edge. But once you start to skid, slip angle is irrelevant - you're just a bunch of mass sliding across a surface against which you have only kinetic friction to oppose your momentum. And the more mass you have, the more momentum you have - so it's harder to pull out of it.

ABS prevents skidding in a straight line - it does nothing for lateral skids.

You seem to be lumping multiple functions into your definition of "good in snow". All other things being equal, a heavier car will have more traction for starting from a dead stop. But (again, all other things being equal), a lighter car will maintain directional stability better on slippery surfaces because there's less mass trying to both push it off it's intended course and maintain the slide.

No matter how heavy the vehicle, it's not going to displace all the snow between it and the ground beneath. The snow under the contact patch is compacted, but the tires are still against snow and not road surface no matter how heavy the car, unless the snow's thin enough to be completely displaced by the tread blocks.

A Crown Vic has a lot more ground clearance than an FT86, so it can start and track in much deeper snow. When the white stuff reaches the spoiler lip, my car won't go because it becomes a snow plow (a function for which it was clearly not designed). Mass is a benefit for starting traction, but it's a drawback for stopping and cornering. Every article and all state driving manuals tell you the same thing: "Many 4x4 vehicles are heavier than passenger vehicles and actually may take longer to stop"(a quote from the Massachusetts "Safe Driving Winter Tips" section on their DOT website).

I drove a '67 Mini Cooper (1300 pounds) all year in Boston on the stock Dunlop SP-41s, and it easily blew through any amount of snow that didn't high-center it. My 350Z was fine in snow with winter tires, as was my '82 Fiat 2000 spider, my '75 Honda Civic, my '85 Mustang GT, my Z3 coupe, etc etc etc. If I had a problem starting on deep snow (which happens from time to time), I used the little shovel I carry in the car to clear tracks from rear to front tires and 10' in front. Once I get started, it's no problem to keep moving (and in the right direction, too).

The air dam on my 240z made for a great snowplow. Used to just putt right through it.

And what's with all the old beetle worship? They sucked in the snow.

Buy a beater 4wd for winter.

Yes, they did - with stock tires. But with good winter tires, they were not bad at all. We had a '73 Karmann Goofy (bought new) and a '67 bug ragtop (bought VERY used). A large sand bag in the trunk (up front, for those of you too young to know the beetle family) reversed the rear weight bias enough to tame the oversteer. As with our FT86s, ground clearance was the limiting factor on snow go.

We routinely used studs in those days, and they were really great. I put studded snows on my wife's '74 Buick Apollo (rebadged Chevy Nova) with a 350 (4 barrel, huge duals, real limited slip) and it would climb walls. I'm debating having my Altimax Arctics studded before I put them on next month, but I still remember how unpleasant studs were on dry road.

Even with all season tires (which was fine on every other car I've had in this area) the BRZ sucks in the snow. I suspect since it has small low profile tires there just isn't enough rubber to get enough grip in snow and ice conditions. My car would slide to the side when stopped in front of my house because of the crown in the road!

Last winter we had a couple inches of snow and some ice here in the SE.
I wanted to take the FRS out to see how it handled in the snow..
I backed out of the garage and got stuck on a slight incline!
This is on the stock tires.. Which are worthless in the white stuff..
My bimmer is the same way with summer performance tires.. I Leave them parked and stay home..

WOOOHOOO a 3 month vacation for me then!!!!!!!
So you are saying I would be screwed after this:

I do the same thing in every RWD car I've owned. Taller, narrower snow tire, and drive like a grandma...who likes to hoon about when nobody's around.