Quote:
Originally Posted by zimzim
Have any of you drove the car in the winter? I think it'll be very do able 90% of the time for me, but if we get a ton of snow I'll probably have to take a snow day
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I drove mine all last winter and only struggled the one day in November when we got 20cm of snow that one day after the freezing rain. Still made it though, and never got stuck to the point I couldn't back out
Overall, the car is awesome in the winter as I'm sure you can imagine. You can continuously enjoy the handling and balance of the car at the limit because it is more accessible when the grip is much less. Endless drifts at virtually any speed are possible, even on the highway at those speeds. I used a set of 205/55r16 Michelin X-Ice 2's and they worked great. The only challenge was trying to get up a hill from a start on polished ice at an intersection. The key I found is turning the traction and stability control off, they're such a hinderance to driving that in my opinion it is borderline dangerous to have them on. I also put two 40 pound sand bags in the trunk half way through the winter which did help traction but moved the balance of the car from the very fun side of things to the more stable but still tossable side. It was a similar change to having a passenger in the car or a full tank of gas vs. an almost empty one.
This winter I am thinking about disconnecting the rear roll bar to try to smooth out the ride a bit and help traction when the streets get rutty. I'm also planning on installing a 50W pad heater to the transmission since I found it almost impossible to shift from first to second gear once the temperatures dropped below about -10C. If that heater doesn't help then I will have to start searching for some Pentosin MTF here in Canada and see if that does the trick. I mostly just started in second or shifted from first to third which was fine.
The only other issue was freezing window seals (I experienced this only on the bottom seals) after getting some freezing rain or washing the car. The doors will still open with the window frozen, but the seals on top will get rubbed a bit and the bottom one can fold over if you don't fix it right away. I used some window de-icer in a bottle which helped to "unfreeze" it but it was an annoyance for sure and not one I figured out a good solution to. My only idea is to rig the "door open" switch to prevent the windows from operating every time you open the door. Any other ideas out there?
