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So, most of us in this neck of the woods (Southern Ontario (and some of the North Eastern U.S.)) got hammered with a whole whack of snow.
I honestly thought that I was going to have to take the Sienna to work because there was no way that I was going to be able to get out of my subdivision and get to work. I thought that I was getting lucky when the snow plow came by and cleared the neighbourhood. I decided to take the FR-S to allow my wife to have the Sienna available to her.
I got all of the way to work only to realize that my work parking lot was completely unplowed. They had been desperately trying to keep up by clearing all of the dock doors, but, that left the employee parking completely untouched. I said to myself, "Oh crap, this is not good". And sure enough, I ran into what I most dreaded with a lot of snow - I bottomed out. Lack of ground clearance. Lucky for me, I always keep a small shovel in the trunk and I was able to clear enough snow underneath as well as around the tires to get unjammed only to be caught slipping shortly thereafter (despite winter tires).
Strategy #1 ever-so-slightly push the gas pedal to crawl out. This was met with limited success. I then eyeballed a parking spot and tried again - no joy.
Strategy #2 fully defeat traction control and hammer the throttle - success.
Thankfully I had enough forethought to stop short of the spot and decided to dig out the parking spot before throwing the car in there. This was especially useful since 9.5 hours later, the parking lot was still yet to have anything done to it. So, in the end, I have not given up on the FR-S during the winter yet, but, the smarter decision probably would have been to take the van with almost another 2" of ground clearance. Also in hindsight - some added weight in the back could be usefull as well.
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