This is not a winter car! Fed up! May end up selling...

[wparsons]

Originally Posted by hmong337

You guys are funny... You'll remember my words when you meet you match with winter one day.

Look, I was fully expecting this car to be a tough winter car to live with like my old e30 325is and my 89 240sx coupe. Both sports cars (or sporty rwd cars). But even those cars made it through the deepest of snow and never left me burried once! The 240sx being lowered too.

This is the first newer type car I've owned with any sort of "driving aids". What I've learned so far is that those aids can be quite a hindrance when it comes to real situations like deep snow.

This is my second winter with mine, and the only time I've been stuck was in about 10-12" of snow in a parking lot full of stuck SUV's. I was able to get unstuck faster than any other car in the lot too.

[Dipstik-sportech]

Note the last PIC. That's an awd car that lost control on a lake, and I was in complete control.

Sent from, The Frozen North

[krayzie]

Originally Posted by hmong337

You guys are funny... You'll remember my words when you meet you match with winter one day.

Look, I was fully expecting this car to be a tough winter car to live with like my old e30 325is and my 89 240sx coupe. Both sports cars (or sporty rwd cars). But even those cars made it through the deepest of snow and never left me burried once! The 240sx being lowered too.

This is the first newer type car I've owned with any sort of "driving aids". What I've learned so far is that those aids can be quite a hindrance when it comes to real situations like deep snow.

Okay seriously back in the day I always see S13s and S14s either at the ditch or abandoned when the going gets tough (think going up the hills around Don Mills and York Mills or Finch near Bayview). Either that or they go into snap oversteer on unplowed roads while going straight. I wouldn't call them tough winter cars.

VSC is basically yaw control in combination of slippage control which is TC using the ABS system. Bosch has a good video explaining how ESP works.

Here's another funny tidbit, on that Toyota 86 presentation done by Tetsuya Tada when he mentions that they drove the test mule around the world, winter testing was actually done in Northern Ontario if you look at the slide with the world map on it.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4DJtHYEfos"]Toyota 86 presentation by Tetsuya Tada, PART 1 - YouTube[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO8lOjqhLJQ"]Toyota 86 presentation by Tetsuya Tada, PART 2 - YouTube[/ame]

[B L U E S L A T E]

Go and trade it in for a Subaru. Just not a BRZ.

[7thgear]

whatever subaru you trade it for better have a mechanical locking center diff, otherwise you're not really gonna get that much better performance aside from the heavier weight...

not sure what they build them with now, but my 01 RS needed you to stay on the throttle so the viscous center and rear would start to do their thing.

[PMPB]

I like you, and you give solid advice and bring some good humour to this forum, but I feel like this post is lacking and based on a lot of unqualified experience.

Calling the OP inexperienced (when you yourself claim to be inexperienced with 'RWD techniques'), your vague disclaimer of not wanting to cause insult doesn't really help.

Adding speed/momentum to get through snow drifts makes sense, but momentum isn't going to help in a corner or stability when the tires aren't making contact with pavement. Just saying 'go faster' is going to just be adding another car to the ditch, and I can't say how many cars I've seen in the ditch this winter. I counted at least 30 on one trip from Toronto back to Niagara, half of them being cars that went flying past me pushing the speed limit in the worst conditions I've ever seen in my life.

That said, a Torsen is more 'locked' at the higher power outputs, and of course higher speeds, so yes, the car can have better 'stability' since power is more distributed between left and right, and the car has less ability to spin the tires...

Originally Posted by 7thgear

this is how i think of it (and this is not meant to be an insult to anyone)

a long time ago, when i was 19ish, i was given a chance to drive a Lotus Elise around Shannonville and TMP.

The owner of this car was rather wealthy.. and nice.. and gave me the keys along with the words "go out and don't worry about anything."

At the time, this was my 2nd year of any sort of motorsports activity and my only car at the time was the fun but dreadful VW Golf 2.0.. or 2.slow as they call it. It took me 12 careful laps around Shannonville in the Elise to beat my VW time.

A month later, i was given another opportunity to drive the Elise at TMP. With a bit more confidence i decided to be more aggressive and... i spun out 4 times in 2 laps. The last spin left me on the track with an M3, Corvette and a Mustang flying in only a few seconds behind me. Luckily all drivers were very experienced and stopped in time to prevent any collision.

I drove the car into the pits and told the still-cheerful owner, while embarinsgly giving him the keys, that i'm simply not ready for this car yet.


I dare not blame the Elise for any handling deficiency, the deficiency was entirely in my hands and my feet. The car is most definitely not setup to be driven by someone who has no clue what they are doing. The car punishes bad inputs while rewarding correct ones.

I think the FRS is the same. The feeling of driving a piece of soap is simply a by-product of the fact that the car is made to excel when driven properly.

as i mentioned earlier, i am still learning RWD techniques and boy does the FRS keep teaching me new stuff. Every snowstorm that i drive i realize that if i trust the car a bit more, i can push the corners faster, the faster i go the more momentum i carry and the easier the snow is to overcome.

This car needs speed in order to get stability.

and rightly so, getting the car moving is probably the biggest problem. Uphills from a standstill are a pain, no doubt, but such is life (also i haven't loaded up my car with weights yet).

So before you consider selling it, think for a moment what you could get out of it once you learn to trust it a bit more, and that spring and autocross/time attack season is only a few months away for you to really have a go at it.

[7thgear]

you've picked one tid bit and blew if out of proportion.

i never said to go at breakneck speeds. The point is the car needs to be driven in order to avoid getting stuck or sliding off the road. You need to have a clear goal ahead of you. You need to look to where you need to go and not where the car is going, which is especially important given how much this car can slide.

hesitation, wild steering, stabby gas and liberal use of the brake is much more forgiving in a heavy FWD or similar car.


as for liking me, an inteligent person could never not like me, i'm a straight shooter that will admit his mistakes should they be pointed out .. but i will fight tooth and nail to prove one wrong until otherwise.

[theurbaninja]

We've had TONS of snow here this year. Exceeded our annual average snowfall in just Nov and Dec.

The car has been perfect. I haven't had even a slight hint that the car was going to be stuck. I can't for the life of me, figure out how people are having so many issues.

Is it maybe sport winter tires??? It's a mystery.

[PMPB]

You're probably right, when I read it, it just came off like 'turn off your nannies' and 'drive fast', 'the faster I drive, the the more I find I can push it through the corners'.

[automatic]

While we're on the topic of Diff's...is it bad to have extended periods of wheelspin? Smelled like burning yesterday after the drive home

[Bad Habits]

Id sell it for sure, I mean who would have thought a rwd lightweight sports coupe would suck in winter weather conditions.

[Rayme]

Driving in 8" of snow??? You were looking for trouble. I drove in 4-6" and it was relatively easy (as in I never got stuck) but seriously, maybe we need some common sense here, I've never gotten stuck either with all the cars I ever owned before also. Strangely also I found the FR-S to be the best car for snow, as I feel exactly what each wheels are doing. Also you need the TRAC completely off, this is an extreme condition.

Don't go out when there's too much snow, and bring a shovel, don't wake up your wife lol.

[protpibe]

Just turn the aids off when it's snowing? The 86 is one of the few cars that you can turn off the aids 100%

[Diode Dynamics]

OP sounds like a new winter DD is in order. Might I suggest...



Nick C.