I know, its early. Got a couple weeks yet before we can start thinking about snow

Talking about snow here. I've never owned a manual with all the computer overrides like this car has. One in particular, the traction control with a manual. How does the car react in snow/slippery conditions with VDC on vs. off. Does it help correct mistakes and/or feel like its helping you? Or does it seem like it wants to help but doesn't know exactly how and actually makes things worse. I'm a competent winter driver with 10 winters under my belt, 3 with an IS300 auto. Yet, I've never driven a manual rear drive with gobs of torque in the snow.

 

The G sucks in snow, last winter I couldn't even make it up my driveway. Thats with just about an inch of snow.

 

Got that part figured out, snow tires. Can't be any different than my IS300 plowin thru tons of snow with them on.

 

well, ohio had an impromptu ice storm in april. Yeah, I know... in april.

Anyways, during this little tear in the anus of ohio weather, my then 1 month old 6MT coupe decided that the rear end would like to swing out whenever and at whatever inputs, no matter how small or how random. I could make the car start a fish tail (...while going straight on the highway at 35mph) with a VERY small input of gas in 5th gear.

Of course, this was with the stock tires on the 19" wheels, so that particular combination is about as good in the snow as Ohio is good for laying out on the beach. I say this because if you've ever been to a "beach" in ohio, you probably grew an extra ******** from the disgusting water. ESPECIALLY if you are a girl.

But yeah... uhh... good luck. I'm sure it'll be much more drivable with snow tires, but I think I'm going to go with a older impreza for the winters (and maybe some STI conversion project monstrosity).

err right: the vdc acts likes any other traction control system. Crappy. It just endlessly cuts out your power, and the stability system cant do anything when you have no traction from your tires in the first place. I'd say that the traction control will be much more useful with extra traction so that the changes it makes actually does something useful. So in conclusion, it's not so bad that it fights you, but it's useless like most traction controls.

 

get a good pair of snow tires and start off in second gear if necessary. I'm approaching my third winter in my 6mt. My experience last winter here in Chicago was enough to convince me to do it again next year. The VDC will help you get moving and once you're moving the snow tire takes over...they only work when they're moving. In other words, you're not going to all of the sudden fishtail at 40 mph on the snows. The hardest part is the take off from a standstill in snow.

 

Yeah, I drove my stock G to the mountains and it started snowing. Going home was intresting, driving while it was snowing then raining with snow on the ground. The car sucks w/o snow tires. Or at least a set of low profile chains.

 

If you value your life find a beater. The G isn't designed for snow. I was simply trying to rearange the cars in my garage by moving the G halfway down the driveway in inch of snow. I got stuck. Do the winter tires they may help a little but I doubt they'll help a lot.

 

People who think the G can't move through snow obviously haven't tried snow tires yet Trust me the G will do fine in the snow, just take it easy.

I was able to get around during the new england blizzard just fine.

 

I agree with this as well

 

i agree... i drove my car right through winter with pirelli 210's on... and i had absolutely no problems at all. the only way you'll spin your tires is if u launch too hard. i was actually shocked myself as to how stable the vehicle was. i only had vdc kick in once when it snowed real hard one night and the sideroads had not been plowed yet. i was going around a corner the rear started to slip out and vdc kicked in. it braked for me and got the car going straight... no problem. run a search as this topic has come up countless times in the past.

 

Agree....snow tires will do wonders. You should not have any problems. All you need is a good set of snow tires and to tone down your driving to the conditions and you'll be all set.

 

Have the right tires (B-Stone Blizzaks) you can go anywhere. Thats how I did it before buying a winter beater.

 

I did a little experiment last winter after 2" of snow. I found an empty parking lot, turned off VDC and commenced to doing the mother of all donuts. With VDC off, the car performed as expected...with a moderate throttle input, I got a lot of slippage and sliding, but controlled. It wasn't as easy as I thought due to the amazing threads on the snow tires. I turned VDC back on and although it was going haywire, It would not let me do any donuts in 2" of snow. VDC+snow tires will get you through the winter. If you're running summer tires in the winter, you won't move an inch. VDC will engage until you get traction, but if you're driving on plastic it will never happen. Thus, you'll just sit there and not move. The only thing to do is turn off VDC and gun it like hell. Trust me. I got stranded on the Toyos and had to get towed home. The next day I switched to my Dunlop M3s and had no problem.

 

Don't have a G yet but my M3 was driveable in the snow here in NY (Long Island). It was a 6mt and I just had to take it VERY easy and launch in 2nd gear. 1st gear launches just resulted in non stop traction control intervention. Get snows, take it EXTREMELY easy in the curves and do not ever get on the gas in even slight curves and you will be fine.
Its not that hard, just drive extra safe when there is snow out and use common sense.

-Evangelo2

 

Def need snow tires and some weight in the trunk.....

I tried stopping from about 7mph on a slight downhill and slid clear off the road cracking my front oem lippppppp

This year = SUV Beater