Don't drive in the snow with summer tires...
 

Heard we were supposed to get 2-6 inches of snow starting around 6 pm yesterday so I leave at 4. I did not have snow tires b/c I was planning on just getting a ride to work/home when it snowed. For those of you planning on trying to get by on summer tires, I will tell you right now it was scary as sh!t! There was only maybe an inch or two of snow but it turned to ice and everyone was sliding all over the place. I was at a light and giving it a lot of gas but not going anywhere and I look at the tach and VDC is only giving it about 1700 rpm. The car just has 0 traction w/ these tires.

I got to within about a half mile from my house and did a 180 right in the middle of the road. Luckily there was no traffic. A couple hundred feet later I lost all traction and found myself slowly drifting into a ditch and a mailbox. I hit the mailbox, totally knock it over, and then all of a sudden I feel the drivers side of my car fall in the ditch. Some lady pulled the car out and gave me a ride home.

Point of the story: everyone says driving on summer tires in the snow is stupid but I proved it, although not intentionally.

Glad YOU are ok.

Wow, yeah, glad you weren't travelling at a higher clip and that you came out unscathed and from your story, they G sounds like it made it through relatively lightly damaged. New paint here we come!

Yea Im in Chicago now...it was stopped on the freeway, so we got out and started snowball fights witth our crew rollin in the car behind us...all this while the ambulance was helping spinouts on the side.

yeh, i saw a coupe last night going about 15mph holding up everyone.
some idiot in an older porshe was blocking up the entrances too.. idiots.

get snow tires.

AWD is the way to go in snow. :) (i have a 06Legacywagon).

Thanks guys. It looks like the only damage is a small, faint dark scratch about an inch long beneath the head lamp. My "corner" light/reflector or whatever its called by the wheel well was hanging off but I just pushed on it and it snapped back into place. I got extremely lucky, especially since the lady that pulled me out was right there and I didnt have to wait for a tow truck for hours.

Went we went over the hill right by my house we almost lost control in the 4x4 so its actually kind of a blessing I didnt make it there; I would have for sure slid down the hill and probably hit somebody, maybe head-on.

thx for letting us know. i am all prepared with my snow tires.

I figured that out 2 weeks ago when the car started fishtailing with even the slightest throttle. You WILL spin around during any wide turns with these tires. Likewise, it was impossible to stop because ABS made the slipping tires lose even more grip. I honestly don't know how many stop signs and red light i ran that day. Lesson of that day is to drive another car or purchase a winter set of tires.

Glad you're ok bro. :o

C.

I drove with summer tires after the blizzard. It is a pita. I had no traction. I almost got into an accident once. Luckily my brakes kicked in.

so....how did you thank the woman? ;)

I agree summer tires are not good for snow... I just bought my G35 coupe (six speed) and didnt realize how bad this car was in the snow. It was worse than my MR2 turbo. At first I thought the dealer sold me a car with bald tires but after reading this posts I think its just the type of tires that I have on there. I have pilot sport tires.. Any body try driving in snow with these things? Any sugestions on what snow tires to get?

CamTan1,
After much pain searching for wheels and winter tires I just got a set of ASA JH3 18" wheels and Dunlop Wintersport M3 snow tires for use on ym 06 G35 Coupe 6MT. This is for a New York winter (LI so not as bad as other places in NY). My car arrives on Wednesday, hopefully my snows arrive by then as well. Ill post a review on the tire\wheel package with pictures when it comes in.
-Evangelo2

Smokedhen, I gave her $25, which was all I had on me. I got her number and was going to send another $20. Do you guys think $45 is fair for her pulling me out, driving my car down the street to a parking lot, and driving me less than a quarter mile away? I've never been in that situation. I know tow trucks charge like $80. She said she had pulled about 40 people out that day and some of them didnt give her anything. Just so you know how nasty it got, it had only been snowing about an hour-hour and a half. Thats how I got stuck in it-I dont have snow tires so I left work a couple hours early to totally avoid it.

The thing I can't believe is I hit a mailbox over and slid into a ditch w/ one of the rear tires not even touching the ground and all I got was a tiny dark mark you can barely see. Is there any way to get rid of something like that without going to the body shop? Anything I should inspect to make sure the car is ok? The front bumper was 1-2 inches away from the grass so I think I just got extremely lucky.

i was just moving my car to another part of the driveway and there was some snow on my driveway and i couldn't get back up the driveway unless i had a running start