i live in Nashville. i always here how bad RWD cars are in the snow. is the premium for AWD just not worth the fact that we get 1 or 2 real snows a year.....obviously i do not consider us anywhere close to the threat that you guys up North have, but i dont want to be stranded and or on the side of the road in a snow b/c i have RWD.


i did notice that our dealer has about 5 of the 20 G's on the lot....i thought that was quite a few for here, but maybe there is a demand.

also, curious, why do the G35x have a different front bumper? i like it better with that extra "whole" if you will, but i wonder why that is?

 

If you only get one or two snows a year I wouldn't bother, if you got a lot more then theX for sure. The RWD will be fine for you, with a set of performance snows for the winter.
The extra hole in the center of the bumper is to help with cooling for the all wheel drive.

 

It's not worth it at all. I live in Kansas City and my G got around fine during the 7 days we got significant snow. Either get a G with all-season tires or just don't drive on the 1-2 days it snows. My G has the crappy Turanza EL42s and it did fine. I can't wait till they wear out and I can a high performance all season W-rated tire.

 

We ultra rarely see snow in Houston, but where I went to school in west TX, it would snow several times or more a year. Back then I drove a 73 Camaro and it would next to impossible to drive in the snow. Any throttle and the rear end starts going sideways. After the snow melted, everything was covered in sand which was almost as slippery. I don't know how people in the north drove those cars back in the day. I suppose you always carry chains and slap on snow tires before it snows.

Cars these days have to be a lot easier to drive with the traction control and abs doing most of the work for you.

 

Yep. Stability control, traction control, and ABS do wonders for relatively high-powered RWD cars in inclement weather. Honestly, I see absolutely no point to AWD unless you live where it snows all the time. A good set of snow tires on a RWD G will most likely tread through deeper snow than an AWD G on all season tires could hope for. Tires are the key.

 

To my view the reason to get AWD isn't deep snow, rather black ice. In obvious snow conditions , it's obvious people drive slowly and the worst that can happen is getting stuck. Black ice on the other hand, is invisible, you're driving rapidly and you can total your G if not yourself. Another issue w/ AWD and snow is: the terrain, don't take advice from folks in the midwest if you live in hilly country. I too got my RWD truck with bald tires through winters in Denver, but I wasn't able to do so here (Portland) with less snowfall because of the hills.

 

IMO, it doesn't matter what kind of drivetrain you have if you encounter ice. Ice is ice and every vehicle behaves the same when hitting it. It doesn't care if you can spin 4 wheels or 2. I should know, my wife has a Legacy GT wagon

As for terrain in the Midwest, Kansas City is far from flat. Changes in elevation across the Kansas City metro range from 500' to 2100' depending on where you live. I encounter fairly steep hills on a daily basis and my G encountered them in 4" powder snow too. This car gets around better in the snow than my FWD Maxima 5MT did.

 

thanks guys.

and yes, we get ice and black ice more then snow. we have rapid temp changes, thus the fact we get ice more often then snow....it will be 40 degrees at 9am and by noon it will be 28....but AWD wont help you in ice anymore then RWD

 

I beg to differ on that, our roads are closed usually at least 14 days of the year due to snow and bad drifting and the X has got us home safely, where most rear wheel drives even with good snows would be stranded. I have had to spend the night parked off the road because of snow more than once and it is a long cold night in a car in a blizzard . I always used to take our 4WD Z71 on trips around my area in the winter, now it's the X .

As far as ice goes if you have a real good set of the newer ice and snow radials on any car, they work awesome, even on rwd.
Wayne

 

With 1-2 snows a year, it would be more fun to have RWD in my mind. You'll have more fun with the car overall if you ask me.
Personally, I was looking for a swiss army style car.
I live in Northern Cal and travel to Tahoe during the Winter, almost every week if I'm lucky, and I have family there.

So far I have been very satisfied, though it's summer and I would obviously rather have a 6-speed RWD at this point.
Can't wait to see how this car does up Donner Pass in a Blizzard.

Again, if I didn't drive up there as often, I would have purchased the 6-speed. However, in Tahoe, even with Snows, the chain requirement still applies to cars without 4WD/AWD

Wayne how does the X do in a few inches of powder?

 

The car is unbelievable. In powder, you don't even notice any difference from bare roads. It blasts through the twisty back roads in my area like it is on rails when there is a few inches of snow on the road during the winter. When we get a fresh snow I am like a little kid and go play for hours on the back roads, my wife just shakes her head, and says "I never grew up" . In the winter I switch to Blizzak WS-50 tires on 16" alloys which are awesome.
As you can see I am very impressed with it's winter capabilities..

 

For 1-2 times a rear I wouldn't get the X unless you really want it. I live in the Northeast and am lucky that I can leave my car in the garage if its really bad. I did end up driving a couple of times in the snow last winter and the RWD did very well. I even challenged a medium size hill with a couple of inches of cover just to see how it would do and had no problems. Of course the slip light was blinking like Christmas tree. I wouldn't have even thought about trying that in my old Mustang.

 

I've had 4WD for about 10 years. So I was somewhat hesitant to give up that capability.

Buth then wanting a more sporting ride, and lusting for the G since it came, I was thrilled that AWD was being offered. In my mind, this is the best of all worlds ... it is the "Swiss Army Knife" of sport sedans.

For the day-to-day runs here in the Bay Area, it's a blast to drive ... and I can't wait for the first snow this Fall when I head up to Tahoe.

 

I know this is a little of the subject, but even in regular weather...wouldn't AWD have better handling than the RWD?

 

Wayne you do sound pretty pumped up
Can't wait to get this puppy out in the fluffy stuff.

Mike995- Hope to see you on the Pass. FYI- I'm going to be putting a rear sway bar on at Z-Car garage. Will keep you posted.

Not necessarily. First, the AWD system adds weight. With weight comes many negative effects.
Secondly, the parts that make up the X reduce some of the steering feel and quickness.
Additionally, the AWD model in this case rides quite a bit higher than the normal RWD models.

With a car like the G, you have such good balance, that you AWD will not necessarily improve performance in the turns.
Will you be able to accelerate out of the turns quicker, perhaps.

The Net:
Where the RWD model has a tendancy to oversteer, the AWD model has a tendancy to understeer(push) the front wheels wide, particularly when you apply throttle at mid apex.
The normal G will make better use of it's front wheels as they are not driven wheels. Therefore the front wheels can do what they do best, turn.
This in turn makes the car a bit easier to rotate through the turn, to the exit quicker, allowing users to control/adjust turn angle with the throttle in addition to the steering wheel. In the end the RWD car when driven well, is probably a quicker by a fair amount.

I still love the way this car drives, especially compared to the Quattro which feels like a slug by comparison. There I said it.