I'm thinking of replacing my 2004 6MT with a 2007 6MT. Does anyone have direct experience in the snow with these two vehicles? Is the 2007 any better than the 1st-gen car (which is lousy even with snow tires)?

 

I would take a wild guess and say that there is no difference. The 07' sport/6MT model is just as hazardous as previous year models. It's all about the tires. Summer tires + snow = trouble. I've ordered a Sport model and live in the northeast. I'm sure that with a good set of snow tires I'll be able to get decent handling.

Good luck.

 

thats what I'm thinking

 

Speed has it right- the tires on the new Sport are terrible in the snow. The previous models had all weather tires - a good compromise but not optimal at dry or slippery extremes. Since I don't track the car, after the summer tires on my 07 wear I am going for a premo set of all weathers like the Mich Sport AS I had on my 03. They were outstanding. In the meantime it is tiptoe if its cold and wet and OMG in the snow.

 

It might be a stupid question. Can I drive Winter tires all year around?
I want to buy G35s but worries about swap tires every 6 months.

Thanks

 

The answer would depend on where exactly you are located. For example: I live just outside NYC. While it snows here in the winter, it gets pretty hot in the summer (80's-90's). In my case, if I were to drive my winters year round I would finish them in no time. That's because the winter tires can sustain low temperatures better (they don't get hardened as fast as A/S or summer tires do in low temps). On the other hand, once temps start to climb, they will start stretching and shrinking much faster as they are made of more flexible rubber (designed for low temps). You can think of the damage as a long-term tire melting...

If however, you live in the region where it doesn't get any hotter than say 50 degrees (in the summer), you may be able to get by with winter tires all year round. Otherwise, anything above a temperature of 50 degrees will wear your winters at a higher pace. Not too mention: When your tires overheat and become "gooey", you can expect quite of major decrease in handling, which puts you in danger.

Bottom line is: Keep the winter tires for the winter and get yourself A/S or Summer for the rest of the year.

 

Is yours a 2004 6MT coupe? If so, in the Top Motoring Video that Garnet put up, even in just rain autoX, the pro drivers were fish tailing a lot more in the coupe. The 2007 was much more stable. I gave that video a quick summary translation from the japanese. If you're interested: https://g35driver.com/forums/g35-sedan-v36-2007-08/141385-4-wheel-active-steer-package-anyone.html

 

You can but you'll ruin the tires pretty quickly. What makes a snow tire a snow tire is the type of compound that is used. Summer tires when cold get hard and one reason they don't work well in snow. Snow tires are designed to stay soft in the cold and why you get better traction. Because snow tires are softer the heat kills them.

If you are going to keep the car for a number of years I highly recommend buying a good set of snow tires and wheels. By having your snow tires mounted rather then use your stock wheels offers many advantages.

1. You can change over to snow tires yourself with a jack when you want to. Saving money not having someone else do it.

2. You save your stock wheels from wear and tear from switching tires over twice a year.

3. Balance, so so reason they don't always get the balance correct after switching tires thus another visit to the dealer.

4. By picking a different rim you have a bigger selection of snow tires since for example our sport wheels are pretty big so the selection of snow tires that fit these rims is pretty small.

5. By switching between snow tires and summer tires you save wear on your summer tires getting a longer life span out them. Saving you money as well.

I have a sport and these tires suck in the snow. I threw on my set of snow tires yesterday (live in the Northeast) and what a difference.

Do yourself a favor and maybe save yours or someone else's life. You live in a snow area get snow tires.

 

Great summary. Two more important factors I would add are the wheel size and tire width. It is inadvisable to use the Sport rims for winter. The sport rims are 18" which means a smaller gap between the tire and the wheel well, hence less space for snow to get thrown around and more snow to get stuck inside that space. Another factor of using the sport rims is their width. The sport rims run 245/225 (rear/front) tires. Unlike in dry pavement conditions, where the wider the tires the better the traction is, in snow conditions, the wider the tire, the more slippage you will experience. Thus, it is recommended to purchase small rims (for bigger wheel well gap), with smaller width - for less slippage surface.

 

Define lousy? You're dealing with a 250+hp/ft-lb tq vehicle driving two wheels. If you use some good judgement, and feather the throttle when appropriate, with snow tires this car will do just fine unless we're talking about living somewhere with massive hills to climb daily. My co-worker took is 2005 coupe out on the ice for a winter driving event and loved it. His times were generally 30-45 sec slower than the audi quattro vehicles at the event, but that's entirely due to launching with two wheels on ice vs. 4 wheels.

The only other issue with the G in snow is ground clearance of around 5 1/2 inches. If you have more snow on the ground than you have of ground clearance, awd, rwd, fwd, none of that is going to make a significant difference when the entire bottom of your vehicle is dragging on snow.

If you think the previous gen G is lousy in the snow, my guess is you'll think the '07s are just as lousy. However, it either means you need better snow tires, or you need to take a winter driving class.