It's cold here, 10 F 6 AM. 8 is not my daily car. Snow on the ground, but dry roads. Have been sneaking rides more and more in my 8 during dry weather and watching for/??? not sure what??? Car to fall off the road maybe??

Yea the tires go thump thump a short time.

So I guess I don't undertsnad, I thought cold temps would turn our tires to - I don't know? ....teflon maybe.... Molecular phase change and all that. All I find is it seems to take maybe 5 miles to reach normal on the temp guage, and that gives the tires a moment to warm up, but after that...

it's just another beautiful day in my 8 . !! Am I missing the giant hole in the handling response, tire grip, or whatever, cause it seems to go at least as good as it did in the summer.

Any other people happy in the cold (and dry)? In fact how many thinks the 8 LIKES the cold?? Am I the only one that feels two distinct surge ahead points in the race from 3K to 9K? I don't sae value in snow tires in cold weather, if I don't drive in the snow.

Is this right or wrong?

In my Wisconsin experience, the tires don't have near the traction cold than they do warm. Which makes perfect since. Cold tires never grip as well as warm. If you don't notice it, great. Just be careful if you decide to really push the car in the cold.

I was pretty worried when I noticed a few nights back that the roads had gotten wet on me and the temp was below 32F. The reflection of the lights on the road was just freaking me out, but the OEM tires never gave me a problem. Still, I was glad to get my winter tires on the car this weekend. The car stops so promptly that I can imagine what would happen if the tires decided to slide on ice all at once -- you'd go like a hockey puck. I also think the summer tires may wear unreasonably fast in the very cold weather.

Be careful people...

Tragic RX-8 Crash (http://forums.clubsi.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB4&Number=3412855&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1)

Before I put my 8 away for the winter, I drove it a few times at or below freezing on the stock tires.
They are worthless IMO at anything below about 3 or 4 degrees Celcius.
Leaving stop lights at an RPM which would be easing away in the warm resulted in massive wheelspin and much flashing of the TCS lights in the cold.
Pushed a little bit once just to get a feel for what it would do and it got very sideways.... even driving slowly across a parking lot, every time I hit an icy patch the TCS light would start blinking.

Just my experience.

In my experience the OEM tires aren't particularly dangerous in the cold so long as you're on dry pavement and aren't pushing the car's handling to the limit. If you don't plan to ever drive it in the snow or when there's even a risk of snow, snow tires would probably be a waste for you.

I wouldn't want to be stuck in the OEM tires if bad weather kicked up all sudden like though. They're worse than useless in snow/ice.