Whoa. 1st day of driving in real Winter Conditions (Calgary)
 

This morning was my 1st attempt at driving in real winter conditions with the RX8 and my snow tires.

Funny thing is, I was on my way to the dealership to drop the car off to get the cold start checked out as well. The car did start, but the RPM spiked to 3500+ for about 10-15 secs...kinda wierd.


Anyhow, all I can say is..."Whoa."

I felt the back end fish tail 3-4 times in stop-and-go traffic (not dramatically but noticable), that was pretty scary. I was only at crawling speeds.
I thought the winter tires would eliminate that for the most part, but I guess that's not the case.

-Left my house at 6:45 am only to be stuck in bumper to bumper traffic on Deerfoot for 50 mins - that was fun.
-Felt a couple of small rocks hit my car - nothing serious.
-Heater and seat warmer worked fine, but it took a while to get going.
-Overall traction seemed decent, but the fish-tailing has shook my confidence.

Does anyone else use sand bags in the trunk?
I have a 100 lbs. sandbag I was gonna throw in the trunk. Good idea??

I'd go for the sandbags...I don't drive an RX-8 so I have no idea how bad it is, but my dad always used to use sand in his mustang and it worked for him.

Whoa, DON'T use sandbags. They add more weight to the tail end, thus giving it more mass, and making it FAR more difficult to keep in line.


What sort of snow tires do you have? And how much snow was on the roads?

:dunno:

at least you weren't stuck on an uphill with half mile of cars waiting on you :o:

Yeah, don't use sandbags. The car has a great weight balance for a reason.

- Do you have DSC/TCS?
- What tires?? This is the most important thing.

Same here! I put 18" Blizzaks on since I wanted to keep the 18's as winter rims and get 19" for summer next year...retrospective that might not have been the smartest idea tho some guys told me there isn't that much difference between 17" or 18"....

Anyway, I fishtail too and have trouble getting up a ramp if it's icey...but i am trying to drive like it's winter and that seems to help. Donuts are fun tho....just not in the traffic!

Also I am used to AWD Volvo's and maybe i just need to adjust to RWD still... Still most fun driving in winter I have ever had since moving to Canada

Admiral ... don't worry buddy. That's all normal. As for the RPM spiking, that's all part of the PCM keeping the engine warm and operational.

As for fishtailing during the start, that's to be expected at times as well especially if you add a little gas on the start. But it's all good with traction. Sometimes after hockey, I forget and leave my equipment in the trunk (I'm a goalie so my stuff weighs alot especially after a game) and find that it definitely throws off driving a bit.

Might wanna brush up on emergency driving just in case.

:stickpoke

Have any of you actually driven a RWD car before in the winter? This car is freak'n easy to drive in the winter. So what if the back end fishtails a bit. Turn off the DSC and practice hanging out the back end on some quiet street. I swear FWD has made a generation of crappy winter drivers. :Eyecrazy:

We got quite a dump of snow...I dunno 3-5 inches, guys?

Anyways, my winter tires are: Toyo Garits HT 215/17/55
The same one that Gord guy has and many others on here.
Yes, I do have the DSC.

....I guess I'll leave the sandbag in the storage room. The verdict seems to be not a good idea.

Yeah rotten, I've never owned a RWD, so I guess I fall into that category for crappy FWD driivers. The fish-tailing just scared me cuz I wasn't acclerating fast at all.

go find an empty parking lot at night turn of the DSC and traction control and go experiment. The car has great balance for when the rear end tips out. It is very predictable and easy to find the limit.

RWD is tricky in the wet/slippery stuff if you've never driven it before. Heck, even if you go nuts in the dry, it's a completely different technique then FWD to catch before you go splat. Fishtailing is easy - don't touch the steering wheel (the fronts are still pointing forwards) and back off the torque. In fact, the less torque, the better. Start off in 2nd if you're worried about traction, or even third if you can get her moving from a rolling start. Between TCS and LSD, you should be tracking more or less straight.

FWD in the winter is a blast; I think FWD actually makes you a better winter driver, since when you lose grip, and you will, you will plow, and you instinctively back off. Try backing off when you start plowing, say, with a mid-engine car, and say hello to SpinLand.

yah do the parking lot thing, the first year I had my 240SX on the first snow fall I spun 3 times into 2 lanes of oncoming traffic, after that I knew I need to know how to control it, so that night I went to a parking lot at 2am and praticed for about an hour, it doesnt take long, at the end of the hour I was having a blast and could drift figure eights through the lamp posts and not even worry about hitting them. Start with short slow drifts and slowly build yourself up to higher speed longer drifts, also try to get your self in trouble then try to regain control see what your able to recover from and what you cant

but be carefull and know your limits, when i was drifting around another winter, just having some fun, another car came in and started to try and do what I was doing and ran pretty hard into a hard packed snow pile, his mistake was going hard right away and not building up speed slowly

I see it the other way....RWD makes you a better driver because there is more of a learning curve on how to control your car...FWD is like those "...For Dummies" books

FWD..Winter driving for Dummies". :wink2:

You can have so much more fun with a RWD in the winter and you don't need the parking brake to help get the back end around.

Hmm. It depends.

Do the following: take a new driver, any new driver, give them lots of wide open space on a snow-covered parking lot and a decent FWD handling car and a decent RWD handling car, and give them a course to drive through as fast as they can. FWD is inherently easier to learn to drive because of the balancing setup. RWD, although it is more *fun*, is trickier to learn (but arguably more interesting). You could probably end up going faster through the course in RWD set up, but you'd have to take more than a few passes at the course before you'd see a difference.

That being said, you only really get one chance at bailing from a low friction/slide situation.

You're probably used to RWD; I learned on FWD, but I find RWD much easier to lean through corners, since plowing isn't as much of an issue at the limit - oversteer is easier to dial out using the throttle since at least you still ought to have steerage.

Admiral, I would also add: don't get too concerned about the fishtailing as the DSC is very good. I was in Calgary for 4 years and the last few we lived in Crestmont . . . not sure if you have been up there, but the sharp corner and hill do not get anything close to "immediate" plow treatment. The best way for me to get up that hill with my 17" Toyos was to pin it and let the traction take me up with a little squirming. Honestly, I tried various amounts of throttle and the best was pinned with traction constantly coming on and off until I reached an acceptable safe speed. Follow Rotten and other's advice and find a parking lot and try it out. While it may be a little unsettling at first before you know it you will be intentionally kicking the back out! I am another that says no to the sandbag, although I do think it may help for the intial start from a dead stop.

Later

yah I agree RWD makes you a better driver, it teaches you car control, you can get snap oversteer in a FWD car too and its usually not when you want it possibily when you swerve to avoid something, or get into an accident, now who do you think would be petter prepared to handle a situation like that

Snap oversteer in FWD?

I can only think of two relatively reasonable scenarios in FWD that can give you oversteer, but not 'snap' oversteer. RWD (think S2000), sure. MR, sure. Not FWD. FWD is designed not to oversteer - it's almost the whole point.

I do not have a lot of winter driving experience in the 8 either. i pretty much parked it last winter. i do have the GT with the Pilot Alpine's.

First time out this winter, I noticed that the car does fishtail a bit when you go around a corner. Definitely rattled me at the time.

Does the car perform well on snow packed highways with winter tires on?

I'm not too concerned about a little back end swing out going around corners at slow speeds (seems to recover itself pretty quickly), but I worried about highway driving, as I have to use the QEW tonight (and we just got dumped on with 10 cm in the GTA).

Any help would be great.

Ummm...ok. This is the first time I've ever heard anyone with this opinion. Where do you live? I'm guessing some place that doesn't get too much snow...

I've driven up to Rockies to go snowboarding a bunch of times last winter with no problems...passed SUVs that were in the ditch.

As long as you have good winter tires (and DSC/TCS helps), you'll be fine. I've hit some fairly high speeds on the highway with the winters on and the car never felt twitchy or anything.

Sure, snap oversteer in FWD. If you exclude throttle-induced power oversteer, any drivetrain configuration can be set up to oversteer - it's a function of weight distribution and especially weight transfer, along with suspension setup. For example, the Integra Type R was set up for pretty neutral handling, and could be induced to snap oversteer, for example when cornering at the limit of adhesion and the throttle is lifted suddenly. You get sudden weight transfer from the rear to front wheels, the rear wheels are suddenly exceeding their lateral grip limits, and instant (snap) oversteer. The original Mini Cooper could also have snap oversteer.

Your S2000 example is another car that proves the point - it typically encounters snap oversteer when the throttle is suddenly lifted when cornering hard. Not all RWD cars share this trait, it's a function of the S2K suspension characteristics under sudden weight transfer, not which wheels are driving it.

Hmm.

You have to admit, however, that the ITR isn't set up with the typical handling characteristics of FWD. The Mini Cooper was nutty light, which made it fun and chuckable in the dry. My point is that for, say, the best selling FWD models such as the Civic, Accord, etc., that stock suspension set up is not going to give you snap oversteer.

Go ahead - just try and snap oversteer a Kia Spectra with stock suspension. Sure, it can be done, it's just very, very difficult. The original S2K, however, was very easy to snap oversteer on account of which tires are getting the power.

However, your point on the suspension set up is well taken. I would point out that snap oversteer in AWD is something that is definitely harder to bring out, so I'm not sure that I agree that which wheels are being driven is not an important factor.

This is also my first winter with the 8 and first RWD in a very long time. Driving to work this morning wasn't too bad ... mostly icy roads and small amount of snow. Definitely fishtailed a lot. But after work there was much more snow and ice too and it was a bit hair-raising. The car stops fine, sometimes hard to get started but I'm easing up on the throttle and letting DSC do it's thing. Just need to get the right touch, I think. I was considering extra weight in the back but reading more and more that say don't do it. My biggest concern is the xmas drive from London to Ottawa on the 401. Some years it's dry and others it's a gamble. I have new blizzaks but 18".

I also noticed that it seems to always fishtail to the right. Is there any reason for that of just that the road is slightly arched that way?

Good luck everyone.

Just start in second gear