Attention: if you drive your 8 in the snow...
 

so i live in Cincinnati, and over the last week, we got 23 inches of snow... a record for the area. Anyway I've been driving my 8 around as it is my only car, and until today, i had no issues. On the way to work this morning, i heard something on the bottom of my car dragging the ground. At first i thought it was just some ice and snow stuck to the car, but it kept getting worse and worse. when i finally arrived at work and parked in the garage, here is what i saw. The piece of ice is so big that it was impossible for me to get it out of there. I was just now. after having sat in a warm parking garage for 4 hours, able to break it free, but the plastic is still almost touching the ground and is missing clips and screws.

from what i can tell, the snow gets into the lower grill and just sits there and compacts into basically ice. Then after there is so much in there, the under-body guard will break free of the bottom of the bumper as you can see in the pictures. The first picture shows the snow being pushed into the grill, the rest show the resulting block of ice.

So! A heads up to everyone who isn't fortunate enough (or smart enough) to own another vehicle. You will need to clean the snow from the bottom grill when done driving or this could happen to you.

From those pics, it looks like the car is lowered and left like that for winter? If so, that's not exactly smart.....should be stock height or raised even for winter time to prevent this.

I could be wrong but that looks low, quite a bit so more than stock.

Bummer! Hope it is an easy fix.

Ouch.. Good luck on the fix! I'm over in DE, we got slammed with snow, too. but I dont drive the 8 around in the winter.

yes the car is sitting on sprints and i wasn't about to change it back to stock and pay for an alignment just to repeat that process in the spring

i know, its prolly my own fault, but this is more of a heads up for others

I live in Cincinnati are too. The snow has been so deep that the 1 or 2 inches you lowered the car would not have made a difference. Sooo...

You should be able to get new screws from Kings Mazda but you may have a problem with clips. I replaced my factory bumper with a Mazdaspeed knockoff so I have had the front bumper off several times. If you have real damage, I would recommend taking the front bumper off to make the repairs. It will take much less time!

Yeah, that really sucks. I know we're getting hammered with snow in NE Ohio also (more so than usual) I drove my 8 last winter, but have a Bronco to drive this winter.

I don't think its feasible to raise and lower the ride height based on the season and the rare chance of record setting snowfall. I would just leave it until Mid March and then replace it then.

You do have to be real careful of stuff like that happened. I was driving in an ice storm last November which just built ice up on everything. I was actually worried about potentially overheating if the snow blocked and insulated all of the airflow to the radiator and oil coolers... but I remember having to hammer the ice out with my ice scraper.

The 8 is more than plenty capable in the winter... until the snow just gets too deep.

You mean like this???

http://audiogearlab.com/rx8/wp-conte...w-stopper1.jpg


http://audiogearlab.com/rx8/wp-conte...w-stopper2.jpg


http://audiogearlab.com/rx8/wp-conte...w-stopper3.jpg


http://audiogearlab.com/rx8/wp-conte...w-stopper4.jpg


http://audiogearlab.com/rx8/wp-conte...w-stopper5.jpg


http://audiogearlab.com/rx8/wp-conte...w-stopper6.jpg

Yes. . . if your front air dam is acting as a snow plow, its time to call for a ride.

This started happening to me as well, not nearly as bad though as I realized it was starting to crack from being flooded with icy snow and constantly cleared it out whenever it was starting to build up again.

would the oil cooler guards help stop some of the snow build up?

In my experience, no... I have both the Racing Beat Oil cooler guards and Radiator Guard... the snow/ice froze at the initial inlet, not on the coolers themselves.

easy solve. if there is enough snow where you need to put boots on... dont drive =)

Thats why Im a firm believer that if you want a sport car , you should have a beater on the side .

Driven my car every winter with Dunlop Winter Sport M3 tires on the stock wheels, and never had a problem. Hell I even go skiing just about every weekend, and the car is parked in deep snow, and I've never spun out or gotten stuck. Just need to be careful with stuff like this, and this sort of thing happened to me on the drive up to the Adirondacks the other weekend. Just need to stop at some intervals and clear the ice off.

A beater might help, but having a beater is like not having sex with your girlfriend so she'll be "less used" for the next guy. :naughty:

I LOVE the analogy! LMAO!

I agree... I drove my 8 last winter and bought a beater for this winter... The reason?

1. So I could work on my 8 and have it torn apart for days on end and still have transportation.
2. So I could further mod my 8 without worry of how its going to handle in the snow, mainly, lower it and stiffen up the suspension. The money I sold my snow tires and wheels for went right into dedicated autocross wheels.

Its really just a matter of how you do "use" the car.

Great minds think alike

I live in Montreal, although we haven't had crazy snow this year... I haven't had any problems with my RX8 this winter so far. The same problem happened to me too with the snow in the grill (I forced my way out of my driveway a bit) and I just dug out the snow and that was that. I guess I was fortunate enough to not have my whole shroud ripped apart. My 8 is stock height though. That problem would have most likely happened to any other lowered vehicle in those conditions.

I love my 8 in the snow... gonna miss sliding her butt out from stops to get around corners when the spring comes :p

I work in Cleveland and twice a week in a south suburb called Parma.
With a 48 mile commute one way each day and the snow this year has
been the worst I can remember since 1978. Anyway, I have my old car
to drive mostly on snow days, BUT it's lower to the ground than my RX8!
So on real bad days like today I drive the "8". My first stop on the way home
is the car wash so I can hose out the snow in the oil coolers!!!!
And thank God for snow tires! The RX-8 is not to bad in the snow if you have the
right rubber.

Poor 8's.

Do you ever poke your head into the Cleveland/Akron 8 owners club thread? We have a pretty active group of locals if you feel like coming to hang out. We're all planning to go to the autoshow next saturday.

Is that blue car in the driveway a Z?

Looks like a Beetle to me. :)

http://audiogearlab.com/rx8/wp-conte...w-stopper2.jpg

Other than ride height issue, is there any reliability problem with the 8 in so much snow and freezing weather?