Hi, I live in Indiana and the snow is coming more often lately. I'm going to go back to my country in 2 weeks, that's why I decided to keep using stock tires. But last nite it was pretty scary. I run about 15-20 mph on the straight road, since the road is covered by snow, I almost forgot there is a hump on the road. I tried to slow down by pushing the break, I didn't push the break that hard (ABS didn't even kicked in), I was in 2nd gear at that time. Rite after I push the brake (my steering was in straight direction), I suddenly got oversteer and swerve to the right before the hump. I did manage to counter steer it and I was so damn lucky there was no car on my right side. I felt as if the brake didn't balance on the rear wheel which drive the car. Now I'm thinking to get snow tires rather than wrecking my car. Did you guys ever experience the same thing?

 

I've taken two drives in my RX-8 with snow on the ground in Michigan, and, no more. Never again until I get a set of Dunlop SP Winter M3s.

I'm hoping the snow tires do the trick, because my heart can't take another mile on roads with any ice or snow with the stock tires.

As for your braking question, it sounds as if the *** of your car broke loose, and DSC was not able to save you.

I'm pretty bummed after my two snow excursions with the RX-8. Someone at Discount Tire whom I've known for a while told me the snow tires (Dunlop M3s) really will make the RX-8 much easier and safer to drive, and that the Rx-8 does better than most rear wheel drive cars in the snow because of 50/50 weight distribution.

I'm truly hoping he's right. Otherwise, I'll have to buy a winter-time car, which is a giant and expensive pain in the ***.

 

Hi.

Your stock tires are SUMMER tires. They have ZERO snow or ice capability (that all-seasons and winters have). The tread is not designed to compress snow, only to force water out.

Don't drive your RX-8 in the snow or ice on stock tires. Take the cab.

What you experienced is the effect of really poor traction. When you pushed the brakes, the car dipped forward, transferring weight from rear to front. This, in addition to the slowing/locking/unlocking (ABS probably kicking in for you) wheels, caused the rear wheels to get unloaded and completely loose traction. Your front wheels, on the other hand, got loaded more and bit a little more into the snow. The result == you pivoted around the front.

It seems like the RWD is easy to blame here, but you can get into the exactly same situation in a FWD car, given the same poor traction.

For example, I was a passenger in a FWD Dodge Interpid last winter, when we drove at about 20-30mph over a bridge. Turns out the bridge iced over, while the rest of the road didn't. The driver hit the brakes (to slow down on the ice), and bam, the rear end got ahead of us, and the car spun about 200 degrees. This was on a FWD car in crappy all-season tires on ice (that is, poor traction).

 

LSD doesn't work without power down to the turning axle, and TCS works only if you have traction (ABS doesn't work in zero traction conditions). It's splat time, otherwise.

 

Not to nitpick but:

break = separate into pieces, fail to observe, etc
brake = device for slowing or stopping a moving vehicle

Anyway, as others pointed out the behavior you described is normal for cars driven on snow with Summer tires (a friend of mine did a couple 360s last year in his S2000 on its stock tires).

 

To reiterate the already over-iterated point, there is no predictability whatsoever in the behavior of your RX-8 on snow without proper tires.

Those summer tires are for dry, warm, pavement only. I found they were largely useless even on DRY, bare pavement when the temps got below 40 degrees F ...

If you don't want to/can't afford to have a fully-dedicated set of winter shoes for your car, go with a good set of all-seasons. I switched my OEM tires to Pirelli PZeroNero M+S tires. I feel like the dry/warm handling is improved, AND it functions OK in the snow. Not as good as dedicated winter tires but enough to get me home on a snowy day.

 

And with the nice little ice storm we had here last night, snow tires are a huge plus. I was waiting around on a few people a bit ago, and was watching traffic go over this bridge in front of me. I was amazed at how everyone was driving... Even saw some brakes lock up. But, unless I forced the car to do something, it was 100% stable. No slipping on acceleration, no ABS when I stopped. It's a nice, secure feeling.

 

SNOW TIRES!!!!!!!!!!! there are thousands of messages on this!!!

I have driven my 8 in six inches of snow with a layer of ice underneath - and it did as well as any other car front-wheel drive car I have owned - but that was with SNOW TIRES!!!

 

huh? snow tires? for driving in the snow? there's information on this forum about snow tires?