Are you happy with your RX-8 as a winter (snow) car?
 

I'm in the process of looking for a new winter car. I've driven a lot of cars trying to decide what I want. I think I've finally narrowed it down to either an RX-8 or an Audi TT.

The Mazda dealer near me does not have an RX-8 with winter tires for me to drive so I'm having a hard time making a good comparison between the two cars. As a result, I'd like to see how happy you are with your RX-8 as a winter/snow car. Do you love it or wish you had something else to drive? If you hate it, did you bother to put snow tires on?

As some background information, I live in Minnesota. Half the year the roads are salted, nasty, and snowy. I finally cracked and had to get something fun to drive during the bad half of the year. For the couple really bad days per year, I'll steal my wife's Subaru for the day. This car will be my beater car so don't suggest that I drive an old Camry. Camrys are not fun.

If you want your winter car to be a RX-8 or Audi TT, what's your summer car?!

Yeah I'd say it's a pretty solid winter car. While it's an incredibly predictable car in the dry, I've felt the car is a bit twitchy in low grip rain conditions compared to my old RX-7 or say a lousy FWD vehicle, and the same seems to be true in the snow/ice. I hate the stability/traction control in better conditions, but I tried leaving the stability control on in snow/ice and it's actually quite good and makes the car very easy to drive. I have Michelin X-Ice tires on the car. All season tire = No season tires (at least for areas that experience true winter conditions)

I like it OK. I'm in sixth winter with the car. I have driven it in pretty heavy snow both here and in Canada. With 4 good snow tires, the car does OK for a rear wheel drive car. The Limited Slip Diff helps a lot with traction, and I have not gotten stuck once. The neutral weight balance makes handling fine. I have a base without traction control so I can't comment on that. I would say that the wide tires make traction a little more precarious in snow than other cars that I have driven, but all in all, it did OK. I've never driven a TT so can't comment. Good luck on your choice. Do not try to drive an 8 on Summer only tires. It does not work.

To make the RX8 a semi-respectable winter car, you need dedicated snow tires.
Not "ultra high performance all season tires".
Not 2 winter tires on the rear wheels.
I'm talking about DEDICATED snow tires on all 4 wheels.

Anything but that makes the car reckless to drive in the snow/ice.

I'm driving mine for the first winter this year, and it's my first RWD winter as well, on winter tires (no choice up here, heh). At first it was a little squirrely, the tail would slide at low speed (and low speed only, apparently), which made me apprehensive about driving it at speed, but I've gotten used to the car and though it's not on rails, it's quite predictable, even fun. In snow deeper than say 8-10cm, it's a challenge to keep it where you want it to be, but the good news is it doesn't understeer in a turn, it just sort of slides and wobbles while keeping the correct general direction of motion. It's not a real winter car, but if you know what you're doing and have the ability to choose not to take the car out, you'll be good :)

And winter tires, obviously..

The RX-8, with dedicated winter tires and a responsible, reasonably skilled driver, is a perfectly adequate snow car.

That said, I wouldn't even think of buying one as a "winter (snow) car." There's absolutely no comparison between the RX-8, properly shod and driven, in the snow, and an AWD car, properly shod and driven, in the snow. None.

We drove ours in the winter for five winters, but we bought it as a fun daily driver, not as a winter car. It snows for real in Minnesota; get a real snow car.

I have an 04 and I am driving it for its first winter in Minnesota. It's about -10f out right now and I have the stock tires on it. Everything creaks and it takes about 20 minutes for the heat to get warm. I don't recommend it as a winter car, but it's all I have right now.

I have a Crossfire SRT-6, Alfa Romeo GTV, and a Ferrari 308. I'd recommend the SRT-6 to any car people. It is as good as anything I've driven.

Driven in winter since 2004, Winter tires are an absolute must. I've found that a 50lb bag of sand in the trunk give you a much better feel of traction and stability, removes that initial bit of twitchyness. If you run into snow over about 5 or 6 inches you may start to have problems as the bottom of the car will start to bottom out and the tire loose traction. Really depends are what you have to drive through City/Suburbs/Highway...

No problem's here, and I live in the mountain area of PA, and I've been running nankang's for the past two winter's lol. I almost bought a wrecked 1990 F40 (I believe it's the right year) once, until I got a price on the parts I needed. If you don't find what your looking for, there are other threads with info on this also:eyetwitch.

You can drive my car. I have a 2004 manual/base with performance snows. I am in Eden Prairie on weekdays and in Maple Grove evenings and weekends.

There are other idiosyncracies besides traction, but I love trying to resolve them with the help of people who have had them longer (got mine in Oct 2009 and plan to take it to Brainerd in May.)

One idiosyncracy is they don't warm up enough in winter and get to hot in summer. Since it is my daily driver, the soln(s) has to work with both problems. So far I have blocked the two oil coolers, but that hasn't been enough to get the condensation out.

If you are buying new, read up on Premix. I would love to be starting from scratch with an RX-8 use all the good advice I have learned here!

I live in Montreal and got a Subaru for winter. I'm surprised you are still looking at something else, as you drove your wife's Subby in snow. You will be able to kick the tail in the Subby, even if it's AWD. I guess you already thought about this but this is my advice ;)

On a side note, I see more TTs in winter than RX8s but then again I see more TTs in summer too... Also, the TT is quattro while the RX8 is a standard RWD.

I agree. I would probably put Blizzaks on.

I love the Subaru as being functional. It drives at least as well as a Cayenne, but it isn't much to look at.

Thanks for the offer! I just sent you a PM with contact info for me. I'm in Plymouth so I'm very close. For your help, I'll offer you a drive in my 308 once it is warm and I have the engine back in.

i had an audi s4 before my rx8 and i can say securely that an audi will make a far better winter car. a tt would be awesome in winter

however, the rx8 with a good set of snow tires makes a more than decent winter car. it will bottom out pretty quick when the snow gets deeper, but traction, steering, and braking are all fine.

my most major complaint is that it NEVER warms up in winter, at least not toasty hot, and the heated seats suck so very badly. if you can put up with these things, and have a plug-in for it, then you'll do fine

edit: 1st post!

That's interesting how many people complain about it not warming up. It sounds like the air cooled Porsche people complaining about their cars.

Is the problem that the engine never comes up to temp so that you are at risk for excess wear, or is it just a poor heater, or both?

Mine warms up just fine, might take a little longer when it's about 10*F out, but still warms up to were it's supposed to be. I think this might be getting confused with the foam inside where the oil goes etc..., but a catch can usually stops it, well at least in mine it did. I monitor mine with a scangauge if you was wondering.

mine warms up as well, -20*F yesterday morning and it took about 15-20 min for the temp gauge to ping off the bottom though. Second the uber suck on the seat warmers though...although i suspect in another 4k miles when my warranty goes out they will find out why they don't work very well.

ganseg, thanks for the test drive!

It was great meeting you! Let me know what you do.

Hey Chipkent! What were your impressions of it in snow? It would be interesting to hear the opinion of someone shopping.

I love driving mine in the snow! As long as it's not more than 4 or 5". I've got Wintersports on stock 18's and a sand bag in the back. It's really starting to piss me off that we keep getting dumped on with 7 and 8" every week though. I'll have an old 4x4 truck before next winter.

I think the RX-8 drives fantastic. It has a much better feel than the 911s I tried and is more comfortable than the Maseratis for someone with wide shoulders. The stability and traction control on the summer tire car I test drove saved my butt a few times on the ice. They turned would be crashes into nice drifts by keeping the back end from coming around.

Ganseg's car had snow tires but none of the driving aids. On the few very slick ice spots, it would slide, but so does the subaru. On all of the areas other than the really bad ice, you couldn't even tell that you were driving on winter muck because the car stuck to the road. The one negative of the drive was a grapefruit sized ice chunk in the road. I thought the car would easily get over it. I was wrong. You could hear it whack the front of the car and grind until it got broken up (sorry!). The lesson learned is to use the excellent handling to dodge the ice blobs. I'm going to keep a close eye on today's snow to see how much gets built up on the roads during the day.

One review I read described the car as being for people that want Lotus to make a station wagon. I think this is right. The car handles very similar to my Ferrari 308, and in both you have to keep the revs up or you get no power. Unlike the 308, I expect the RX-8 to be much more reliable.

Overall, I'm very positive on the car. For winter driving, good tires are necessary, the stability controls seem to be a positive, and dodge all ice blobs.