IMHO, the rest of us have more to worry about than Canadians and Alaskans. When I lived in upstate New York and New England, I think I once had snow tires but mostly I just ran regular summer tires. If it's cold, traction is good.

The problem in places like the mid-Atlantic states is that it does not get that cold, and when it snows it's usually a warm slippery snow.

Also, don't forget that the nature of this kind of forum is that every odd thought gets magnified into a BFD for the sake of conversation.

Ken

 

You were extremely lucky. The OEM tires are simply NOT designed to be driven in any snow whatsoever. Yes, it's possible to walk on ice and snow wearing smooth-soled leather dress loafers and not wind up on your ***—but it's not advisable.

 

Whoah, that's a doable thing....

 

Well that was a stupid thing to do. You obviously don't have much experience driving your 8 in the snow. One good experience doesn't mean much.


Lpr, you made a good choice.

 

Yes, it does snow significantly in many parts of the US.





Narrowly surviving scary drives on snowy mountain roads isn't a ringing endorsement. Don't try this at home

Many owners, who are used to driving in snow, report the RX-8 is very treacherous in even small amounts of snow with stock tires.

 

I would like to see you drive an 8 in 12" of snow. Here in Utah (hundreds of miles south of Canada), many places easily get over 1m of snow (many times in a single week). Perhaps you should read up on U.S. climate.

Have you ever driven on packed snow? It is very dangerous even in a 4wd car. The 8 with stock tires is close to impossible. Believe me, ive tried.

I now have snow tires and its night and day. I've been able to drive in the snow without problems.

I live about 10 minutes away from Park City. Guess how much snow they recieved in just two months (november and december)? over 20 feet (over 6m)

Okay, i guess i just don't understand how some guy living in a warm climate thats driven up the mountain on a CLEARED road and was able to drive a short distance on a level parking lot with a small amount of snow becomes an expert on snow driving.

i'll try and relax now

 

According to that map I'm anywhere between 12.1-36.0 inches.. damn! Of course, that's not all at once. More like, 38 snow falls. I ordered the tires, now I just can't find wheels. I picked out the cheapest 18" wheels on tire rack.com but they're out of stock. =( Just going to have to keep trying. I guess if worse comes to worst I'll just have to mount them on the stock rims. Which I know is bad to do because the tire and wheel could both be damaged and I'll just have to swap them again in a few months to put the summer tires back on. Argghhh

 

Try discounttiredirect.com I got a set of all season falkens for like 550 shipped for my stock wheel, due to not wanting to buy 2 sets of tires at the moment and I ran them in the snow twice and they work great and we had about 6 to 10 inches. They also worked well in the summer when I had them instaled, way better then the stock potenza. just some info

 

Here's some more useful advice:

Look on both the Mazda 3 and Mazda 6 boards and try to find a set of stock wheels for this car that someone is selling. I picked up a set of M3 wheels with 205/50/17 winter tires (that went on my Legacy GT) for $470. These both had about 1500 mi on them. I was going to pay $600 just for those tires alone. So, I scored either free wheels or free winter tires.

Just look around, you'll find some cheap stock 17's for winter. Then pick up for yourself the cheapest performance winter you can get.

If you find a set of M6 wheels with the stock A/S rubber, I believe those tires are the right 17 in size, and you can definately get by in your area (sounds like) with these.

You might pay as much as $600 for a set of M6 with tires that are nearly new.

This is the only web club besides miata.net where a lot of peeps dont dump their stockers as soon as they can. It baffles me because they buy much cheaper wheels than they are selling. To each his own, I guess.

BTW, the new miata wheels (17) Also fit our cars, but miata owners by and large are too smart to let their stock wheels go for dirt cheap =)

Good luck. Any summer only tire, and many High perf. A/S tires really are downright dangerous in the snow, and offer very little traction in the dry at temperatures below 30 F. If you hit a patch of ice, you are a passenger. Forget about it and pray you dont hit something hard, becuase you WILL NOT stop until the ice patch ends.

 

Everyone keeps recommending I look for 17s... The wheels on there now are 18". I thought 17" wouldn't fit the brakes?

 

SOME 17" will not fit, most will. If you deal with places like Tire Rack they will know which ones fit. You can also look in this thread.
https://www.rx8club.com/series-i-wheels-tires-brakes-suspension-55/winter-wheel-tire-pics-installed-28442/

 

Also, I recommend calling TireRack's 800 number because sometimes their website is a little out-of-date. I was able to get a set of ASA JH3 17" wheels for $119/ea shipped next-day when their website said they didn't have any in stock and the next-cheapest option was probably $139 (and is currently $199) shipped from Delaware 2-day.

Glad I got them when I did, because right now it looks like the cheapest option you're going to find on tirerack is with 18" wheels and Pirellis, priced at nearly $1300 for 4 wheels, before shipping costs.

 

Bah, I have done this many times. I decided to buy some snow chains at some point, but I didn't use them much. So you say this was stupid ?

That was the whole point in saying "Granted, we here in Greece don't get too much snow...." In any case, it's clear to me that you shouldn't even try to drive a "normal" car anyway when you are knee-deep in snow...

Anyways, I'm talking out of my a$$ here, so I'll stop now....

 

I got the first real big test of the snow tires last night. It snowed over 1'. The roads were completely packed. With the DSC on, there was absolutely no problems. I had grip the whole time and could easily stop. There were people off the road everywhere too I'm using 17" wheels with Dunlop Winter Sport 3D tires.

Hey Ace, how did you manage to buy an RX-8 in greece?. I didn't think they sold them in developing countries. Thats pretty cool.

 

Have you considered studs for winter - what are the regs in your area

 

Been there, shared your pain - my big hate was driving from Provo to Salt Lake and running into black ice at point of the mountain....You are driving up around Parkfield? Man, even at 5 mph packed snow is evil - especially in the early mornings and when it starts to go deep slushy

 

Studded tires are illegal in just about every state. Unless you live in an area that is never plowed and there is always snow on the ground in the winter it would be a really bad idea.

 

My advice, and it seems like most would agree would be to go to an all-season tire. I have been looking for new tires for a couple of months now, and I finally decided on the Bridgestone Potenza 960 A/S Pole Positons. They are $189/per tire from Bridgestone and $173/per tire from tirerack right now. They have been receiving great reviews for wet and dry traction, and they have not really had anyone rate them for snow yet because they are a fairly new tire and most people have not had the chance to drive them in snow yet. They are claimed to be able to handle light snow. So, it seems these may be a good option based on the possible conditions you descirbed or at least tires with a similar rating. Someone has rated these on tirerack for light snow and gave them an 8.0 out of 10. So that shows promise. I am waiting for mine to come in, so I can not yet give my complete opinion, but based on the ratings and design of the tire, they seem to be a good deal.

 

The problem with all seasons in winter is that they can be quite good in the first season, but then after heat cycling in the summer, the rubber ends up too hard to work well, particularly on ice.

If you just have cold dry weather mostly and rarely see snow, and rarely see ice, then A/S tires can work well. However if you drive a lot in snow and ice, then you really are better off with dedicated winters.

 

OEM tires = death in snow.


RIP.

 

In the three years I've owned this car, I've never needed snow tires. If you live in a place where you get a lot of snow, you might need them, but in MD and VA, I can't imagine why you'd buy them. The only time I had a problem was the first year I had it and my stupid apartment complex didn't plow our parking lot, and I couldn't get out for three days. I've now got Pirelli P-Zero Neros on it (and they are quite awesome tires, if I do say so myself, and I like them better than the stock Potenzas I had), and the few times I've had to drive while it's snowing, it was fine as long as I didn't drive like a maniac.