RUmble

I have two questions, sort of. I've never owned a RWD car before, so I was wondering how it performs in adverse weather conditions like rain, heavy rain, snow, compared to FWD cars. If it's pouring rain, should I just not drive? And if it's just a little bit of snow, are snow tires a necessity?

And the second question would be, how does the RX8 compare to other RWD cars?

Thanks!

Speed_D

If you have DSC you won't have any problems in the rain. You WILL NEED SNOWS for the winter. Don't even try driving on the stock tires in the winter.

expo1

Only taking adverse weather in to account almost all FWD cars will perform better than a RX-8. This is due to the heaviest part o the car being right over the drive wheels. BUT since the 8’s have a 50/50 weight distribution it is not bad as RWD cars go. Snow / Ice is another mater all together as the OEM tires are not designed for harsh winter driving. The stock tires are in fact dangerous on snow/ice. Owners that have switched to winter tires have posted that with the proper tires the RX-8 is very drivable in the snow. I have found that driving in the rain has ok so unless the road is under water I would not concern myself with it’s performance in the rain. Comparing it to other RWD cars would require similar conditions and drivers ( hard to produce ) but as RWD cars go it’s good so long as your tires are matched to where and when you drive.

Speed_D

Well, I can tell you that the 8 with snows handles better than my past two FWD cars (Acura Integras) with all season tires. They may have done better with snows though.

Mugatu

iTrader: (1)

yes, the RX8 is AWESOME in the snow, but only with the correct snow tires....the stock tires are basically summer performance tires that are more or less slicks in the snow. There are a bunch of RX8 owners (myself included) that tried with the stock tires and almost killed ourselves.

The Rx8 with its RWD and the right tires for the right season is a great car that outperforms any of the FWD and AWD cars I have owned.

RUmble

Thanks for the answers guys! Here's a follow up question. Again, I apologize for the newbieness, but I figure this forum is a great place to learn. Snow tires are obviously good for snow. But i assume it must not be good for normal weather conditions, otherwise we'd always have snow tires on to begin with. There have been winters here in NJ where there was hardly ANY snow. But should I just automatically put them on around December jst in case? Will there be a problem driving around on dry roads?

loco4rx8

In general snow tires will wear faster than summer tires, especially when driven on dry roads, but you don't have any choice but to mount them when winter starts so you'll be prepared in case it snows. The summer tires aren't even all that good when it gets below freezing, even if the roads are dry. They don't like the cold.

FONZIE

Gordbrg??

Haze

It should also be pointed out that for dry weather driving, rear wheel drive is a preferable set up to front wheel drive because there isn't any torque moving through the steering wheels. It makes the car more balanced and easier to handle.

For rain, I find the 8 to drive considerably better than my '88 VW Jetta ever did and better than my '93 Nissan Maxima. Both of which were front wheel drive. The summer preformance tires do well in deep rain, which I have had the misfortune to try lots of lately, and will probably be testing out more later today . . . freaking rain.

In winter, you must budget in buying FOUR WHEEL snows. Even if it just get cold, the summer tires will harden in the cold and have less traction than summer. On ice or snow, they are comically worthless. My two favorite stories from this board are a gut who got stuck last winter in the drive through lane at McDonald's. Now you know that that is pretty flat. Second, is a guy who got out of his driveway on snow; skidded all the way to the bottom of the hill that he lived on, and couldn't move anywhere. It was a couple of days before he got the car back up the hill to his driveway.

With snow tires, which I had all last winter, the car handled better than my Nissan did in the snow (Nissan was on all weathers). I never got stuck, and I cannot remember ever losing traction, but of course I was also driving very prudently which I always do in the snow. The 8 probably was a little less grabby in snow than my Jetta, which did have four wheel snows. I attribute this not to the front wheel drive, but to the thinner tires which put more weight per square inch of tire patch onto the road.

All in all, RWD is very different than FWD. It has both its ups and downs, but you shouldn't worry about it being driveable in the winter. With the right tires the car does much better than fine. It does well.

ALMOST8IT

RWD v. FWD on slick surfaces (snow, ice, rain)

FWD is usually much better on slick surfaces because the concentrated weight over the front wheels provides better traction. This is influenced significantly by the car's tires. Narrow tires concentrate the weight and wide tires disperse the weight and if wide enough act like a snow shoe on snow which really makes traction difficult.

As for snow tires, all the snow tires I have owned have been loud on the highway and wear fast on dry pavement. As for when to switch to snow tires, it depends on the where you live. When I lived in Wisconsin I switched in late November early December, then switched back in March or April when I had performance oriented cars with wide tires.

Also, if you are in a snow climate, independent of traction, ground clearance is important because ice chunks on the road and ruts of ice and snow can destroy air-dams and other low body parts and mechanics (I actually had an oil pain drain plug ripped out by an ice rut on a Ford Probe GT back in the early 1990s).

You might consider picking up a snow beater car, given that some of your winters may be snowless you may not need to drive it much.

Good Luck

RUmble

THanks again for the advice. When I get to purchasing an 8, it will be my ONLY car. That's why I'm curious how it will be in the snow. How much are snow tires generally (I don't want to go cheap on something as important as tires).

Haze

Well, I bought four wheels in 17 x 7, four tires to fit the wheels and standard sidewall size and tire patch for the 8, mounted balanced and shipped from the tire rack for $1,085 last year. I think that you might be able to do a little better, but that's not an outrageous price. Hope that helps. - H

shelleys_man_06

Here is a good analogy. Imagine you are on a slippery floor. Have a friend push you across the floor. Hard to control movement isn't it? Now, have you friend pull you across. It is a little bit easier to control, right?

VikingDJ

Fwd is better in bad weather then rwd. It all comes down to the tires and rim size. If you stick snow tires on a FWD, it will work better then an rx8 in snow tires. If you have traction control on a fwd, it will be even better. The rx8 is driveable in snow with snow tires, but it is a royal pain in the butt to have to buy an extra set of rims and change them out twice a year. I decided to keep my old 95 golf, and use it in winter time, rather then spend more money and aggravation to have to swap. What really sets apart fwd in bad weather is the fact that you are in more control, and even spinning out will not send you in a tailspin like rwd. This is why the rx8 has traction control, because without it, even with snow tires, you have to take an extra precaution, and you can lose control very easily, especially with this engine that loves to rev up fast. Fwd is more practical for an every day car, which is why it's so common, but for the true sports car, rwd is always the way to go. The rx8 is simply not meant for snow, but you can make it doable with snow tires.

Haze

This isn't true. I drive a base RX 8 which has no Traction conrol or Dynamic Stability Control. I do have four snow tires on the car, and I tried to get the car to lose it last winter in snow of varying conditions, heavy, light, slushy, and the car was quite controlled. Also spinning the rear tires in Rear Wheel Drive does not mean that you are absoultely going to have the rear come around on you. You have to make a few driving mistakes to have that happen or have a rear weight balanced car which is more prone to that effect than other cars. RWD is a different driving experience, but I absolutely object to any charcaterization of Rear Wheel Drive that it will cause anyone to "lose control very easily". Half of the cars that I have ever owned have been Rear Wheel Drive and half have been Front Wheel Drive. In RWD if the drive wheels lose control you can usually get the car back by steering into the skid and waiting for the rear end to come back into line. In FWD, if the car loses control it generally just plows forward. They both have their drawbacks and benefits, and they do drive differently, but specifically concerning the RX 8, it handles well in snow with snow tires. Not well for a performance car; not well for a car with a wide contact patch; not well for a car with DSC or TC; it just handles well in snow (with snow tires). Those summer tires will kill ya', but the inherent drivability of the car in winter is good.

wakeech

i can tesitfy that you will spin your car in either a FWD or RWD car if you're a moron and can't drive.

if you just HAVE to mash the pedal 'cause you're retarded, then sure, you might get the rear a little happy with RWD, and with FWD you'll just lose your ability to steer...

but when it comes to going around corners, they are equal. if you are goign to fast, AWD isn't goign to magically give you more grip and save your ***.

in the end, it doesn't matter all that much if you don't have the grip to begin with.

VikingDJ

You are disagreeing with the wrong thing here. I never said a rwd car ALWAYS will lose control easily, but it is certainly easier then fwd with a careless driver. My observation was rwd vs fwd, not rwd vs fwd and the driver. Naturally anyone in a rwd car can make it safe and prevent it form spinning out of control, but in a real world comparison not taking in driver habits, rwd with LSD is ALWAYS worse in slippery conditions. This reminds me of the rx8 vs 350z topic. The 350 is more powerful and faster, then someone comes on and argues that it isn't true and they beat a 350z with their rx8. That's comparing driver vs driver, not car vs car. This is same way. Most fwd cars to not have lsd, and lsd without traction control on a rwd car can spell disaster for someone who doesn't let off gas in a slippery situation. Of course it doesn't always mean rear end will fly out, but on a quick responding high hp car, you can certainly lose control very quickly on a rwd car with lsd, and no traction control. LSD in rwd is bad PERIOD in slippery conditions. It wasn't designed for snow. Naturally, you can also lose control with a fwd car, but without lsd, only one tire will spin, thus keep you in better control. Naturally, a good driver with some common sense can avoid this from happening on a rwd car, but I wasn't comparing driver vs driver, I was comparing rwd vs fwd. Here's a way of making you understand what I am talking about: Take a fwd car with 200hp and no lsd and gun it in rain, and do not let off. Now take a rwd car with 200hp and lsd and do same. That's a rwd vs fwd comparison, and there is no arguing it. However you are right in your argument. With different drivers, you cna maintain just as good of control in a rwd car with a little more precaution, and you can easily lose control of a fwd car with no precuation.

RX-8 friend

We found the Nokian WR tires to be great in winter (and believe me, we get WINTER here in Edmonton - 6 months of it). Maurice wanted more ice room in the wheelwells, so went to 17" wheels with stock size tires in 17" version. The wheels were AR or something as I recall. Not expensive, but good looking aluminum spoked wheels. The Nokians are all weather tires (see www.nokian.com), and work well in rain as well as snow, but the stock tires give better traction for the 6 months of poor sledding here, due to more rubber on the road and the rubber designed for better traction when hot. As others have said, when you get high performance tires colder than about 0 C they get hard and loose traction big time. My Mich. Pilot MXXVIII on my 3rd gen RX-7 are ball bearings when the temp. gets to freezing. Great for spinning out, not good for driving. They do well in rain, though.

As for your first question re FWD vs RWD, if RWD doesn't work in winter, I guess pre 1970 or so cars were parked all winter? The RX series have almost perfect weight distribution, so work very well on slippery surfaces with the appropriate tires. Yes, even FWD cars have trouble on snow with the wrong tires. e.g. Nissan Sentra Spec. V stock tires are high performance ones - car was all over the road in winter until the stock tires were changed out for "real" all-weather tires.

Haze

Hey Viking -

I don't mean to belabor a tired point, but I was disagreeing with your statement that the RX 8 would "lose control very easily" in your intial point. I am disagreeing with this because I drove the car all last winter in snow, ice, rain and whatever and the car did NOT "lose control very easily". Yes, I don't drive stupidly, but I am comparing the car to FWD and RWD cars that I have owned, and I am standing by my statement that compared to a '88 VW Jetta, '93 Nissan Maxima, '78 Volvo Wagon, '82 toyota tercel, and a '72 Mercedes Sedan, the RX 8 is near the top of the this list in winter handling with snow tires. The VW was better with Snow Tires, but I do think that the RX 8 is better than the Maxima. It's subjective I guess, but it's my opinion.

I am very interested by your interpretation of Limited Slip Differentials in rear wheel drive cars. I mean you believe that a limited slip will cause a rear end to break loose where as that rear would have held traction before. That's interesting because it is actually the opposite of the desired effect from an LSD. LSD's have been in commonly purchased RWD cars from the mid-1960's to the present. GM used to put its Posi-trac system into all sorts of stuff from GTOs to buick coupes under the theory that they were increasing the traction on the drive wheels of those cars, and they did. An LSD will help you move a car forward on slick roads since it will engage the non-slipping wheel when the other drive wheel is spinning away. The difference of course is that the Posi-trac system was a completely mechanical system using a sort of clutch in the differential to lock the axle up. Modern DSCs are often hydraulic systems based on the Torsen model. However, the LSD will help your car deliver more drive power to the road than a standard open differential.

I am also interested by your assertion that FWD cars do not often have Limited Slip Differentials. My last car was a 1993 Nissan Maxima SE with 190HP, and a Torsen Limited Slip Differential. I drove that car for 180,000 miles, and I found the LSD to be helpful for getting me out of snowy parking lots, and over humps of snow when my car was snowed into the side of the road. I never had to be pushed out of a parking space in my whole time with the car, and I used to choose spaces based on my being able to get in and out of them whereas others would not. I have less experience with the 8, but I would assume that the LSD would have a similar beneficial effect. I also found it beneficial in standard snow driving for keeping moving forward when others couldn't.

I think that the fundemental difference in how we are viewing the function of this component, and the 8's general driveability can be summed up in the sentence, "Take a fwd car with 200hp and no lsd and gun it in rain, and do not let off. Now take a rwd car with 200hp and lsd and do same."

I was talking about driveability in the snow, which to me means NOT gunning it. Any car will lose control if you gun it in the snow (or slick wet roads). I am talking about a fairly conservative driving style to match the conditions.

In answer to the question itself, I have certainly gunned both the 8 in the rain, and my old Maxima, which I know has an LSD, and both the FWD and RWD cars will slip on wet oily roads either with or without an LSD . You are probably right that without the LSD, I would have one wheel hangin' limp as the spinning wheels robs it of power which would probably act as a safety valve, however, this is not what a car should do. It is best to have as much traction for forward power as possible which is why LSD is such a good thing. If I need to accelerate out of the way of an incoming vehicle, sitting their spinning my wheels will not help. It is again learning how to drive that fits the bill. It is not a problem of the equipment on the car.

Haze

Hey, I'm sorry if I upset you. I'm sorry that I am having trouble tracking your argument. We do seem to disagree about this, and I would be happy to continue the discussion via PM if you like. I am sorry of I upset you, and please take my apologies.

RUmble

Thanks for the answers again guys. I'm hoping I can make the RX8 my only car. In my own budget projections, I'd be maxing out by buying the RX8 (and still being able to save at least 5%). No way I can afford to have TWO cars. Btw, are most of you guys using the RX8 as your daily driver? Even in the snow and the rain?

Do you generally just buy snow tires and use them from year to year? Maybe change them when they wear out every few years? Or is it more like, you buy them EVERY year and just throw away the old ones?

RX-8 friend

Buy four wheels (inexpensive ones) with the snows. Put them on in late fall, take them off late spring. Use them again next winter. If you have tire pressure monitors the system may bug you with a light when the snows are on - just tape over it.

If you try to use the stock tires in winter you could end up hitting something - the tires are that bad in the cold. It would be false economy.

Yes, Maurice uses his car year round.

Denzalo

Except in trucks and SUVs? I work for Eaton Corp. (automotive, torque control) and I machine the gears for our LSDs for GM/Ford etc. How can you say that it is bad to have LSD working for you in the snow in cars when that is exactly our selling point of our LSDs in trucks and SUVs? I don't get it. It's true, LSDs are good for performance but trucks also use them and obviously not for performance. Trucks use them to get out of tough spots like hang ups, slimey boat ramps, winter conditions... why wouldn't a car benefit in the same way? In my opinion there's no wrong condition to have a LSD standing by to help you.

VikingDJ

It appears that this debate about LSD is very subjective. I've had my run ins with lsd before in snow, and at times going up hills with a rwd performance car lsd proved near costly for me, because with every touch of gas and wheel spin, the car automatically wanted to spin sideways. I can assure you that lsd in that moment was doing me more harm, then if car had a conventional diff. You have to keep in mind that the car did not want to give me any decent traction because even though I had all season radials, they were still lower in profile then most cars. On previous rwd vehicles I have owned, the reverse effect happened by not having lsd, because ultimately one tire spun, and I was basically just sitting ther up a hill keeping vehicle more straight. It simply allowed me to spin while going up the hill, without sending me into a tailspin. There is no debating that bad traction, both wheels spinning and lots of hp will send car into tailspin, but for different vehicles with bigger tires intended for off road or snow, it obviously will not do that, because the truck will not lose it's grip like your every day car, and especially sports cars. If LSD loses it's grip, you are in big trouble I can tell you that. I've heard it many times by many people who know cars and how they work. Since there are people who disagree I can only think that this is definitely subjective to different opinions and experiences. Naturally, you can prevent losing control with lsd by simply stopping the wheel spin before car slides. I think that with trucks and their big tires that actually go through snow, lsd will not have the detrimental effect that car with lower profile tires have. It could ultimately help, because as stated before the tires go through the snow, not over top of it. Many mechanics have told me that lsd on a rwd car in snow can make you worse off, and after experienceing it I truly believe it. IMO , it all comes down to traction, and if you don't have enough of it, LSD can be a bad thing in snow. You can digareee, but that's what I have been told by many, and that is what I believe.

rotarygod

That's it! I'm making a left wheel drive car. So there! :p