Background - I've got 17" Konig Holes wheels with Toyo Garit HT 215/55-17 winter tires on the RX-8 for winter use. I installed them 2 weeks ago, and they are definitely less precise and less grippy on dry pavement - that's to be expected, but it's enough of a difference from the OEM 18s that you have to be careful around corners until you get used to the lower limits.

Yesterday, Calgary got it's first winter storm - freezing rain, followed by about 6" of snow. I didn't drive the RX-8 to work yesterday, just to avoid the chance that one of the morons who never remembers to slow down when the first snowfall comes might run into me. Today, though, I did drive the 8 to work. Since I drove our Audi allroad (quattro AWD with Michelin Pilot Alpin winter tires) yesterday, that gave a good basis for comparison - road conditions both days were similar, with packed and loose snow over ice. It's about as bad as roads get, with lots of people unable to get up hills, getting stuck, buses cancelled, highways closed, etc!

The verdict: In a nutshell, the car handled great. Braking was excellent, I never had to trigger the ABS even on very slippery stuff. I was driving cautiously, obviously, but with all-seasons on that type of packed snow/ice surface, ABS would be easily activated. The car was able to move from a standstill in 4"-5" deep snow over ice, so traction was never a problem. The DSC/TC was kicking in quite a bit, and the stability control did a good job even if I didn't correct for a slide or deliberately gave it too much throttle. The car does move around a bit, enough so that my wife will have to get used to it (more than our Audi). I think it's actually going to be very controllable, and I suspect I'll drive it far more with the DSC turned off, just for fun.

Bottom line - the Toyo Garit HT winter tires are excellent, and make the RX-8 a fully competent winter vehicle. I'm very happy with how they performed today! Yet to come, the big empty snow-covered parking lot test with lots of sideways driving. :D

PS - with the stock OEM 18" tires, I never would have made it out of my driveway. If I had, I would have hit the curb on the first downhill corner, guaranteed. I would strongly recommend that you leave your RX-8 parked if you have the OEM 18" tires and there's any snow cover on the road. Take a cab, bus, whatever! The tires make all the difference.

Regards,
Gordon

 

Thats great news. If the 8 can handle Canadian winters than it can probably handle anything (with the correct tires).

Gordon, did you put any additional weight in the back of the car to give it more grip in the back or did you just put the snow tires on and go?

 

No extra weight, just snow tires and go.

This gets debated a lot on the Miata forum - some people advocate extra weight in the trunk to improve traction when starting from a standstill, some people advise against it because it increases the likelihood of the back end coming around when cornering and braking. Since traction with the torsen LSD and winter tires on the 8 seems fine, I won't bother with the extra weight. Also, the inherent low polar moment of inertia of the 8 should mean that the car is easy to slide and recover, but extra weight at the very back of the car would also affect that (making it less easy to recover from slides, both the intentional and unintentional variety ).

Regards,
Gordon

 

thanks for the info... eases my mind some

 

awesome, im going to be getting winter tires soon, i wonder if ill need an additional set of wheels though?
________
HERBAL VAPORIZER

 

Gordon:

Thanks for the excellent writeup. I will be purchasing some wheels thanks to Speed Racers comments. New England weather here I come!!

 

For those of you who may have missed it, tomorrow Oct. 31 is the last day to order & get the group discount on the FRD06 or FRD30 winter weels from Talon Tire. For details see my post of Oct 13 in the Talon Tire thread in the Canada regional forum.

https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...5&pagenumber=3

 

Got my order in to John at Talon, he beat the best price that my local tire guys could do, and convinced me to upgrade to the '06s, which have a metal, instead of plastic, centering ring.

Not here yet, but looking forward to them!

S

 

snow already? geez.....but that's good news about the 8!

 

Gord I'm glad you're 8's doing well in the snow. I for one am parking until the spring (or when a chance chinook warms things up enough to go driving :-) I just bought myself one of those "tent garages" and all I have to do now is wait for it to get a little warmer so I can assemble the thing. Happy driving!

 

Great review Gordon, definately puts me at ease about using the 8 as a daily driver all year round.

 

hey guys,i just put on my dunlop winter sports on the stock wheels(planing on some yaw wheels for summer)a few days ago just in time for our first ice up.no real snow yet has fallen up here in alaska but rain at night and frozen in the morning has made for some slick commutes.these tires kick some serious butt,stopping on the ice was great and accelration you can break the back end loose a little but t/c just gets you straight and off you go.cant wait for a foot a snow to fall to put em to the real test but the work great on the black ice.p.s. gord,didnt mean to rob your thread just excited at how well this car can go with good tread.:D

 

No problem! It's valuable for any of us who are the first to try winter conditions to pass the word along. With good winter tires, the RX-8 is a blast.

However, I'd guarantee that within a few more weeks, when winter hits further south, there will be a bunch of posts from people who have tried to drive their 8s with the stock RE040 tires on snow or ice, and who will proclaim how badly the RX-8 sucks in snow. :o It all comes down to the proper tires, people - I'd suggest that the RX-8 is one of the better RWD cars to drive on snow, given equal winter tires.

Regards,
Gordon

 

I'm glad to hear the good news about the Ex-8. I'm in
kansas and we get our fair share of snow and I was really wondering what my winter experience was going to be like. Now I am determined to get some snow tires.

 

I heard that!
Try driving in SC after the earth turns white! No way my ''pepper" is gonna see another car during those times! I'm a "displaced yankee" and I know just whachyo talkin' 'bout. It's quite commical if you're just observing...:D Around here, they don't even bother turning on the street lights when it snows. Alright, I've stretched the truth just a tad there, but it is true that everything closes at right about the same moment that the first snowflake hits the ground. Kinda nice. Of course, it's all gone the next day, almost always.

Anyway, this is great news - it's made my day.

And I totally agree with your latter post about no dead weight in the trunk (except maybe for some "get me outta here!" stuff like a bit of road salt(tightly contained), a blanket to put under the slipping tire, a bottle of your favorite "antifreeze"(jk),...). With 50/50, DSC/TC, torsen, minimal polar moment of inertia, you can drop the sandbag. The main factor here, I think, is the 50/50 distribution. Pickup trucks & a lot of front engine / rear wheel drive cars got it all wrong with about 30% on the rear end. They need the sand bag, not the RX-8.

 

Winter tires, are these with metal studs in them?

 

no metal studs in these style tires,these are performance style winter tires that are softer componds with sipes(?) all thru the tread design for traction on snow and ice.

 

Gord,

How does the RX8 compare with the MX5 in the snow.

Both have even weight distribution between front / rear and both have a lot of tire width compared to 'normal' cars. Are they comparable in the snow when both have proper winter tires?

 

Well, the earlier Miatas with 185/60-14 tires aren't that wide, and 185 width is OK in the snow. The more recent Miatas going to 195 or 205 are wider than desirable, and those owners really should go to a 185 or 195 width for winter tires. On the RX-8, 225 is too wide for most effective winter grip, but even with 225 width winter tires it will be far better off than on 225 all-seasons or summer tires!

(Confession time - I drove my 96 Miata in the winter for 3 years, on the stock OEM all-season tires that Mazda Canada provided (instead of the summer tires that were OEM in the US). If snow was really deep, I drove my OTM (other than Miata) vehicle, but even then I drove the Miata in 4 or 5 inches of snow and never got stuck. BUT - I grew up driving big Yank RWD sedans in Manitoba winters, maybe equipped with 2 winter tires on the back. I had a fair bit of experience with RWD and poor grip, so the Miata by comparison on all-seasons did just fine. However, on every other vehicle I've owned for the past 22 years I have fitted winter tires for winter driving! With that disclaimer out of the way...)

The RX-8 on winter tires is actually quite similar to the MX-5 in the snow - the steering response is good, braking is great, and balance is also very good. The RX-8 actually has an advantage in that it's Tochigi-Fuji torsen-style LSD is preloaded, so it doesn't suffer from one-wheel-spin in zero grip conditions (ice, mud) like the traditional Torsen as available on the 94-02 Miatas does. I've found that I prefer to drive the RX-8 around the city with the DSC turned off, because it intervenes when I'd rather be sliding or steering with the throttle. :D

Regards,
Gordon

 

Did you notice any problem with snow/ice accumulation in front of the radiator on that shelf that kinda looks like a giant shovel??

 

Not yet, in city driving. It might be a problem on the highway when it's snowing heavily...

One related 'problem' - not a big deal - is that the RX-8 isn't that quick to warm up. I suspect that the 2 oil radiators do too good a job, and I'm considering blocking them off (or at least one of them) for winter cold-weather driving.

Regards,
Gordon

 

(Moderators, any chance you could make this thread a sticky for a while, or some similar informational post? It might help head off the posts from people who ignored the fact that it's winter until the first storm hit, and then post Chicken Little threads like Not a Snow Going Car! .)

Look, folks - this thread is almost 6 weeks old since the first RX-8 owners tried their cars in winter snow conditions. For 6 weeks prior to that, there were discussions about appropriate winter tires and wheels for the coming winter. So for 12 weeks, 3 months, there's been talk that the SUMMER TIRES that are delivered on the RX-8 would suck and be absolutely useless on snow. Lots of people have posted now that with winter tires, the RX-8 does fine on snow.

Now that a big storm has hit, and those who ignored the coming winter have had a wake-up call, it's officially time to say -

WE TOLD YOU SO! :p

The RX-8 does NOT suck in the snow.

It's the TIRES that suck in the snow.

Put Bridgestone RE-040s on anything, an Audi quattro, any SUV, and that vehicle would also be useless on snow. There are plenty of posts now on this forum and others that will confirm that. It's the nature of high-performance summer tires. You need winter tires for winter conditions, it really is that simple.

There are plenty of threads in the Tires and Wheels section of the forum, and in the Canada regional section of the forum discussing appropriate tire brands/models, sizes, and wheels. Or, just head straight to www.tirerack.com , and order NOW a set of wheels and winter tires from their recommended lists (only buy the Blizzak WS-50 if everything else is sold out ), but DO NOT come to this forum and whine about how your car sucks in the snow, because we'll just respond that YOU suck, not your car! :D

Regards,
Gordon

 

I agree with Gord, the RX8 r0cks in snow with some good tires!!!


I spent all of last night flying around on snow/ice covered city and back country roads and had nothing but a great experience. The vast majority of the time the Dunlops M3's and the limited slip diff provided amazing traction. We are talking hard and soft snow packed roads while starting out on the side of a very large hill without any tire spin traction!!

I had many SUV owners near the mall look at me kinda funny with the "What the hell, that guy is driving a sports car around in this!?!?" look. (Shopping at the malls after a small blizzard is great - no lines at all :D )


On the few occasions where the Traction Control and DSC actually kicked it, it was very unobtrusive. One time I was turning at an intersection and the rear started to break loose - I literally just held the wheel straight and the 8 corrected itself!! It was amazing. The traction control works equally as good - the only way I knew it was working sometimes was when the light popped on. At one point I found a very icy parking lot and for kicks simulated a slalom run - the DSC went ballistic but the car actually was slaloming!


The ABS seems to also be good in the sn0w. On my old Probe the ABS was constantly kicking in and then it felt like the car was going to run away on me. However, it seems the tolerance of the new ABS system is a little higher and the overall feel of it while activated feels more confidence inspiring. The only real trouble I had was one time I was comming to a stop doing 10mph and it was soo icy that it took a good 20ft to stop . The ABS tried its damndest but there was just no traction. As soon as I stopped a Mustang behind me spun out to avoid hitting me because he couldn't stop and a SUV then went flying off the side of the road to avoid both of us... that was a bit scary.

All in all I'm very impressed with this thing in the sn0w and feel very confident I will pretty much get through anything that doesn't make the car bottom out... and even then I might be able to do some sn0wpl0wing :p

 

I laugh evey time is snows in Chicago, because 80% of the cars in the ditchs are SUV's with all season tires. They think because they have 4 wheel drive they are invincible. If all cars had snow tires we would be able to go twice as fast and have much fewer accidents.

 

OMG, pr0ber, that was one great report! Sounds like you had one heckuva blast out there! (Yes, I'm down here in SC, but I lived in PA (Allentown & surrounding areas) for my first 26 years.) I am now wishing I was with you during that run! Man! The 'Stang & SUV story busted my gut! & the slaloming!

While reading, I was wondering, there was some small concern about the tunnel leading to the radiator, that it might fill-up with snow, act like a snow shovel, whatever. Any remarks on that topic?

Thanks to Gordon too! Great news from yous guys!