I lived in Tahoe for several years with my '79 928 as my only vehicle. Put some Pirelli winter tires on it, never chained up, and made it thru some gnarly winter storms. Only got stuck once at the bottom of my icy driveway. Otherwise the 928 was stellar in the snow. But I did rub the paint off the lower door sills when I drove through a foot of chunky ice/snow for several miles.

Rich

 

Google 16" Blizzak. Lots of them even at TireRack, their search engine is lacking.

Michelin makes excellent winter tires, as well.

 

My Audi Quattro with summer tires was the most dangerous vehicle I've ever driven in the snow.

I was a day late putting my Blizzaks on that year.

 

One reason why so few of the early Quattro's survived was that people thought 4WD replaces the need for winter tires. Well, it didn't exactly work that way, and not having ABS in the early Quattros didn't exactly help, either.

 

I don't see why you need ABS if all the wheels are locked together going the same speed.



I bought a 4WD Explorer for a series of projects near Reno. I slogged all over construction sites in the snow with good AT tires in 2WD. Siting at a light one morning in town with new snow over a fused base, I watched a rather new-looking SUV coming up to the intersection one lane over. Late brakes, and drove sideways through the intersection missing me by a few feet. I wish I had a video camera running to capture the look of total panic and horror on the drivers face. "But I have four-wheel-drive!"

I think there's way too much stupid running loose on the roads these days, more than all the smart on the highway will ever offset.

 

not trying to negate the car, but the other drivers you passed that were on the side of the road or ditch were there due to their lack of driving skills....


As with most aspects of modern life, i find more and more that the masses of people are completely clueless and lack the common sense and are unable to think through common problems.....

example...

HUMMM it's snowy and icy... OK, i'll drive normaly, make sudden steering changes, apply LOTS of brake and throttle.... AND will continue following the guy if front of me only 20 feet off his bumper at 70 mph....

then they blame others when they total their car..


I was dying to take the 928 out in our ice/snow we just had at the coast. I was afraid someone else would be stupid and hit ME.... so we stuck to the wifes rover

 

I found when braking on ice/snow, the front tires lock-up sooner than the rears. Next time I will try adding a little parking brake to help even the bias. This is on my 80 with all-season tires worn 70%. Not good tires for those conditions.

 

I wouldn't do that if I were you. Without a lot of experience doing this, you won't be able to control the amount of braking well enough to help.

Locking the fronts will make you go in a straight line forward. If you accidentally lock the backs, it will get...

Interesting.

If you haven't done "E-Brake Slides" before, you will be in for a bit of a wild ride.

I live in Wisconsin, have been driving in winter up here for a long time, and I still have to relearn every year. After the first snow of the season, I like to find a big, empty parking lot and relearn how to recover from skids, both front and rear wheel, play with the ABS, manage wheelspin on launch, and then goof off with E-Brake slides and power oversteer.

Like any other driving skill, current practice is key.

And it isn't just those who don't see snow on a regular basis who are stupid about it. I was up in Canada Monday. While Atlanta was being clobbered, I was driving from Montreal to Quebec (city) through what turned out to be about 6" of snow (15cm). 40 was a mess. And it was a very predictable pattern. Traffic would slow, there would be a couple of rear-end accidents, then a car in the ditch a bit beyond that. The rear-enders were from people following too close when traffic ahead of them slowed for the car in the ditch (and the wrecker and the cop attending them). The road was completely blocked going west (ouest) from one of these. A fairly serious accident had one lane blocked, but the whole road was blocked by the semi that couldn't stop in time and ended up jack-knifing across the whole road. And a bunch of rear ends behind that.

Stupid people.

 

ABS can be more of a hindrance than a help in very low friction scenarios. With no ABS at least you get some use of the available friction with wheels locked. With ABS the wheels spend so much of the time with the brakes being un-applied by the ABS that you get no braking force at all.

In an emergency stop situation in snow that the tyres can sink through (or deep gravel or sometimes mud) you are definitely better off without ABS because the locked wheels act like snowploughs and push a bigger and bigger wave of snow in front of them. Even better is to stop sideways as the sideways on tyres are even bigger snowploughs.

 

Hi guy's! For all of you not on the Atlanta 928 facebook page, we are going to be at the C&O sunday morning 7am!
Well i am atleast!
Anybody else coming? Alan?? Can't wait to see your car! MFranke?

Rich