Heirsh

My drive into work this morning was a little unusual in several ways. I don't have a problem driving my car when its cold but when bad weather is expected I don't. Due to bad timing I had to today.

-It was 15°F out there this morning. Car started right up. Other than the uneven idle while it was cold it ran fine.
-Heat started right up and thawed us out!
-Amazing how much power I have in the really cold weather

The first above impressed me. I've got an ongoing running problem I can't figure out, but otherwise she runs fine. So most of the road is cleared with a few exceptions here and there. The most interesting thing to me is the response I got out of the car from the road. I knew from the car how much traction I had. Most of the road was covered in salt, which made it hard to tell the low traction areas that werent a sheet of ice by sight. By feel I knew. Amazing to me. In other cars I had to just test it, and thats not a good idea at times.

I wonder if its the toe in the rear so you feel the shift in the car's thrust direction as 1 rear tire loses a bit of traction. Whatever it is it is great.

I bet you 4 wheel drive guys could have some real confidence driving in bad weather.

Or if I had even the proper tires. (I can just feel Adrian popping up and shaking his finger at me for this one, well deserved I might add)

Just thought I'd add a positive experience I had with my car!

C4Russ

The C4 is awesome for winter driving. The all wheel drive easily provides enough traction to drive the car in snow and ice with little difficulty if...and this is big...if one is prudent with the throttle. (I have never spun a tire in a straight line acceleration on a dry road. I know my clutch would not be up to that, in fact the clutch would slip first.) However in the snow and ice, too much throttle can put you sideways in a big fat hurry. With all four wheels spinning the car literally leaps to one side or the other, typically following the crown of the road. The car recovers quickly once proper throttle is applied with a little steering correction. Now...I've driven in snow and ice since my Driver's Education classes at 14 as I did better then half my hours driving in the winter snow of a farm town in Idaho.

I'm running Pirelli P Zero Neros, which have been siped, which are a M&S rated tire. They are not a proper winter tire per se like a Blizzak. I would say with a Blizzak, the car would behave better in snow but I don't have to drive the car anywhere so I'll run these Neros out and perhaps buy Blizzaks next time around.

DustinTarditi

I love the C4 - I run BF Goodrich G-Force year round (we don't get much snow here in NC... a couple inches per year) but it's a lot of fun in generally foul weather.

BTW - the cold air compresses nicely and gives you a bit of a performance boost.

My buddy keeps squawking about how he's going to upgrade from his 2001 996 C2 and get a GT3, or turbo or something and will sell me his - as nice and comfortable as his car is, I really like the C4 handling... going to be a tough call when the time comes. It's not like his C2 has a ton more power than mine after a few mods to the 964... it definately keeps pace during spirited runs.