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I could not source winter tires only for my 992. no one can say when they’ll be available either. Porsche sold me a 19”/20” wheel and winter tire package. continental snow tires ? I don’t know but I do NOT want to deal with a blown 21” winter tire. Last winter , I blew 3 tires on my 991 C4S in a 2 mos span. Sickening to think of the tow, tires , time and cost. I will down size for the winter. But come spring - look out. I was upset they didn’t have a better answer for us after dropping the kind of coin I
just did !
your statement is dangerously incorrect... if it were true the suburu/Audi/ and other brand AWD business in the snow states wouldn’t even exist.
Having grown up driving in snow, and having owned 3 audi avants/sedans with quattro, I 100% get AWD's benefits. But if you are arguing that AWD helps in winter weather safety/collision avoidance, hmm. AWD cars do NOT brake any more quickly, and how many collision-avoidance scenarios has additional acceleration helped you in? Point is in general people associate RWD with poor winter driving, which is the case with front-engined cars, but RWD/rear engine is damn good with snow tires.
I just received my 20” winter wheels/tires set last week. My C2S will be delivered next 12/20. For sure it’s not an orIginal Porsche wheels kit but I paid only 3500$CAN (2630$US) Including Michelin PA5, TPMS, black wheel nuts and lock, ready to mount and delivered to my door! Less suffering when I will hit a pothole because here, in Quebec, we collect the holes in our streets....
Having grown up driving in snow, and having owned 3 audi avants/sedans with quattro, I 100% get AWD's benefits. But if you are arguing that AWD helps in winter weather safety/collision avoidance, hmm. AWD cars do NOT brake any more quickly, and how many collision-avoidance scenarios has additional acceleration helped you in? Point is in general people associate RWD with poor winter driving, which is the case with front-engined cars, but RWD/rear engine is damn good with snow tires.
traction isn't just important when stopping.... it's important all of the time.
Winter tires and a 100 lb sack of sand in the frunk....car will be unstoppable...
No car can drive on icy patches.....slow going on that surface, even with studs..
Putting weight in the trunk of a 911 doesn't make any sense to me. Wasn't the whole point of having the engine in the back so that all of that weight is over the main drive wheels, helping to increase traction? The reason people put sand bags in the beds of their pickup trucks is to achieve the same thing: added weight over the drive wheels.
Also, I just put studded Nokian Hakka 9 tires on my new BMW 750i xDrive and I'm pretty sure I could drive across the icy surface of a frozen lake with that thing. I'm seriously impressed with how well it drives on snow and ice.
what many are forgetting is the 4S is essentially a rear wheel drive car that sends power (up to a small amount like 15%) to the front WHEN NEEDED... there is no difference in how the 2S and 4S drive UNTIL there is a difference.
what many are forgetting is the 4S is essentially a rear wheel drive car that sends power (up to a small amount like 15%) to the front WHEN NEEDED... there is no difference in how the 2S and 4S drive UNTIL there is a difference.
According to Porsche head of sports car development August Achleitner (reported in Autocar last December https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/i...sions-detailed), the 992's four-wheel drive system has been reworked to allow up to 50% of drive to be apportioned to the front wheels. This is an important detail most automotive publishing outlets fail to mention, but it was picked up by Autoblog as well https://www.autoblog.com/2018/12/11/...brid-phev-how/
I can't find any mention in Porsche news releases detailing precisely how the rear/front bias is altered in the 992, but here is a reference from SAE in another interview with Achleitner that Wet Mode in the AWD 911 Carrera 4S (and one would expect the C4) enables "torque bias favoring the front axle to support added stability." https://www.sae.org/news/2019/02/porsche-911-wet-mode
I expect support and training literature for technicians details how the torque is apportioned under what conditions; over time that information will make its way into the public realm.
Watching the AWD distribution gauge, it's rarely putting much at the front wheels. You'll see more power to the front wheels accelerating hard, powering your way through turns, and/or in wet/slippery conditions. The 992 does allow more power to go to the front wheels as needed. I am not sure where the 15% figure came from as it's been pretty clear that the car will do a 50/50 split if the computer thinks that it will help you. I've yet to do anything in the car where the power to the front wheels spikes up anywhere near that. The important take away is that it is dynamic and uses a bunch of inputs to make distribution decisions -- it's a solid system.
In my Subaru STI, it defaulted to a 30/70 f/r split and could flip that around to a 65/35 f/r split (just the STI as lesser Subies are fixed 50/50). The cool part about the STI was that you could override the computer and manually control the center differential yourself via the DCCD (Driver’s Control Center Differential). With distribution set to the rear, it would basically drive like a RWD car. If you set it forward, you'd get the strange sensation of FWD. Subaru gave you variable control with a few steps. This feature was included for rally racing homologation and I can't recall many other street cars that allowed you to manually make that adjustment. I think that the 959 included a similar feature, also for homologation purposes.
Snow tires are sottozero and Alpin5. Some markets have Conti. I think Porsche bought all the production, I had to cough up for a wheel set.
I had a C2 and C2S fitted with winter tires in Chicago, it worked fine. Now driving a C4S. True you do need to be quite careful on the bends and changing lanes, specially if there's snow accumulation between them.
In the boring flattened Chicago, C4 might not be needed. The extra traction from the front makes a difference in turning for sure.
It boils (!) down to the public services being efficient on snow removal. A low 911 becomes a plower easy in less services areas, regardless of the front drive.
Braking makes no real difference C2 or C4. If you go up any slope, even mild ones, C2 may have a problem, not quite a general issue in Chicagoland.
Now, driving with summer or all season tires in low temperatures is just a no. It won't brake, turn or accelerate on a predictable manner. The observations above are made based on winter tire usage.
12-02-2019, 05:50 PM
no winter tires only
