NYP

I am considering buying a new 997 or 991 Carrera S (or Boxster S) for light use on evenings and weekends. I live in the Northeast and would use the car in occasional light snow in the winter - likely with either all season or winter tires. Does anybody have any experience or knowledge about the car's handling in these conditions? Thanks in advance for replies.

Jay H

For the past three Wisconsin winters, I have been piloting Boxster's. I've driven those cars in horrific conditions including severe blizzards and ice conditions. Ground clearance can be an issue for larger snow fall amounts, but the cars handle well and perform great in snow. I used dedicated winter tires (Hankook and Continental). Never had a starting issue in cold weather and the ventilation systems are more than up to the task of keeping the car defrosted and your toes warm.

I have 987 snow tires and rims for sale too if you go the Boxster route.

Vjgtrybno1

Welcome! You may wish to search the boxster or this forum for more detail as many folks do use their Porsches year round and in snow. Here is what I remember of the posts:
1. Not too many folks like all seasons - they are a compromise that doesn't work well. Winter tires are not just for snow, they have softer compounds for better grip in the cold (below 45 degrees).
2. Many like the AWD set-up of the C4 or C4S for snow, but many say that a C2 or C2S will perform well with winter tires relative to many other vehicles.
3. I just bought winter tires for my C4S because I am tired of storing the car all winter and not enjoying it.

Jay H

Using dedicated winter tires is like cheating...

I highly recommend them even if you just drive on dry pavement in cold (sub 40 degree F) temps.

brad@tirerack.com

You have to use snow tires on these cars NYP. Not doing so puts you and other drivers in danger. The cars are quite competent with them in the snow, but they have to be on a winter-dedicated tire to be.

Please give me a call if interested. I'm happy to help.

FiatCoupe

When I lived in Calgary I had winter and summer tyres for my Jeep. All seasons just don't cut it in the conditions we got there. Night and day difference between proper winter tyres and all seasons. You can really feel the extra grip. The biggest problem is the other drivers on all seasons!

Given enough grunt of course you can still make them spin. Great fun in deserted car parks on the way back from snowboarding

Zeus993

I drive all year in the northwest. We don't get a lot of slow so I just park the 997 when it does. Really more for protection from other drivers. I watch the temperature and just drive slow and carefully when things drop below 7C. I've not put snow tires on but would consider it with a separated set of winter wheels as. It's an excellent year round car, well tested in extreme climates. Go for it!

sy308

I park my car for the winter months and drive only after thaws and rainy conditions. I feel sand and salt residue is only inviting chips and paint problems for the front paint. With regard to snow tires, my Audi A6 runs poorly on original Michelin all season, but will go through 2 feet of unplowed snow with the tires on.

blake

I've had a 911 in my garage since age 19 as a pampered, weekend car, and recently took the plunge to buy a 997 as a DD. I live in Park City Utah at 7500 feet where we get on average 350 inches of snow (last year 500+) and average 30k miles on our DD as we drive up and down the canyon to Salt Lake City. In the past, I have made a RWD BMW 3-series convertible a DD, and more recently a FWD Mini Cooper S a DD. As long as they have the proper winter tires, they are a blast to drive. To date, I have NEVER been stuck in snow. The state does a great job with snow removal, so that certainly helps...

The trick to driving in the winter is "winter tires". They really come in two varieties - ice tires (low profile tread) and deep snow tires (deep tread, M+S designation)... Based on our massive snow fall here in the Rockies, I prefer the "M+S" deep snow tires for our SUVS. Those can handle 10+ inches of unplowed roads, and one can still drive 60 mph (no joke) with excellent control. IMHO, these would be overkill for a 911 (yes, you can buy them for Porsches from Nokian with studs).

Having grown up in CT, I would heavily recommend ANY of the performance winter tires available through Tire Rack or other retailers (Pirelli, Dunlop, etc.). It will be a rare occurance that you get greater than 4 inches of snow on the road (unplowed) in NY - so dealing with black ice and grip will be your biggest issue. Tire compounds have come so far that you will have phenomenal grip on icy roads - and truthfully - driving in such conditions will be really, really fun... The treads of performance winter tires are very, very soft - and you can actually bend them with your fingers. All-season tires will not cut it because it is impossible to make a tire compound that works WELL in both extreme heat and extreme cold. The summer compounds are great when heated up by friction and ambient temperature, but become hockey pucks in the cold... For your purposed, buy the winter tires and put them on the Porsche for 3-4 winter months - then go back to the summer tires....

I am about to buy the Dunlops from Tire Rack for my 997S. They will meet my "more aggressive" snow needs here in UT.

Good luck.
-Blake

LastMezger

+1. You should use winter tires (like SotoZeros) even on dry pavement when it's near or below freezing. High-performance tires have a relatively high "glass point"...which means their traction drops off dramatically even near freezing.

FI Flyer

I am in NYC and drive out to LI almost every weekend. I have driven to Maine more than once in the winter and to Stowe (VT) and back in the big blizzard last year.

I have Michelin Pilot Alpin 2 winter tires (N2s to be precise) on 18“ Sport Edition Cup 4 wheels. I bought from Damon at TireRack and I was very happy with his advice, the price and the tires and wheels.

I have been very content with the performance -- although I should stipulate that most of my driving has been on highways rather than back roads (at speed) or tracks.

I should note that I do not find the PA2s especially noisy.

In my opinion 18" wheels are a necessity in the NYC area given the pot holes on the highways. Nothing can save you from damage if you hit the right pothole at a good speed but an extra inch of rubber and air is a big plus. I have survived some hits that I thought that I would not. (Past performance should not be taken as a predictor of future results ... but I have been very fortunate ... so far.)

My experience seems odd and somewhat inexplicable but my gas mileage seems to be better on my winter tires than on my OEM 19" Michelin PS2s. Go figure.

Finally, I drove down to Florida and back last year. The ride was comfortable and I did not notice any undue tire wear.

If you check my sig, you will see that I have a CS4 which is not what you are considering. Still, I believe that much of what I can report about my winter tires would apply equally to a C2 or C2S.

mdrobc1213

Off subject but how did you embedd that video? Awesome.

GuyIncognito

when I lived in STL I used a set of Bridgestone all-season performance tires (bought from the Tire Rack), they were great. big difference in cold temps, and good in the snow (but not as good as dedicated snows, like Blizzaks). but we didn't get that much snow, so no biggie.

FiatCoupe

I have my own youtube channel which is where the video came from. All I need to do is paste the url to the video (or any youtube video) into this forum using the "Insert Link" button in the "Reply to Thread" page and the forum engine does all the rest.

John

RED HORSE

Lived in Salt Lake City for 10 years and during that time have a variety of Boxsters and 911's that I used as daily drivers. Salt Lake gets a lot of snow, granted, not as much as Park City, but running various brands of winter tires I never had a problem. My favorites were Dunlops. All were two wheel drive cars.