maxpowers

I finally put snow tires on my 07 Cayman S yesterday. This is my first time ever driving with snow tires and attempting to drive a sports car in the winter. Usually in the winter I'm in a warm climate or if I'm in the snow I've been driving a 04 Range Rover.

The tires are:

235/40R-18 Yokohama iceGUARD iG52c XL
255/40R-18 Yokohama iceGUARD iG52c XL

Last year I tried driving around my neighborhood with the stock tires and I couldn't make it up any kind of hill and was slipping and sliding everywhere. This year with the winter tires I drive at the same spots with no problem. If I really gun it the car with fish tail, but for the most part it handled the hills and snow/ice around my neighborhood really well.

I still haven't taken it on the highway or more than 30 mph and am just taking it really slow and easy. Any tips for highway driving if I run into ice/harsh conditions? I'd like to drive it through a curvy mountain road (Glenwood Canyons on i70) and if conditions get difficult can the car handle it?

Also, can the tires handle about 350 miles of summer highway driving back to where I have the summer tires?

DBH

You've got heavy duty ice/snow tires. They should be good for anything you encounter. The only thing holding you back would be the depth of the snow - at some point you'll end up as a snow plow!


In adverse conditions just slow down and maintain a reasonable speed, especially when going up hill. Hanging the tail out can be great fun and an education in car handling. Just be sure to do this in a safe area with lots of object free runoff area.


These tires can be driven at "normal" speeds on the highway. Just remember that they will not have the handling capabilities of performance summer tires. Can they be driven for long periods during hot weather? Yes, but they are really not designed for this and will tend to wear quicker.


Have fun in the snow!

sctanton52

+1 with DBH. The 350 mile trip to get to the summer tires would be fine.

maxpowers

Thank you so much! I'm excited to keep driving in the snow

dennisafrompa

.....have fun. I do.

Macster

Even with proper snow/ice tires you have to be careful, always be aware you are driving in marginal traction conditions.

Years ago -- more years than I care to count -- I was told in marginal traction conditions -- like rain or show/ice -- to adapt a one gear higher than usual behavior. (Obviously this was back when manuals were the norm. Owners of automatic equipped cars can just let the automatic decide which gear is "best" and be ok.)

This one gear higher than usual was to reduce the amount of torque available to keep the car from accelerating quite so briskly and to reduce the chance of wheel spin and possible loss of control.

Also, I slow down. While 65mph or higher is ok in good weather even 65mph may be too fast in bad weather even on real snow tires. (Driving through a section of heavy snow fall on I-40 between Albuquerque NM and Santa Rosa NM a few years ago in my Turbo (on summer tires no less) I got in behind -- but with plenty of room between my car and the rig ahead of my car -- a slow moving big rig (empty) and we cruised along at between 30mph to 40mph and made it through unscathed. A number of vehicles that passed us at much higher speeds ended up off the road.)

Slow down and give yourself and your car plenty of cushion.

For a "reminder" of how quickly things can go wrong when driving in the snow visit Liveleak (liveleak.com) and search out the auto wreck videos, compilations. A number of these occur on cold/snowy roads and you can quickly get an appreciation of how leaving yourself plenty of room can help you avoid an accident.

Oh I forgot to mention: One thing I did with my Boxster is I put some bags of sand in both trunks (80lbs in each trunk IIRC) to give the car some more weight to help the tires bite better. Also, just in case I picked up a nice suitably sized tow strap -- don't get one too short -- and with the necessary hardware (heavy duty lifting u-bolt) to connect this to the towing eye so someone could pull my car out of a snow bank/ditch should something happen. But I was very careful and never even had to use this setup.

JAMESEY271975

i've been driving around SLC all winter with 20" snow tires. This has been the snowiest (is that a word?) winter I can ever remember. The car (Cayman S 981) has been bullet proof. Honestly I'm more scared of clowns in AWD cars who think they can race around in 2 feet of snow. Obviously I agree with the earlier post regarding becoming a snow plow if its too heavy.

maxpowers

I took it out today and it tends to fishtail a bit going uphill where the is some ice, which is right above my house. Otherwise on normal roads it's working pretty well.

Tomorrow I'm going to take it on the highway. One thing about the winter is that the car gets pretty dirty