palmpalm

I love my 2008 Cayman S and I want to keep driving her as a winter vehicle. I have a good set of winter tires and have driven her through two winters with only a handful of days, major snowstorms and the ice storm last year, where driving it was an issue. But I work a fair bit North of Toronto now and am concerned about the commute this coming winter. Is there anything I can do to my car to make it better in snow and ice? Any advantage to putting weight in the rear? Or the front for that matter?

Thoughts/advice/ideas are much appreciated.

9964runner

just curious, what kind of issues your having? braking, traction on acceleration.....what tires are you running, size, km's, age?

Turbodan

get CAA in case you get stuck.
put a folding shovel and sand in the car.

Sir5n

IMHO Get a Subaru and park that beauty until salt free days a there.

palmpalm

I had some difficulty getting up an icey hill once, that is, I could not get up the hill. In snow I can usually get going but it takes some gentle throttle and sometimes starting from 2nd gear. Also snow is sometimes higher than my car is off the ground so clearance has been an issue a few times. My winters are Carrera 19 rims and to be honest I forgot which winter tires I have on there (currently in storage at Pfaff) but I know when I checked them out they are known to be great winter tires.

Christien

You can get stuck on an icy hill in anything other than a tank. When I used to sell cars folks would come in asking for a 4x4 or AWD for those days when they had a hard time getting up a hill or whatever in the snow. I always said to them, are you really going to a buy a car that's appropriate for 4-5 days a year, but complete overkill, overprice, over-thirsty, ugly and boring for 360 days a year? For those 4-5 days, call a taxi or call in sick. Most folks agreed that was a good line of thinking.

palmpalm

Yah, I tend to agree with you. But when I have 30 patients booked just to see me and the clinic is 60 kms away I can't just call in sick/not go in. Hence my concern. I am also considering moving closer to this clinic but that's more of a long term thing.

moab

One suggestion is to go with 18 inch snows. Narrower tires are better. I go down to 18's in the winter. Doesn't look as good, but perform better.

993GT

+1000
I'd sell the 19" winter wheels (which I'm assuming are the typical 265-295 width rear tires), and get a set of 17 or 18" wheels with a 225-235 size Hakkapelitita, newest gen Michelin or Blizzak all-round. True snow/ice tire and narrower width allows the tire to dig better.
I've driven 944Turbo's(no ABS, DSC, etc) through winter on 'performance' all-seasons without any issue(although not fun per se) even during the 'big' snowstorms in London area etc.
The key is car control and patience. A folding shovel and bag of sand will be your friend if you ever do get caught in a big snow burm by mistake. Keep a tow rope and the tow hook ready as well.
Glad you are keeping the Cayman!

palmpalm

Actually, I just realised I was confused. My summers are the 19 inch carerras and my winters are the 18 caymans. MY bad. sorry.

Imo000

If the roads are so bad that only a 4 WD will do then it's better to just stay off the roads anyways. Good fresh snow tires are nearly as good as 4WD.

AM993

The issue with modern Porsches going uphill on a snowy road is the PSM: it will kick in as soon as it detects wheel spin and cut the power and apply the brakes; you will lose momentum and eventually the car will stop. Solution: turn off the PSM (at your own risk) on snowy uphills and gently apply throttle to create a tiny bit of wheel spin. This works for me anyway on snow (ice is a different story and as Christien said, you would need a tank)

9964runner

Winter conditions vary so much its hard to find a tire to cover them all. For snow a narrow tire cuts down to the solid surface below. on ice sipes (small cuts) in the tread blocks aid in traction, some manufactures add particles to the compound to in crease traction as well. don't forget tire pressure as it fluctuates as much as our winter temps.
ON ice I tent to hug the curbs for a couple of reasons. To avoid where others have been spinning their wheels smoothing the surface, and the undisturbed surface along the curb is often rougher offering increased traction. I should add having 32' snows on the DD I'm not worried about curb rash.

PPo

A true 4x4 with a locking center diff and a low gear is rare these days... I loved my 5.9L Durango for that reason. With great tires, you lock all the diffs, put it in low, and you can idle out of almost anything. Just don't crank the steering and mash the throttle when in reverse, parts snap and fly off... I would buy another TRUCK, probably an old school Durango, if I had the space.

With that said, unless you tow/haul regularly, a TRUCK like that is overkill for 99.5% of the driving and great for 0.3%, and a laughing good time to the other 0.2%.