I've often wondered how hard Calgary winters are on new cars. My S2 is the first new car I've purchased from a dealer and I'm trying to keep it in perfect shape. Does the salt and gravel deteriorate the under side of your car enough to consider not even driving it in winter. Or does it really matter as long as you wash your car frequently? Any Ideas? ... I'm trying to hold of from getting winters (they are S02s right now), but I'm driving a Ford Exploder truck ... .. I don't know how much I can hold myself off....

 

I would never drive S02's in the winter. From what I understand, the tires are made for temps 5C and above. I found this out AFTER I spun out on the highway last year. If you are going to be driven your car in the winter, get some winters on. I'm going with WS-50's as recommended by board members.

 

Eugene, welcome to the board and it was great talking to you the other day on the phone. Hope you come by often.
I'm in my 4th winter now with the S2000. Granted, the unprotected areas like the suspension parts do get a layer of rust on them that are quite noticeable but it does not get worse. It's only surface rust and is really no worse than someone who drives their car in the rain.
I would be happy to meet up with you and let you have a real good look at the underside of my car anytime you like. It's not bad at all. I'm certainly not concerned about it. And no rust has begun to form on any of the body panels. I don't through a lot of effect to clean the underside at all. I might stick the nozzle under the car and walk around it, giving it a good spray when I wash.
However, if you have another vehicle to drive in winter and you want to keep your car pristine, then I'd say don't drive it. Unless you get the clear film protection on the frontal areas of the car, you will get a lot of sand blasting on the nose and hood. Snow tires (and wheels) will set you back a lot of money as the tire sizes for this car are not a common size.

 

Hey there newcomer!

Welcome to the board. I'm sure you'll find plenty of useful information, and all the dry humour you need, as you rifle your way through the many many posts/threads on here.

Regarding your concerns. I don't drive my S2000 in the winter. That said, I don't think it would be any different to driving any other low slung RWD on our winter roads. The S02s have to go during the snow months. The tires are mediocre at best on wet roads, let alone when they harden up into rolling chunks of carbon with our sub-zero temps. You will be hard pressed to have enough traction to make it up even the slightest of snow covered grades.

Front end protection is most definately a good idea. I made sure that I got my Tundra covered with Ricochet protection, which, with it's 12mm of thickness will protect you from anything and everything the road can throw at you. (no pun intended) If you need more details, fire me off a PM since I have some contacts that can get you a good price.

Don't fret about the undercarriage. There is sufficient undercoating to prevent you from any rust. If you are concerned, Ziebart charges a minimal fee for a "once-over", or you can do it yourself for only a few $$ worth of materials. I did the same on my Tundra, and if you need a hand, just shout. It's easy, albeit a little messy to do. All said, just give the undercarriage a rinse each time you wash the car, and that will suffice. I usually go one step further, and use a foam brush provided at the car wash to scrub down some of the underbody components. This will further inhibit the surface rust that XViper mentioned, from forming on the control arms, sway bars etc.

Hope that helps! Let me know if you need anything else!

Happy motoring.

Asif

 

sorry to be a post thread hog, but any winter driving the S topic catches my 'eye'

If you are like me and will get some degree of salt and snow underneath, is it okay to still jack up on 4 jack stands, remove the wheels, and spray the wheel wells, and the underneath with water ? (of course in heated garage)

I would think the "drying water" underneath would almost have the same effect as the snow / salt ?

so I would think taking the leaf blower to the underneath after the water spray would do the trick ?

your thoughts ?

thanks
simon

 

Simon, that's waaaaaaay overkill. I just stick the garden nozzle under the car and walk around with it. Then, as I wash the car I stick the nozzle into each wheel well and get what I can.
However, having said that, what you just described would do no harm. I'm just not sure that you need to go that crazy about it.
Are you related to VTEXTC by any chance?

 

probably in some SPA form or another

 

simon, what you're doing is a good idea out in Ontario... but here in Alberta its totally not needed... they generally don't use salt on our roads here.

What xviper does is more than sufficient for our winters here.

The most important thing is to simply rinse off the undercarriage every time you wash the car... where in the summer you could probably go the entire season without even touching the undercarriage.

 

I don't want to shock you to much, but they do use salt in Calgary. Only they don't use nearly as much content as they do down east. Also, they won't use it (not on purpose anyway) if the temps are anticipated to be too cold as salt does not work well below a certain temp.

 

yeah, i know they use some here (you can usually tell because of the colour the roads turn to)... but when you're down east its so easy to tell... the roads are WHITE there)...

not to mention minus 5 in toronto feels like minus 40 here, hahaha