Hello all,

I'm looking into buying one of these fantastic cars But my main concern is that i have to use it all season. Is it like impossible to drive it in the winter season? Is it much harder to drive than other RWD cars? (winter time)

Thanks,

Anbjornk

 

If you buy a cheap set of wheels and 4 good snow tires to use in winter, then you can drive all year long. You may want buy the minus 1 wheel and tire set, they are cheaper and perform better on snow. If I still live in Minesota, I would buy 15" wheels and for tires: 185/65-15 for fronts and 205/60-15 for rears. I had Supra while I was in Minesota, OEM wheels and tires were horrible on less than 1/2" snow, I replaced OEM wheels and tires with minus one wheels and snow tires, that Supra was able to go over 10" of snow without any problem.

 

Your main concern should be tires. Tires are going to be the most significant factor in the way the car handles in the snow. Don't even think about driving it in an inch of snow with the OE Bridgestones or you'll get this:



Summer high-performance tires get hard in cold temps. They are designed to be sticky when it's warm, but can't when it's cold. Snow tires, like the Bridgestone Blizzak, have deep treads and are made from a soft compound that stays soft when it gets cold. I just recently moved to North Dakota about 3 weeks ago and ordered a spare set of wheels with snow tires mounted on them from Tire Rack to meet me when I got here:




I wound up going with Blizzaks in the front and Michelin X-Ice's in the rear because they didn't have the staggered size for the rear in Blizzaks.

I've only had them on the car for about 3 weeks, but I have had the chance to drive the car in about 1-2" of snow already. It snowed about 3 days after I put them on. I have to say the car handles fine in the snow with these tires. A RWD car with the right tire is not bad in the snow. I could get the rears to spin if I accelerated fast, but they were digging in and had great lateral traction. The car is very predictable. The only bad thing is that snow tires don't have great traction when it's dry out and because they are soft, they are very "sloppy" around turns. You can feel them squirming around. They also wear a bit faster when it's dry.

It has been over 60 degrees here for the past week and a half or so and all the snow is gone, but I will keeping these on for a few more weeks just in case this warm weather is just a teaser. I'd also recommend maybe putting a few sandbags in the trunk if you're not going to be using the trunk much.

 

I have had my S2000 since early January in Boston. I started it on performance snow tires (Blizzak LM22s), and it was fine in light to medium snow. I had to be a little careful in hard packed heavy snow/ice, but I never got stuck.

If you want more confidence in the snow, you can get nonperformance snow tires (e.g., Blizzak WS 50s) which would be even better. The tradeoff is you wouldn't get as good performance in the dry and wet during any thaws.

Compared to other rear drive vehicles, the S2000 is as good in the winter as those without limited slip differentials. It's not quite as good as those with friction type limited slip differentials.

 

If the S2000 is going to be your only winter option I'd highly recommend you opt for the Blizzak WS50's and not the LM22's. I've run LM22's the last 2 winters and while I'm certain they'd be phenomenal on something like a WRX they are marginal at best on an S2000. That plus after only 6k miles I feel I'll only get one more season out of them. I realise the handling compromise presented by the WS50's but the difference in grip is substancial. That plus they're cheaper than the LM22's and I believe you'll get better than the measly 10k life expectancy you'll get out of the LM22's.

 

The S2000 is my only car all year round here on Long Island. After driving in maybe an inch of snow, I vowed to never drive in the snow again. It was absolutely terrible in the snow with the stock tires. Driving extremely, ridiculously cautiously I would still lose control at times. Very scary...so seriously either buy a winter set of wheels or tires, or (like i do) have another way of getting around.

 

15" wheels will not clear the front brakes, FYI.

 

I live in wisconsin and use Nokian Hakka II's on stock rims. (i have different rims for summer)

The nokian tires rule, and are superior to the WS50's by blizzak from what I can tell.

 

i'm in MI and i drove my S all winter. and we had the worst winter snow wise in 50 yrs

 

yea.. winter without snow tire is suicide..
i really almost died.. heh..