I drove my BMW Z4 Convertible every single day in the winter. Just went to smaller diameter wheels (and thus more rubber diameter) with a thinner width contact patch – no problems. In fact, with my dedicated snow tires I demolished many all-season equipped SUVs in the snow.

If you need to deal with snow, mount the snow tires. If you need to deal with ice and snow packed so hard it might as well be ice, mount studded snow tires if the law allows. I had a pair of studded tires for a 85 Buick LaSabre I used to own. They made a total night and day difference in how the car handled in the slick stuff.

Regarding full-size SUV’s, if you don’t have at least a limited slip rear differential and tires with more bite than the standard all-weather fare please park the poser truck in the garage and leave it there until spring. You’ll just be in the way.

FWD is only “more forgiving” in the snow to an idiot who doesn’t belong on the road. I would much rather have a car sideways in the snow and use my right foot and my hands to save it, than to understeer head-first into the ditch.

Well, bully for you for being an experienced driver. Most people aren’t so lucky as to be able to spend a few days on a slippery test track to learn the handling limits and behaviours of their sports sedans.

For the average driver in his/her Grand Caravan, Accord or Corolla who has to go to work, schelp kids and run errands and doesn’t get to track-test their minivan, front-wheel drive does exactly what you want it to do in an emergency: the car pushes, the driver lets off the gas, which transfers mass to the front wheels, which aids traction and stopping power.

With rear-drive, the tail swings out and the average driver is screwed. While I’m glad you have the consummate skill to deal with this, 90% of the drivers on the road don’t.

Or do you think that only the privileged few who can afford a rear-drive sports sedan and get track training should be allowed on the road? That’s awfully arrogant: should only people who’ve been to culinary school and shop at Whole Foods be allowed to cook?

FWD has the exact same disadvantages in snow that it does on dry surfaces–it’s a bastardized, piss-poor layout that never should’ve existed in the first place, and anything done to “make it better” is merely a bandaid.

Front-drive allows better packaging, fuel economy and, in inclement weather and given an inexperienced driver, safer dynamics. For the non-sportscar driving masses, this is exactly what they need.

The drive-wheel bigotry never ceases to amaze me. Just because at-the-track dynamics are of paramount importance to you, doesn’t mean that someone else isn’t entitled to prefer default-to-safe handling and better packaging or fuel efficiency.

There has been, over the last twenty years, numerous opportunities for rear-drive to come back. But the public has voted that they prefer a car that gets good mileage, holds more of their stuff and doesn’t snap-oversteer. You can still buy yourself a track toy, if you want, but don’t assume that what you want is what everyone ought to use.

People aren’t necessarily stupid because they don’t share your priorities. The sooner you can accept that, that happier you’ll be.

I’ve driven a half dozen different FWD cars and a half dozen different RWD cars in the snow. Consistently, the RWD cars were the better performers.

I’ll agree with you here, but the key word in this above paragraph is I’ve. You know how to handle a rear-driver in the snow; most people don’t. Heck, I don’t pretend to be a track star, and I happen to like the way my Saab manages in snow far better than my colleagues’ collective 3-Series, especially when it’s my wife driving it.

However, there are definitely people who put proper winter tires on them and know how to drive them, and they seem to get around just fine.

As an owner of a 2000 Mustang GT living in the Boston area, I can tell you with absolute certainty that the Mustang is not a winter vehicle, even with traction contorl, the best snow tires, etc. etc. A few years ago, I got stuck half-way up a very slight incline on a major highway during a snow storm. Tow truks at the top of the hill were charging $90 to pull you over the hill. I was NOT going to pay for that crap, so I backed down the incline against traffic, built up some momentum on the flats, and barely made it over the hill the second time, with the back tires sliding all over the place. I bought a used Subaru wagon later that month, and haven’t looked back. Save your Mustang – buy a junker. It’ll be the best investment you ever made for your Mustang.

1960s. Volvo 544 with skinny snow tires, pretty damn good in snow, not too bad on ice in trailing throttle “hope for the best will I make it round the next curve?” Much better than average Detroit car. 1965 Mustang – Surely you jest in snow. It was bad in rain let alone snow. Cart sprung rear axle not good.

Austin 1800 Super Land Crab FWD. Amazing on snow and ice. After a storm during the day, Dad used to stop halfway up the final hill before home to pick up stranded drivers. Freaked out the locals, lemme tell you, mainly because SLC would start and go uphill from that stop, and with a load of folks and going uphill as well, the front was comparatively unloaded.

Typical winter sound after a snowfall. Whirrrrrrr, whirrrrrrr, as average punters try to get their cars and trucks moving. Wheel spin city.

1980s. Audi Coupe FWD. Seemed great at clogging the treads on snow tires. Not a great snow machine. So like everything else, there are varying degrees of competence between different makes of FWD in snow and on ice. Sideways engines=better generally, from my observation. But there’ll always be exceptions.

General sounds after a storm. Fairly quiet except for those still driving full and mid-sized RWD sedans from GM and Chrysler, like the cops. And of course pickup trucks. Same old whirrrrr.

More cars with FWD, and no doubt about it, easier for the average joe.

Since then, as FWD and AWD proliferates, the sound is of shovels and snow blowers after a storm. Hardly ever have to help with a push anymore. Not much useless wheelspin, except for folks with 2WD trucks. And of course they load them up with sand and 3 feet of snow in the bed to get traction, along with abysmal gas mileage hauling the weight, ass end down and no weight on the front wheels. Great steering on ice — not. Many BMWs spun out here and there during the nineties, mainly on ice and before the good multilink rear suspension. Trailing arms only at the rear — meh. They’d snap sideways on asphalt in summer if you were a bit enthusiastic.

Now, most of the drivers here on TTAC are probably pretty good and can cope with RWD along with a set of snow tires.

Having a taxi ride in a Crown Vic with boinging suspension in the snow gave me white knuckles this year. Let me outta here!

So I say, why bother with RWD in winter? Life’s too short to be adventuring that way as road conditions are bad enough anyway to be second guessing your car’s handling characteristics as well as everything else thrown at you, like poor visibility and idiots on cell phones.

AWD and full snows since ‘88 with Audi and Subaru. I’m not going back. Jeez. A Mustang in Montreal in winter? Zee mind boggles.

Mark:

Are you sure that Mustang had a Muncie M-22? GM transmission in a Ford???

I had a ‘77 Camaro Z-28 with a Borg Warner Super T-10, (which was odd as that was usually found in a Mustang!) and it was hands down the worst car that I ever drove in snow as it was dangerous. Not much else you can do when it is all you have and you have to get to work anyway.

FWD is only “more forgiving” in the snow to an idiot who doesn’t belong on the road. I would much rather have a car sideways in the snow and use my right foot and my hands to save it, than to understeer head-first into the ditch. FWD has the exact same disadvantages in snow that it does on dry surfaces–it’s a bastardized, piss-poor layout that never should’ve existed in the first place, and anything done to “make it better” is merely a bandaid.

I’ve driven a half dozen different FWD cars and a half dozen different RWD cars in the snow. Consistently, the RWD cars were the better performers.

EXCESSIVE weight in the trunk/box causes poor handling and removes weight from the steering wheels–the weight is always a delicate balance.

Every winter with a new car, I go out to some back roads and parking lots and TEST the car with varying weights in the back, until I find the balance I like. And as far as traction off a standing start again, it depends on the weight on the drive wheels, the power the vehicle has, and snow tires. My ‘85 S10 with 2.5 4cyl and roughly 200 lbs of sand over the rear wheels and snow tires would come out of the hole with a minimum of wheelspin even on hard-pack… FAR better than any FWD car I’ve driven in the snow.

Your statements are, like most related to defending FWD in the snow, blanket statements about RWD sucking and FWD not sucking. Every car is different and the proper setup makes all the difference.

you don’t say whether your pony has a slushbox or a real tranny. Other than the potential aesthetic issues covered ad infinitum by everyone else, I would just add: If you have an automatic ….put the car up.

I have found that driving a heavy, rwd, high-powered car is possible with a manual, but with an automatic, you are at the helm of a vehicle with all the grace and agility of a rampaging rhino on a sea of oily ball bearings.

My first car in life was a ‘73 Mach I with the 351C and the requisite Muncie Rock Crusher 4-speed (ahhh, bliss) which, being a high-school burger flipper at the time, meant I had to drive my Hoss through a Detroit winter. (Next time you see someone from SE Michigan…ask them about their memories of the Thanksgiving storm of 1976, but I digress…)

Anyway, driving a muscled-up pony on snow and ice is a far piece easier when you have a clutch to help regulate the power. Driving a rwd v-8 with a slushbox? Ummmm….exhilarating would be the kindest word.

The best winter car I’ve had was an 89′ Firebird Formula with an auto box and wide-ass summer tires. I took it outside when the town got snowed at for several days in a row, and the crews couldn’t clean the streets fast enough. Driven over the slushy snow-dirt, it would turn into a boat at about 30 mph, and get on the plane at 45, with waves, water everywhere, lifting front end and all. From there on, it was as good as a WWI triplane with a shot-off rudder – steer it all you want, it just won’t track straight. On the other hand, the car took turns like nobody’s business – I’ve never had anything that could be gas-steered so easily and so surgically. It was like flying a spaceship – you turn the steering wheel all the way in, give some gas, it turns in the direction you want to go, apply some more gas with straight wheels, and it catches on and slots into the correct lane just the way you intended. Absolutely fantastic.

So, yeah, don’t beat on ‘em summer tires, they’re great for winter sometimes ;)

When I went to college, I was able to experience real winters (loved it too, I might add) and many people had a winter rat. I do the same now for my ride to the train station…just no rust holes this time!!

You can drive a Mustang through winter, but you have to be an alert, responsive, competent driver who has reflexive understanding of rear-wheel drive motion dynamics on low friction surfaces. Get a set of winter wheels and snow tires. That certainly goes a long way to making a Mustang viable in snow. But the single best upgrade for a Mustang I found for rain, sleet, ice and snow — assuming good tires — is to install a Torsen diff in the pumpkin. It’s way better than the stock Ford disc-clutch limited slip diff, being an all gear torque-sensing power allocator. I consider a Torsen an essential upgrade to any Mustang. But I’d strongly consider getting a winter beater if I were in your shoes.

Phil

I have driven a FWD Acura for the past three winters. An otherwise first class car, it can’t get out of its own way in snow.

That’s surprising, because me Saab (2002 9-3, front-drive, the original from-1993 chassis) is an absolute demon in the snow, far better than anything I’ve driven with AWD. Granted it does have traction control and a winter-mode throttle/transmission/turbo program, but it’s nothing special

That a front-drive Acura (I’m assuming a recent model, not an early-90s Integra) is worse I find surprising.

And from your alias, you’re not too far from where I lived for the past ten years (south Etobicoke) and not much further than from where I am now, so weather can’t be much of a factor.

Anyways, I drove a 1971 V-8 Skylark with non-power drum brakes and no positraction year round during college. It went OK in the snow with studded winter tires on it. The only thing that screwed me up was deep snow with ruts from other vehicles on it. Stay in the ruts and you’re OK, try to move out of them and you’ll catch a tire and spin out. I spun out from ruts on a 4-lane interstate one time at night. I came to a stop sideways in the middle of the road, took a look around to see if any other cars were coming, then proceeded to do doughnuts for fun before taking off again.

Trying to ride a bicycle or motorcycle in the snow is even more fun than driving a car, at least in a car you don’t have to worry about staying upright.

P.S. The audio of that Porsche sounded like someone farting in a plasic bucket.

Get good snow tires. Blizzaks are OK but only last a season. I’ve heard good opinions about Hakkas. My favorite is the Green Diamond. It’s a recap with carbide bits in the tread. This makes anything a total cheater car on ice. If they made a motorcycle tire I’d try it.

I prefer the ability to place both ends of the car, which you don’t have with FWD as much

As for merits of drive train;
FWD is “better” AWD and 4×4 gives the driver a false sense of security. You can not stop
A lot depends on tires, and driving skills. I live in the Boston MA area. I had a RWD Chevy S-10. If I could get out of my driveway, then I know I could get to work. While on 495, I would see the big SUV and the Suburu’s in the ditch. While us low tech drivers would be plodding along.

For weight, I would add more sand/cinder blocks depending on conditions. The caveat to weight in back was that you had to allow more distance for stopping. I was crazy when it came to tires, I had a set of OEM Uniroyels that lasted 80,000 miles.

I did trade the truck for a Ford Escape, this year. The Escape is FWD model, with traction control. (We haul stuff with and the Escape fits us well)