Yeah, it's always better to have a beater (makes you appreciate your Z more ). On the other hand, if you get caught somewhere when it snows and you have summer tires on your Z, you'll have to ditch the car and go pick it up latter, no choice. For $600 or $800, you can have an entire set of winter wheels. Only problem is you have to find space to store wheels.

BTW: I have a friend with a '03 Audi A8L (insert $90,000 here). He opted for the performance package, which comes with 19" wheels and our tires. He was shocked when I informed him that they were high performance summer only tires. When he looked into getting all season tires, he found that they were $400 each (did i mention he has a full size spare?). Not wanting to pay the $2000 to get all season tires, he decided to just make due (hello.... $90,000.... anyone in there?). The car has all wheel drive and can barely make it up his driveway in the lightest snow. It will do it, but the car travels at about 45 degrees to the direction your moving. I've taken the liberty of renaming his all wheel drive to crab wheel drive .

 

I have been on the road during snow conditions with stock tires and on both occasions i didnt drive the car...it drove me. i'm not quite sure how i made it to my destination. Too traumatic to recall...

 

There's a guy on the uk site www.350zuk.com who lives in Austria and has driven all the way through the winter ...... highly recommends skinnies rather than stock rubber but he doesn't seem to have any problems .... rather depends on how your roads are looked after to be honest.

 

I drove mine all winter last year. Painful. This winter instead of spending the cash on snow tires I just bought a beater to drive in crappy weather. I also needed something for when I needed to carry cargo so it made more sense to go that way for me instead of buying tires. My custom sub enclosure and amp rack basically eliminated the entire trunk.

 

160 lbs.

I put four 40 lb bags filled with iron shavings that prevent rust or something. It's a heavy duty plastic bag maybe 2 feet long. I was just looking for the heaviest, cheapest thing I could buy at walmart that didn't cost much. I think i paid $5 per bag. It works quite nicely.

 

Finally got Blizzaks on all 4 wheels to get thru this winter in Chicago. Can't say enough about them. They took the car from being a terror to drive on snow, to being really top notch, considering that it's rear-wheel drive and overpowered. Expensive but well worth it.

al
"gettin' there is half the fun."

 

Wisconsin Driver. 140 miles per business day. No problem whatsoever in the snow with Blizzak LM22s. Handled better then the 4runner with all-seasons.

 

The car SUX in the snow, period!! why would u even want to drive a nice car like that in the snow anyways...... u can afford a nice car like that, u can afford to get a piece of **** for the winter!!!..........

 

My car handles just fine with snow tires, thank you...I didn't buy it to be a garage queen. And furthermore, some of us don't have any place to put a second car during the winter. But that's a stupid argument anyway...'cause If I can afford a car like that, I should be able to afford building a whole new 2-car garage right?

--CP2 (grabs the flame suit out of the closet)

 

hehe... Why would I spend lots of money on a nice car, and NOT drive it?

Its not a museum exhibit, and in a coupla years, its not gonna be all THAT popular and cool, as it used to be, Ill still love it with all my heart tho, BUT for now... ill enjoy it as much as possible, enjoy the looks it gets, enjoy the "nice car, man!", enjoy when ppl let me go first on the Stop Sign, or just switch lanes when im coming up from behind and letting me thru... ahh...I love my Z...

=))))

 

What he said...careful as I may be, chances are i'm gonna get a scratch eventually. No sense in driving like a little old lady just to avoid scratches.