lets hear how your first snowfall went in the Z! i'd like to hear how other peoples first snowfall went since mine only happened a few days ago

a little background, i do have all 4 snows on my car and am a very careful driver in adverse conditions, i turn my trac/stab off on take off and going uphill, turn it on again, once im at a decent pace.

my first snowfall over 1/4" was on thursday. the part of the city that im located in gets a little bit extra for some unknown reason, and we had between 6-8" (15-20cm), by the time i got to work 15mi (25km) away, it was a little over half of that.

so, lets start...
getting out of my driveway was no biggy, along with getting down the street and around the first 2 corners, though, i didnt completely stop at the stop signs. my normal route out of my neighborhood has a pretty decent hill in it, right after a 90 degree turn, so i knew i couldnt get a huge run at it, but i figured id still give it a shot. this all came to a crashing hault when i cant around the corner and there is some one about half way up the hill in a FWD equinox with all seasons, so i stopped and waited to see if they could make it. after a couple minutes of me waiting, a BMW 750i X-drive goes around me with no hesitation, trucks up the hill and easily passes by the idiot who thought all seasons could handle such a battle. anyhow, i ended up having to back up and turn around in some fresh snow(car was almost floating on the fresh snow, so there was a lot of tire spin and they stunk, too ) i never got to give the hill a good attempt because traffic was starting to pick up, just enough. i ended up going the easy, longer route and had no issues at all getting onto the major roads. once on the major roads and highways the only issues i encountered were people who dont know how to drive in the snow. once i got to work, i noticed that the right lane haddnt been driven in very much and the sidewalk had been cleared, small mounds of snow across the driveway to the shop. the rest of the driveway/lot was cleared before the storm stopped, so there was only about an inch on the ground there. anyhow, i decided to bomb the driveway at about 15 mph, cutting across the right lane(yes, i looked and made sure no one was there, closest thing was an audi about 100ft behind me, in the right lane) and i made it without any issues, other than turning around because i had to stop at the bottom of a "blocked" hill

my conclusion of Z+snow= you need a bit of weight in the back, the front feels pretty planted, but the rear is very floaty D:
im thinking about getting a couple of cases/huge bottles of water

 

Huge bottles of water will roll around. If you want added weight on the rear, get sandbags, but make sure you put them in trash bags (double I would suggest) in case of any leakage. Local hardware stores usually sell sandbags by weight.

 

nah, i was thinking the ones that hold like 5-8gal or something... about 15" dia. and almost 2ft long, idk how big exactly, they are like $5 a bottle at the grocery

 

I experienced the same storm as you, OP. I was visiting my GF who lives in Burlington, ON. I flew in this time (luckily!) but I drive the Z up most of the times. The snowfall was pretty intense.

My worst driving experience with the Z was an ice/snow storm we had a little more than a month ago. I have all season tires though. I was driving home from an interview and it got bad real quick. I was on a hill waiting for the light and the car behind me crept up all the way to my rear bumper. The car was slipping all over the place prior to that and I knew I had to feather the clutch until the light turned green so that I could ease off and not spin out...it didn't make it any better that the retard behind me was an inch away from my rear bumper which gave me no margin of error to let the car roll back a bit. Light turned green and the car spun out a bit but not as bad. That whole drive home was pure hell and my top speed was probably not more than 10mph. This is with 10 years driving stick experience too. It was so bad that I wished I was on my motorcycle instead of the Z lol

Having a rwd manual car in situations like that really hone your driving techniques and make you a better driver.

 

From where I was at, I could see road crews and police set up flares around a freeway overpass at night, to get traffic to slow down for road ice. So the traffic on the freeway slowed down to a stop at that point - but I could still see and hear cars sliding straight into the long line of backed up traffic, continuously causing huge pileups over the course of several hours. I could have seen 14 wrecks that night.

 

Snowed about 6 inches the first snowfall a few days ago in northern Ohio; needless to say, my baby (350z, of course) is now stored for the winter.

Back to driving the ol' beater-mobile

 

pbn, that sounds brutal! i love my snows, idk how you could go on without them D:, the rooster tails off of them were huge! haha luckily, i rarely drive on steep hills with a stop light/sign!

but i think the rest of you guys mistook how i meant this thread.. i was asking to hear about the story of your first snowfall, in your Z

 

i used to roll around in summer tires this year i picked up a 94 pathfinder 4x4

 

Good idea, because water never freezes and won't cause a mess like sand bags do.

 

Mine was earlier this month! Coming home from a concert. Went into the concert...no snow... came out.... 5 inches.... Drove 60 miles home like a boss. almost **** my self a few times though

 

I had my z for a week, and it was raining and there was ice everywhere. took a turn alittle too quickly and did a 180, tried to correct did another 180 opposite way, and curbed my front bumper.

 

run a set of bridgestone blizzaks then you shouldnt have a problem

 

Dont use sand bags, use chicken grit. Its sold at feed stores. If you get stuck, you can put chicken grit under the tires for traction. You put sand under the tires for traction and all you get is mud. Chicken grit is larger and easier to clean up if you get a leak also.

 

A few years back, it snowed while I was at work. I was forced to drive home in my Z. It was not pleasant. I bought a 4x4 truck the next day. Problem solved.

 

^ I'm widely known for my epic story telling capabilities... can you tell?

 

I was heading out for work on my no maintenance road, fresh snowfall and ice underneath. Turned a slight right on a downhill and the car went into a curb

totalled LF wheel bearing, i replaced it the next day at work.
And BIT my rims hard! was planning on a new wheel set up in the spring, now its one of those have to do things.
Wheels are not bent , but the lips took a licking!!

 

When I first moved up to NY a couple years ago I drove up there just in time for the first snowfall of the year, pain in my ***. I was low on gas when I got into Buffalo. I couldn't get my car into the gas station because of all of the snow. There was two guys helping me push my car up to the pump after I spent 15 minutes trying to get in and still being 20 yards away. Laughing at me the whole time saying wth are you doing up here? In the end I think it took me 45 minutes to get in/out of the gas station.

Then on the way to where I was staying I was going 20mph when I went into a slide and completely spun around and into the curb facing on coming traffic. Luckily it was 2am so hardly anybody was on the road. Then to top it of NY salts their roads up there so now I have surface rust underneath my car to deal with. All from 1 winter. Its safe to say my car is never seeing snow again.