Who has to drive in the Snow?

Just wanted to get some other feedback on how other 3's handle in snow. I am in NE Ohio and we have been hit pretty good with snow. First I found that the tires (17" Goodyear) which come with the car (4dsGT) really SUCK. Man they are really bad for what are classified as all season. Also I found that I had to turn my traction control on and off depending on the slope of the road. With it on I could not get up a snow covered hill. the engine would crackdown to a stall point. I turned it off and used 2nd gear and clutch control to get up the hills. It did seem to help while sliding around turns. you can feel it brake in the back when sliding through turns. Overall I give it a C- for handling in the snow. 
 
Also the auto WW wipers seem to get weird when its snowing. sometimes the windshield is getting a bunch of snow build up and they do not wipe and then there is just a small amount of water on the windshield (maybe its just right at the sensor) and they wipe like crazy..
 
Oh hell my wife was right, I am never happy. Oh wait I am a man.. it all fits now.  
 
Comments???
 

since when do mazda3's with manual tranny's have traction control??
mine sure as hell doesnt. and i love it. i drove my parents auto alero the other day, it drove me nuts. literally. i vouche nover to drive that car ever again.
but i have Toyo Proxes all season tires, and they are pretty shitty.
but that makes for better drifting, so its kinda all good.
i live up in Burlington (southern ontario) and we got about 50cm of snow in some spots.  and i almost got stuck at intersections numerous times.
and at times like these, im never in 1st gear when i start moving.
i always start in 2nd, cuz theres more traction in second.
like, the gearing is lower or more torque?? i dunno, something along those lines)
but i just have to be more careful, like watch my backside and brake sooner when making turns and stuff

Mrgaragal, yes I have a comment and the solution for you. You need to pack the family up, load everone into the M3 , and move down here sunny FLA and be done with that COLD AND SNOW . ISSUE RESOLVED FOR YOU.

War, that is a very tempting offer. There would only be two main problems. First, if I lived in Fla I would never drive the 3GT because I would be on the my bike (VTX1300) all the time. And two if I left the cold, who would keep all the snow bunnies warm??  Believe it or not you get a lot of snow bunnies that want to be warmed  up here.  LOL. 

I had to dig my car out of 2ft snow drifts, then use my front fascia as the plow to establish the new height of the snow on the road in my sub. (6-12" deep pretty much everywhere, with tire tracks to follow)  At least my Proxes FZ4's seem to dig into the snow well...they spin, but they seem to get me going.  I really didn't think I was going to make it through.  I drove the 25 miles to work in 1 hr 20 minutes.  It tracked straight (as straight as anyone else was) so long as I kept the speed down.  With a set of snow tires on it I bet there would be little to stop it.  Maybe if I get my wife something new later this year I'll be able to steal herWintersports......Her car had no trouble whatsoever driving in these conditions.

thats what my grandparents do.  they live in a retirement comunity in gravenhurst (near barrie) from april to october, then they drive down to Tampa Bay (in another retire. comm.) for the rest of the year.
 
and once you take a 1 week trip to florida, you dont wanna come back home.  like, its fun on the way down, cuz the snow slowly goes away, and it slowly gets warmer, maple trees and such begin to disappear and palm trees start appearing once you hit georgia.
 
then the ride home is just depressing...lol

with my worn down dunlops i wasent making any progress, since they didnt plow my neighborhood it was snow in the street and i was surrounded by un breakable ice, so i had to stay home from school.

Here in central NC, we don't get a lot of snow. But we do get our share of ice storms. When that happens, I stay home. Even my 4 x 4 in dangerous in that stuff.

I normaly don't mind driving in the snow. The crap a%% goodyear tires that came on my car suck. I wish i had a button to turn my traction control on and off. Driving in the ice sux. That is what we got in MD tue and wed .

from SE Ohio here...I feel your pain!!  My stock tires are "ok" but could definitely use an upgrade. I was thinking about buying another set of stock rims to fit with snow tires for the winter?!?  

It's been in the teens at night here for a coupla weeks, but virtually no precipitation.  Literally 99% of the time, I'm just not gonna have to worry about it (snow and ice).  We get maybe three-five days out of the year in which ice and snow (but mainly just ice) is on the ground.  But these TX summers are a real bitch.  I sure hope my A/C works, they finally delivered my car two weeks ago, so I haven't even checked the A/C yet...    But anyway, the stock tires are great w/o having to deal with snow and ice...  I won't ever even need snow tires.  I don't generally even have to go to work if it's iced over outside, even though the owner of the shop I work at is from Massachusetts, north of Boston...

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mrgaragal
 I turned it off and used 2nd gear and clutch control to get up the hills. It did seem to help while sliding around turns

i have a 5spd manual too.  and i have TCS as well.  but i NEVER ride the clutch to get up hills
if u keep doing that ull wear out ur clutch so fast.  my advice. just turn tcs off. and floor it.

Normally I agree with you except when you have two lanes going up the same hill and you just keep the tires spinning the car will not go straight. You have to work that clutch, I am telling you. This is my 30th winter to drive in and it can be a real bitch sometimes. Front weel drives do not go straiight when you have the wheels spinning  Rear wheel drives fishtail like crazy. Hey maybe we need all wheel drive... hmmm there is a patent waiting to happen

im with you on this one mrgaragal... i find i really have to balance the clutch and gas when trying to move from a stop.
i usually have to slowly press the gas/release teh clutch slowly, until the wheels start spinning, thats when i press teh clutch, and take off the gas.
i usually have to do this about 2-3 times before i get a decent amount of traction

I live in PA and just had about 7 inches of snow and 2 inches of ice on top of that. It really sucked driving in it... I was "plowing" snow with my front bumper the whole way to work. My car is all factory. The back end kept sliding all around. I actually went out and bought a cheap 4 wheel drive just for this snow.

I could hardly get out of a parking lot that was plowed but still had a layer of snow. The parking lot was on slight incline and i had to go up it. I have an 05 so there is no DSC on it. I aslo got new tires on the car. They are bridgestone potenzas and i love them when the roads are dry or wet, but any performance tire does extremely bad in the snow. I wanted an all season tire but with the 17's you can only put performance tires. I used to live in florida and i bought my car in florida, but i would rather take the cold and snow over the scorching heat and hurricanes.

hey LEV....you wanna trade lives for a bit??
you take my snow and cold, while i take you scorching heat and hurricanes??
deal??

Still no snow here in TX.  TX kinda sucks, but no snow.  I can drive year round in my speed 3.  Sweet. 

haha.  all u guys and ur snow driving troubles.
i use my mazda6 more as a toy in the snow.  last storm a week ago. i took it out around my development. hit around 40 (very fast), and pulled the e-brake (while clutching it).  did some full 360's.  then, since our cars are FF, i did some REVERSE donuts .  fun as hell.  

for the commute on snowy days. i just take the schoolbus.

and for those of u wanting an AWD mz6.   helllooo MAZDASPEED6!! 

i cant believe nobody else mentioned this, get some snow tires problem solved. got some simple hankook studded winter rubber for teh wife's 3 and it does fine. the tires that came on the car in o4 suck major a55. we replaced them with toyo T1-r and have been very happy. living were you are dont bother getting 4 season tires they are more like no season tires. bite the bullet and get 2 set of rubber you wont regret it

That's been mentioned in numerous other threads on here.  (Wife's 6 has Dunlop Wintersport M3's in 205/50R17)  It is like night/day between regular/snow tires.

Heh heh, weather report here in Ft Worth, it's gotta be the prettiest day outside of the year so far, hands down, no joking, and I'm stuck inside this damned shop...  I wanna go drive my MS3...  it's so nice out right now.   I'd like to go throw some holes of disc golf, but here I am in front of this friggin' computer. 

Ok boys and girls, NE ohio weather has chnaged again. Now we are 40 degrees with rain so with all the melting snow and rain I have a question. Has anyone put a rudder and an outboard moter on a 3? Can you water ski behind one? 
 
LOL