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 deliveredmy car two weeks ago, so I haven't evenchecked the A/C yet...[sm=vader1.gif] 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...

 

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??

 

Stillno snow here in TX. TX kinda sucks, but no snow. I can drive year round in my speed 3. Sweet. [sm=gears.gif][sm=burnout.gif]

 

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 [8D]. 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 ***. 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