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It is not necessary but could be added to taste, so to speak. I spent the last 5 winters driving a old BMW that I drifted around like a maniac with, which your son will also be doing. I played with a adding ballast up to 150lbs. Although it made differences in how the car handled, I never thought that anything I tried was no-brainer kind of thing. I would just change the weight to learn how it felt at first, and then adjusted to taste from time to time later on.
Snow tires on 4 wheels is a very good idea. However rear drive sporty type cars are anywhere from a handful to hopeless on slick roads. I drove one through some terrible Nebraska winters and then traded it for something with AWD. Best decision I ever made.
The best advice I can think of would be to buy a front wheel drive clunker for this winter and put the BRZ up on blocks until spring.
A NON 4WD Subaru? Rivers must have turned their waters backward… Does this even exist?
You know, any forum I am in, and many those are, eventually has winter tire/driving discussion, followed by all kinds of opinions.
I hale from a cold, quite cold country. 4 solid months of up to -45C winter, snow up to 4-5 feet. Road service was unheard of, and city was on 7 hills, so all roads lead down – and downtown.
ALL cars were rear wheel drive and ALL were manual. MOST of the tires was many times over retreads, or bold.
Yet, we all drove. Public transportation functioned. Everyone helped to push car out of snow mound.
That preamble was for one simple reason. If you DO NOT KNOW how to drive on snow and ice, it does not matter what tires you have or what drive your vehicle has.
You son needs to go to a decent winter driving school and learn how to tame 2 things – gas pedal and clutch. Then, he will be fine on any set of tires. Honest….Btw, I had most of my cars weighted in the rear. Twice to improve shocks function and quite a few times for sharper cornering. I ballast my weight in the far pass side corner of any car I own, except Camry Hybrid, as she has heavy traction battery in the rear and is very well 4 point balanced.
So things is – you have front engined vehicle and rear wheel drive. You overload rear wheels, and reduce load on front ones, right? What do the front wheels do? They steer.
I’d also never use ice melt. Lord save you from getting it wet. Bag of sand, 50lb, at Walmart is just a few bucks.From what I’ve heard from BRZ owners, the car is actually fairly good in the snow when you have four good snow tires. It’s certainly not as good as AWD, but because it’s balanced and not extremely powerful, if you know how to drive a RWD car properly it can be done no problem. So, the extra weight isn’t necessary but wouldn’t hurt. The good snow tires is the more important part.
By the way, wicked jealous of your son’s car, I love the BRZ!
Urkoz, the BRZ is in fact a 2WD Subaru, to appeal to a void in the lightweight RWD sports car segment.
In NY where I’m from and winter driving is very much a reality, there is no such thing as a winter driving school. My winter driving school was every empty parking lot I could find when it was snowing out. I didn’t go out driving when it snowed just because it was fun, I felt it was my responsibility to learn to drive safely in any conditions. I don’t go out of my way to drive in the snow like I used to, but I still make sure to keep my skills honed.
While I agree with you that a properly skilled driver can make do with just about any traction situation, I have to say that a skilled driver will tend to want the great control provided by proper snow tires.
I am a snow tire fanatic because few things give me more joy than being in accumulated snow and being the master of the road, and we can only hope that aaronac8’s boy is headed down the same road of feeling a responsibility to be the most skilled and aware driver on the road. There’s no better defensive driving advantage than to be better able to control your car and be more aware of your surroundings than rest of the drivers around you.
[quote=”Fopeano” post=120154]Urkoz, the BRZ is in fact a 2WD Subaru, to appeal to a void in the lightweight RWD sports car segment.
In NY where I’m from and winter driving is very much a reality, there is no such thing as a winter driving school. My winter driving school was every empty parking lot I could find when it was snowing out. I didn’t go out driving when it snowed just because it was fun, I felt it was my responsibility to learn to drive safely in any conditions. I don’t go out of my way to drive in the snow like I used to, but I still make sure to keep my skills honed.
While I agree with you that a properly skilled driver can make do with just about any traction situation, I have to say that a skilled driver will tend to want the great control provided by proper snow tires.
I am a snow tire fanatic because few things give me more joy than being in accumulated snow and being the master of the road, and we can only hope that aaronac8’s boy is headed down the same road of feeling a responsibility to be the most skilled and aware driver on the road. There’s no better defensive driving advantage than to be better able to control your car and be more aware of your surroundings than rest of the drivers around you.[/quote]
Very good points. Whereabouts in upstate NY are you? I’m from Auburn and go to school in Syracuse. I always run good winter tires and don’t know why people are so resistant to them. Yes they cost money, but “all-season” tires are no match for lake effect snow in my opinion. Well worth the money. My brother had an E36 BMW and ran Hakkapeliitta tires on that. Even with RWD that car was great in the snow.I posed the extra weight question to Tire Rack and received the following reply:
Hi,
Adding additional weight in the back will upset the weight balance of the car and reduce stopping power so we wouldn’t recommend it.
Best Regards,
Tire Rack
7101 Vorden Parkway
South Bend, IN 46628
O: 888 428 8355
O: 574 287 2345
F: 574 236 7707[quote=”aaronac8″ post=120458]Adding additional weight in the back will upset the weight balance of the car and reduce stopping power so we wouldn’t recommend it.[/quote]
That answer is technically not wrong, but understand that from a legal liability standpoint, they can’t really tell you anything different.
I own a front wheel drive car. Last winter I couldn’t make it up a hill because of deep snow on the road. A two/ rear wheel drive pick-up truck pulled me up the hill….yes he had weight over the drive wheels for helping with traction.
Fopeano stated: I am a snow tire fanatic because few things give me more joy than being in accumulated snow and being the master of the road,
I wasn’t going to say anything, but when I was young I was a lot like that…..but being retired now, and when I was working; on all those snow packed cars and water dripping on me all winter while working on those pieces of trash ….I’m now converted to accumulated sand on a warm beach…being known as the “ master of the beach”….. :woohoo: just had to rub it in…
Where I live its so flat people on holiday don’t go to the mountains, they just go looking for a hill.
So, one wintery, snowy mourning I was on the way to work driving my Trans Am. I had snow tires on all four wheels. About four blocks from the house I came to a stop sign. This road had recently been repaved and they raised the grade maybe a foot or so. So, from the stop sign to out onto the main drag I had to climb a tiny incline.
When traffic cleared I accelerated – well tried, the car didn’t move. Knowing what to do I stepped on the emergency brake to engage the posi-traction and got the same result.
I never was out in winter with this car without a short handled sturdy shovel I kept on the floorboards of the back seat. Looking under the car to see which tire was stuck in deep snow the answer was none. There was nothing but packed snow under the car.
By now people were honking, giving me dirty looks and going around while I pulled the spare and then the mat out of the trunk. Putting the mat in front of a rear tire I would move forward a foot or two before the tire spit out the mat. Repeating this a few time I worked my way forward until I realized the next move would have the nose of the car out in traffic.
Three season cars in winter – I’m never going back there.
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