Rear wheel drive and snow

Lucero said:
No, its excatlty the same as driving on sand. Drop the pressure, more grip.
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That is going to give a greater surface area but not necessarily any more grip.
My 235/70/16's are vastly better than my 255/65/16's in snow despite having less rubber in contact with the snow.
 
paradigm said:
Does the RX8 have an LSD?

If not then try gently applying the handbrake when losing traction whilst setting off. it causes the wheel with less friction to stop spinning, giving the other wheel more traction.

Got me setting off on a few hills in the BMW doing that.
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This is a useful technique if you have a torsen diff too. They act like an open diff if one wheel loses traction completely, apply a brake to that wheel and it will transmit some torque to the wheel with traction.
 
Clarkey said:
This is a useful technique if you have a torsen diff too. They act like an open diff if one wheel loses traction completely, apply a brake to that wheel and it will transmit some torque to the wheel with traction.
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I swear I've tried this, but maybe I didn't apply the handbrake enough.
 
I haven't been out yet in the e30, I guess it'll be useless as it has no LSD. Wouldn't rwd be better on hills, as the weight would be transferred to the back wheels? Or is that a physics fail?
 
I guess it depends on how bad the weather is, I have had no problems with my MX5 in snow/ice. Granted if a road looks really bad I'd probably avoid it but haven't had to yet.
 
It's not so much RWD as having the engine (and all its weight) at the opposite end of the car to the drive (When BMW say "50:50 weight distribution" they're lying).

RWD with mid/rear engine has just as much traction in snow as a fail wheel drive car. It has less/different control but that's a separate issue that can be cured with brave pills.
 
I competed in an autotest (think tight manouvres around cones and stuff) on Saturday morning on a snowy car park. Was absolutely hilarious and every car competing was RWD (Had an Elise, a few MX5s, a mk1 and mk2 MR2 and an S2000). Biggest factor in how well the cars coped was tyre size, everything with wide tyres was struggling whereas the motorclub Elise with skinny 'front' tyres all around was streets ahead.

If I was still using an MR2 every day I'd seriously be considering picking up a nice narrow set of Yaris wheels or something for this sort of weather after seeing the difference at the weekend.
 
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Put your spare wheel on the back. Nice thin wheel penetrate the snow better and give more grip. Whoever said it was the same as sand is wrong, the reason you don't want to sink in sand is because you will keep sinking. If you sink in snow then you've got more stuff for your wheels to push again and if you keep sinking you just get to tarmac which is even more ideal. This is obviously only relevant for a few inches of snow though, rather than the Arctic etc.
 
I think the Monaro VXR will be pretty good in the snow due to the weight and the fact it has an LSD and the massive fuel tank directly over the rear axel. Not that it will be used much this winter since it hasn't been undersealed yet.
 
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