As much as I hate to even begin to THINK about upcoming winter, I must in order to get my 'Stang ready. It's my daily driver and we get several feet of snow up here. I'm kind of dreading winter driving in my new Pony and have heard that Mustangs are horrible for driving in snow. People try to scare me with the old "rear-wheel drive" argument. Then again every winter I see several S197s tooling around in the snow without a problem. Am confused...

I currently have Bridgestone Traction T/A's and they're excellent in rainy conditions.... I drove thru several flooding thunderstorms and it feels like driving on dry pavement! Not sure how well they'll do in snow or ice, however. What snow tires on the market are decent yet don't cost a fortune?

 

What size wheels? What size tires?

 

Blizzaks, drove all last winter in Chicago and no problems at all, car actually drove very well.

 

Good topic, satur9poet

So I have spent the past 9 winters driving a Miata in New England weather (probably similar to Ohio) with no problems.

The RWD argument really only holds true to people who are used to the behavior of FWD which is much more forgiving to mistakes. Having a car understeer is aparently easier for inexperienced drivers than having the tail come around.

The other benefit to FWD is that they tend to be front biased and have a lot more weight over the drive wheels...so the Mustang isn't great in this dept. but IIRC, it's a lot better than RWD cars of generations past. With good snow tires and some common sense (don't drive in a blizzard if you don't have to) you and your car will survive the winter okay...

So... having not driven my '09 GT through a winter yet, I doubt if I said anything you didn't know but at the least, I'm confident that we'll make it through!

As for a brand, my friend used Bridgestone Blizzaks with his 1997 GT and had little trouble with the bad weather...so that might be a good place to start. It sounds like Starfire also had good luck.


My question for you guys is what are the best precautions to take in terms of corrosion protection? Do you put anti-seize compoound on various nuts/bolts?

Does anyone bother with under-body sprays?

I'm keeping my GT for the long haul (200k miles would be nice) so I'm thinking long term.

Do you guys remove CAI/restore tune to stock for cold weather?

I hope those questions aren't off topic... I assume the OP would be interested too!

 

hey i run the firestone winterforce snow tires $89 each. they have a very deep tread. EXCELLENT deep snow, slush, and rain traction. i do keep 100lbs of sand in the trunk when snow is on the ground which helps big time.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....omCompare1=yes

 

Blizzaks worked pretty well for me, they're spendy though, about 1k for the set.

 

I'd definately do a dedicated set of mounted winter tires plus a VERY light foot and a LOT of stopping distance. 36+ years of PA winter driving and now Chicago plus numerous vehicles (10 or 12?, all but 2 were RWD) and I can honestly say the Stang is one of the worst. Just be sure to also keep an eye on the morons behind you.

Websites such as tirerack will list and compare some winter tire choices.

 

Michelin X-Ice 2. All 4 corners. Awesome traction and stopping; saved my *** from a few close calls, so they've paid for themselves. Get A bag or two of sand or some subs in the trunk for extra traction in the rear.

 

I'm about to pull the trigger on some Blizzaks probably in the next few weeks. I'm running 19" Saleens with summer tires at the moment. The snow tires will go on my original 17" wheels. When do you guys make the switch to your winter tires? Temperature related? Or just a certain month?

 

I sure am! I'm planning on getting my underbody rustproofed, probably sometime in Oct. or Nov. at the latest. The service manager at the dealership told me the underbody was already sealed at the factory but supposedly Ford does a real quick and cheap job...probably nothing close to a winter weather spray coating. Not sure how mucht that'll cost me but if it prevents the car from rusting out it will be worth every penny!

I don't have a CAI or tune yet so I wouldn't know about those...