ok that makes much more sense

On a serious note, no way I would drive my beloved Z up north in the winters. I have work on too many that came down south and the undercarriage looks like a big old rust bucket. The salt is hell on a car. You can always tell a northern car when you get it on a lift.

I promise to take pictures of the undercarriage after this Winter and continue this topic that went from driving the Z in the Winter to a discussion of putting my life in danger to having the elements take a toll on the vehicle.
I bought this '13 Z Sports/ Navi leftover in 2914 so this is my 1st Winter. I do detailing as a hobby for myself and friends and barter instead of money. Most people wash their car via a "thru car wash" ( I don't) neglecting to go under the car and wheel wells because as long as it's clean on the outside nobody will see the bottom of the car only the mechanic on a lift.
So on that note I can promise you guys that mr rust will try to do it's thing on my car but being as anal as I am with taking care of my machine it will take a while before this happens, how many of you park outside all year round not worrying about the acid rain, bird crap or occasional vandalism to your car. Mot people that have garages use them to store crap and not protect one of the most valuable things they own. So I thank you for your advise but let's keep the negativism to the minimum please there is enough on that on the news which is why I hate TV and come here to chat with people that share one thing and that is driving a Z :driving:

I posted this in another thread here on a similar topic.

"I started driving mine this winter and its no problem with the snow tires on. Just got to be aware of the big piles left by the plows at on ramps and driveways becasue with 4" of clearance I cant get through those.

For the first few years I was trying to save it from winter but with the price of the older used ones (mines a 2010) dropping so fast I dont care to save it anymore. Once It gets ragged I will just trade it on something else and wont mind losing a couple hundred bucks compared to one that hasnt been winter driven.

Most cars built these days are pretty good at fighting off rust (not mazdas), my neighbour has a Porsche GT3 that he drives through winter and it still looks jsut as great every summer."

Track car, winter beater and daily commuter in one piece of precision machinery what could be better than that!

Notice they are both mustangs? I'm not sure that's a coincident...I drive my Z all year round have over 200,000 miles on it half are winter, good tires and it's fine. Just don't drive like a A-hole.

It's people like you that will drive the prices of classic cars into the ground by not doing your part in thinning them out, if everyone with a '32 Ford, or '57 Chevy had your ideas about car care, there would be way more of them on the road and they would all be worthless because of the amount of them. I for one will not baby my car so that one day they will have a low resale due to numbers of them still on the road.
:stirthepot:

no worries. your car is only worth $10 with 250k miles..

I couldn't imagine driving the Z in winter. To each their own, I bought my 01 chevy Silverado 4wd with brand new snow tires short box and short cab for $700 with 185k on the odometer. Best buy ever... now in the rain I have a truck to keep the Z in the garage. Plus I just keep it in RWD so I keep on sliding.

LOL, if that! I've already told a few buddies, they can have it for 6k Canadian next year.

REPORTED!! why you trying to rip people off! :mad:


:icon17:

LMAO! It's not like i'm selling it on Ebay hardly used, they've seen the car. :)

:tup:

But the problem is you can technically buy a car for $1,500, but will it last through the winter? My $1,000 Jeep didn't, it died about 5 times. Sunk $2k (doing the work myself) into it and sold it for $700. What a nightmare. Ended up deciding to spend $5.3k on my Subaru, and i still had an issue with it that resulted in me driving the Z for a week in Jan. The axle popped out slightly and it felt like the clutch was slipping, clutch has 83k on it so i spent 9 hrs replacing it with a friend late one Fri night...come to find out that wasn't the prob -.-. If you find something you know is reliable then go for it, but its hard to know...second the temp drops into the teens everything starts breaking.

Driving the Z to work in 15 deg temps...accelerated on the on-ramp and the back end swings out, nice method of waking me up early in the morning

I drove through 14 winters in that car before my luck finally ran out. I was only going 40mph at the time; the road went from wet to icy very suddenly and I wasn't the only one in the median that day... one of the people who stopped was in a 350Z and he was crapping nickles.:rofl2: In fact someone I work with slid his 350Z off the road that very same afternoon, only difference was there didn't happen to be a sign in the way when he went off. The point is $h*t happens in RWD cars when the roads get slick and you're better off with a winter beater, preferably 4WD.

I got my salvaged 04 Grand Cherokee (72k miles) for $1500 and have another 2k in fixing everything that's wrong with it and adding a lift kit and various accessories. By the time I finish painting it this spring it's actually going to be quite nice. Best insurance policy I ever got.:driving:

I feel like I'm picking on you as this is the second post of yours I don't fully agree with. :icon17:

I'll take the superior (in many cases) weight distribution of RWD in the snow. I'll also take oversteer as opposed to understeer.

Lastly, 4WD and AWD only get you going. They don't help you stop better or provide any drastic improvement to turning in the snow. If you hit a huge patch of ice, no drivetrain in the world is saving you. The tires on your car are more important than any drivetrain choice you make.

I hear where you're coming from about unexpected things happening to RWD cars in poor conditions though, but I think that's more of a function of a driver being unprepared to handle the power that comes with most RWD cars.

I agree with you about tires being important, but I definitely don't agree that oversteer is preferable to understeer. Understeer is predictable; oversteer is not. Also, 4 wheels turning absolutely helps keep you straight when cornering compared to just spinning the rears. Ice is ice, but I've purposely drifted my Cherokee in snow through enough (slow) turns to know the difference... If I tried that in the Z it wouldn't end well. I also doubt that power was ever a factor in my wife's or my v6 Mustang offroading adventures. Those cars have none:rofl2:

I literally got my Z stuck on a flat side street in less than 1 inch of snow last January. Sure, the summer tires didn't help. But you can't tell me it compares in any way to a 4WD platform that I've taken up steep logging trails through several inches of snow and ice, regardless of tire choice.

Yea, I drove my Z on summer tires in the snow once (just outside my house to see how bad it was). It was comical.

And yea I'd definitely much rather have something with a 4WD platform if I'm driving on roads that haven't been maintained that have steep inclines, so we agree there :icon17:

And I swear I'm not trying to rock the boat, but 4WD and AWD literally do nothing to keep your car on the road when you turn. It's all about the grip of the tire to the road, and power to the wheels doesn't create extra traction when turning.

http://cdn2.evo.co.uk/sites/evo/file...?itok=-o6VsT47
http://cdn2.evo.co.uk/sites/evo/file...?itok=53Xl6k1n

^That looks like a lot of fun. I wouldn't wanna try it if there were trees or anything alongside the course though.;)

Took me almost 10 years of driving to learn it's got everything to do with the tires and almost nothing to do with the 2wd vs 4wd for normal winter roads (off road and mountain climbing excluded). For example, my wife drives a 4wd Ford Escape for the winter. That thing was scary as sh!t to drive in the winter with the factory all season tires, absolutely no stopping or accelerating ability. I threw on snow tires for her and it grips like no tomorrow now.

For people that have driven only rear wheel drive cars their whole life driving in the winter is a piece of cake, in fact I can get around most of the time without even getting the traction control to engage so I'm not slipping and sliding anywhere.

4wd with snow tires will make it easier and more forgiving for the majority but I wouldn't drive a junker half the year just because of that reason. On the other hand if we are talking bustin through snow drifts and driving off road I will take the 4wd. I had a jeep cj back in the day and enjoyed going to the jeep offroad events.

Everyone just needs to drive what they feel comfortable in.

what he said :bowdown:

I grew up with RWD and I much prefer oversteer to understeer. What I find scary here in the midwest is all the idiots that get a 4WD SUV and think that they can drive like its summer. I must admit I get a good laugh at all the SUVs into the walls on the Eisenhower expressway every time it snows. I see much more of them in the wall than Mustangs or any other RWD cars. I think it has more to do with experience driving than anything. It's funny, but most taxis here in Chicago are big old boats with RWD and I see very few involved in accidents in the snow.

very true AWD/4WD instill a false sense of security.

Yea my AWD subaru is far better in snow than my RWD Jeep was on the same tires. Acceleration is a huge part to driving a car (it makes it go) and having twice the grip makes the difference. The Jeep would just spin when i got to an incline, or get stuck, Subaru just rips up any hills and is controllable around corners (while accelerating) where as the Jeep is dangerous.

Point proven

Snow tires.

Wow!

you mean like a winter beater.

did anyone say winter beater......:icon18:
http://www.the370z.com/members/hek-a...ther-story.jpg

here is a little dirty at work Attachment 100386

made a whole circle :rofl2:

back to page1!!! :mad:

And people pay big dollars to have their cars wrapped. New England does it free for me...

Damn I hate the salt but what can you do

It raises your blood pressure and makes you bloated...:rofl2:, but really the salt will not eat away at your vehicle the minute it hits your car, is leaving it there unattended for months but for now I'm not worried, once we get passed these blizzards coming our way and the temp goes above 32 deg. I will spend a few hours rinsing the vehicle mostly under and in the wheel wells the paint is protected since the last time I washed the car I clayed it, polished it, waxed and sealed it so it may look ugly but it's only on the surface. Today it was snowing and I headed out, there were cops directing traffic because of an off road Ford actually off the road, lol and when I drove by the cop he stopped me and said " wow beautiful car is that all wheel drive", I said no it's rear wheel with all wheel snow tires", he laughed and gave me a thumbs up...:rolleyes:

Good plan! I really like the 2013+ led DRL front. Looks good: tup: http://tapatalk.imageshack.com/v2/15...793364c081.jpg

Thanks man, I like your after market rims, I had a few choices for my Winter set up unless I went with the square look I chose not to so I dropped from 19" to 18" and was able to keep the rear wider than the front, no problems.Today we may get another 6 to 8 inches of powder snow. The only problem I'm faced with is the car being so low and the snow banks on the corners are more than 5 foot high I have to inch myself on to the main drag when I take turns....:driving:

( Off topic...is there a spell checker button somewhere on the response screen, I make mistakes and these words become underlined but I have to go back and fix them manually, thanks)

that looks like a post-card shot. nice pict. :D

Out for a rip and didn't end up in the ditch...

http://i61.tinypic.com/1249gnc.jpg

My car decided to grow a beard during the work day. I came back out to leave and it looked like this.

:rofl2:

Why would I want to drive $1000 car for almost a 3rd of the year? I'd rather just throw some snow tires on the Z and continue enjoying the car year 'round.

my beater was $19K cash otd... and put about 2k or so in mods.

why would i want to drive my Z in the shittt?