General Auto Chat

Perfect! Time to add the safety turbo!!

 

A couple hobbies that have been keeping me away from audio the last several months:



Decided to get a manual sports car before they go extinct. I’ve always wanted a small Japanese sports car since the 90s. It’s an absolute blast to drive. I find myself taking the long way home from work so I can hit some twisty backroads.

I also decided to get my motorcycle endorsement and picked up this Honda a few months ago:

 

I never really believed in how effective winter tyres could be until one particularly white winter here in NL when I couldn't even make it up a very shallow ramp into a carpark. Dutch drivers are possibly the most impatient drivers in the world so you can imagine the cacophony of horns I was subjected to while I was holding everyone up.
Car was a rear wheel drive on 18" rims with low profile tyres and barely legal tread depth. I didn't stand a chance.

So I decided to invest in a set of Nokian winter tyres and have them mounted on the original 16" rims that came with the car. The difference was night and day. I feel like I can go absolutely anywhere if there's snow on the roads now!

Suffice to say that like you, I swap the winters on myself in October and they come off around MArch, whether there's snow or not. Saying that, my winters are still mounted as I haven't had time to whip them off yet. No biggie.

 

What is that orange vehicle? A tri?

 

looks like one of these (which look like a lot of fun): https://slingshot.polaris.com/en-us...--manual&option=Manual&trim=desert-sky-manual

 

Yep, not mine though. Pic was taken at the dealer.

 

I heartily endorse this practice for anyone faced with the white stuff. I've put snow tires on my stock wheels for the last three cars (all AWD sedans) and they are like snowmobiles in the winter time (last few winters have been light, but 200"+ isn't unusual for a winter).

Also, the narrower the tire the better if you regularly deal with deep snow (it cuts thru rather than riding on top)... wide is better if you're typically dealing with icy roads.

 

With snow tires and AWD I feel really comfortable in the worst winter conditions. The only thing that is lacking is ground clearance. When it comes to bashing though large drifts the car simply does not compare to the GMC Yukon I had a couple decades ago, but fortunately living in the city those occurrences are rare enough as to be a non-issue.

 

all this snow talk needs more pictures



the sottozero 3's served me well. didn't slide out on me at all but i was well behaved and drove in snow mode, not hooligan

 

Blows my mind driving that in snow Respect

 

Snow Tires RULE!. I remember years ago in my BMW 325 rear wheel drive going 65mph in 6 inches of snow on a Denver freeway with a roostertail shooting out the back like it was Miss Budweiser.

And to boot, I lived on a steep street that always had melted snow that froze over to pure ice. I remember testing the Blizzaks and stopped on a steep grade, left out the clutch and bam went right up the icy street. And yes 100 pounds of tube sand in the trunk helped.

 

In the same vein, this FCP Euro series is coming to an end (watch the whole thing!!!) and hits close to home since at one point I owned a '96 850 turbo wagon - that thing was an absolute riot stock:



OH, the noise that 5cyl makes is godly!!

 

They're boxy but they are good