Boom vang

Hey kompressor85 somehow I don't think that you get any challenging snow conditions in Charleston SC...come up to Canada and then you will experience winter driving!

Johnsct

My wife's Acura TSX (fwd) is not great in snow with all seasons. It's very good with snow tires. If you plan on driving in any kind of inclement weather in a rwd car without snows, you're asking for trouble. I once saw a chart for tire and car traction. It went something like this:
From best to worst:
1. All wheel drive
2. Front wheel drive with snows
3. Rear wheel drive with snows
4. Front wheel drive with all seasons
5. Rear wheel drive with all seasons
6. Any car with summer tires

dmatre

If you can't read between the lines: Leave it at home.

Keep in mind that most family sedans are FWD these days, so they will easily outperform your Benz on all-season (read: "worthless in snow") tires.

Not only that, but the typical family sedan is much cheaper to repair in the event of misfortune. It's not worth it for a weekend of skiing.

zoomie

Johnsct: Wow, that's really helpful! thanks for the chart info!!! much appreciated.

dmatre: you're completely right....and even more so b/c my ski trips are only one day. we don't even stay over night.

Cappa26

I would say rent, took my car to the mountains on winter tires and lets just say I didn't do so well.

zoomie

Wow, even with winter tires eh?...guess i'm glad i went for the all-seasons.

Boom vang

I don't expect someone that lives in SoCal to be comfortable or talented in the snow, ask a Canuck who deals with snow every day for 5 months!

Outland

You know what they say about disasters...more than one thing goes wrong, and the series of problems results in the disaster.

Why go into a potentially dangerous situation with one problem already?

I've gotten SUV's with aggressive tread tires stuck in the snow already. I remember attempting to leaving Jackson in a blizzard, thinking the short ride(20minutes) to the condo at Jackson Hole would be cake in an SUV...took 3 hours to reach the condo, the snow put so many cars dead in there tracks, and when we finally reached the mountain, we go stuck about 200 yards from our condo. It stayed there till late morning the next day.

suem

We were in Vermont at the beginning of a snow storm last year. My c230K with Kumho Ecsta ASX tires wouldn't stay on the road. Even though it had only snowed about 2 inches, we had to wait it out for the snow plows to fully clear the road. I love the tires, they are the only ones that I've found that last about a year (I drive about 30k miles/year), but I just stay home when it snows.

kompressor85

i'm from NJ. we dont get much, but when we get it, the state is retarded and doesnt clean up the roads for two days. so its a "fend for yourself" situation.

sanf

i keep a small shovel in the trunk every winter. for rwd rides its still gonna suk with snow tires no matter what.