aolsen

Hey guys...here in upstate NY we have gotten some snowfall. Even if your not from an area where it snows, do you guys have any driving experiences in bad weather? Whether it be snow, sleet, rain, etc? Or even just any near-crash experiences, even in good road conditions? How did you, or your ESP handle the situation? Tell em here! Lol...

splinter

Please tell us you’ve installed your winter tire setup.

It rained here today, so I backed it down a BCH.

BlackLiquorish8

where upstate are you? i graduated from Oswego and use to travel up and down to LI and drive a lot around syracuse. you have to be easy and you def need snow tires. i have a 4matic and i have snows on it and never had any trouble even last winter when we had 3 days off b/c of a snow storm and we were on CNN. even though it was state emercency i still snuck out to buy beer at this spot. my car was fine. make sure your car is in W or C if your car is newer. leave the ESP on unless you are stuck somewhere than turn it off. tirerack.com has a good selection of tires.


but ya i miss doin donuts in a open parkin lot up there lol esp if there is like a inch or two of powder so much fun with the ESP off lol

Shake

Today I backed the c230 out of the garage (I use the Explorer in snow most of the time) and I'm still on my summer tires. Oh my god it was horrible. My driveway has a slight tilt but almost flat. There is maybe an inch of snow/ice on the driveway and the car skid completely down the driveway. Then getting it back up took another 10 minutes. I'm thinking it's because of my bald rear summer tires, but damn, I never realized it was so horrible. I do have goodyear winter tires. I need to change it up soon.

aolsen

I have all seasons on my c230. I should get snow tires. I fishtailed today doing about 50 mph, but esp kicked in...It's a challenge trying to go up a slight incline in the snow, even in less than two inches, lol...

aolsen

I'm about 2 hrs from Manhattan, 90 minutes from Albany. In the boooooonies, lol...

aolsen

all seasons right now...need to visit discount tire...

aolsen

Drive my C class in the SNOOOWW!!
Watch me fishtail, watch me ROLLL!!
Hit the ebrake in the COLLDD!
Then ESP that OHHH!!!
ESP that OHHH!
ESP that OHH!!

ok, let me stop lol

lol...

Tangerine

Got an IS250 for that job

I don't think my c240 (or any car for that matter) will do well in the snow with high performance summer tires.

But by putting more weight in the trunk it will help. I made a thread last year about something similar.

C230Brit

I added my snow's about two weeks ago. Blizzaks (I believe). Total difference. I dont even care what the ESP does (mostly turned off in snow) the tires stick to the ground all the time. I even reversed out of plowed up pile of snow that was about 6inchs high - no problems!

i wouldnt even dare try the sports tires! They spin / slide in even a sprinkling of rain.

Drive safe all!

BlackLiquorish8

tpenfield

Why do you ask? . . . I wonder to myself.

Actually, I drove about 200 miles in a major snow storm (MA & NH) last year. It started out as rain in southern MA and turned to all snow at the NH border (I-93). The car - 2006 C230 - did better than I expected on the highway, but I still could only maintain about 35 - 40 mph. When I got near my destination (Waterville) and on the back roads, it got stuck.

I was going up a small hill that had about 6 inches of heavy snow (plow had not been by in a while) and both rear wheels started to slip at once. I was going about 40 mph, trying to muscle through the stuff, when the wheels started to spin. Of course, the ESP kicked in and applied braking to both rear wheels and also seemed to cut the engine power (?). The car came to a halt pretty fast and would not get going again. Wheels just spun.

I turned off the ESP, so that I could spin the wheels, but that did not help. I turned it back on, but the ESP did not seem to want to transfer the power to the 'traction' wheel . Sooooo, I applied a small amount of parking brake to try to resist the spinning wheel a bit, manually. That worked a little bit, but not much. Meanwhile, I was shredding the $300 Michelins on the pavement pretty good; you could see the rubber particles in the snow. The brakes finally overheated (I forgot that I had applied a little bit of parking brake) and this big red warning sign flashed on the dashboard display. Then the ESP would not work (disabled). At that point, I thought that I had destroyed my new car!

Finally, a snow plow came by and cleared the road in front of me, and I was able to get going again. The whole time I was stuck, it just seemed like I needed a little bit more traction to get going and then the car would be able to maintain it self. It just couldn't do it. Boy, I wish I had my 1970 Firebird w/ Posi-traction, I thought to myself at the time.

Well, the ESP re-set itself after a good night's rest and I got rid of those Michelin Pilot Primacy tires, and went with the Goodyear Eagle F1 All-Seasons. We shall see how it does this year.

So far, I am not impressed with the ESP ability to gain 'straight-forward' traction in the snow.

dmatre

Maybe you're expecting too much. The purpose of ESP is to prevent wheel spin. Traction is the job of the tires. If you're sitting in snow & not going anywhere, it's not ESP that's let you down . . . it's the doughnuts you've installed on the rims.

The combination of wide tires (lots of flotation) hard rubber (summer tires), and improper tread for the conditions (with A/S or summer tires) can leave you stuck or sliding dangerously around. If you've got to drive the C in the snow, invest in a good set of winter tires . . . you'll be amazed at the difference.

Boom vang

I run my car with 205/55 r 16 Gislaved Frost 5 in the winter with about 80lbs of ballast in the rear. It actually is not bad, the extra weight in the rear made a big difference. Not quite in the leagues of my FWD Acura with snows but still respectable.

Trying to get through snow in our staggered OEM tires is asking for trouble, not to mention they are become as hard as hockey pucks when the temp is below freezing. The difference in grip in the snow with my Pilot Primacy and my Winter tires is infinite.

Side note: I went through most of the winter last year with no ballast in the trunk and did have my challenges (my first year with the car and a return to RWD after 24years). At the autoshow I happened to be speaking with an engineer from Mercedes Canada and he said that I need to add about 40lbs to each side in the wheel well in the trunk at the furthest back for better balance/traction in winter conditions. This made a HUGE difference in traction.

I figured that I got through many Canadian winters in my RWD Corolla ('79-'83) that had ZERO traction control, no stability electronics and no ABS and only 2 snows on the rear, that I should have no problem with my Benz. Most cars at the time were big RWD cars, very few were FWD and AWD was just a distant dream. And guess what...we all survived!

Are we getting too soft?

aolsen

This is my first winter with my c230, so I just wanted to hear different experiences of driving in bad weather, get some tips from other people, etc...

Tangerine

Performance tires, generally summer are softer when compared to non summer tires.

AsianML

When the temperature is warm.

AsianML

dmatre

Summer tires are typically softer at high temps compared to all-season tires, but actually are not softer than winter tires.

Summer tires are sticky when the temps are warm. However, they go hard as the temps drop below 30F, which yields lousy traction.

Quote from TireRack: "The Ultra High Performance tire that grips the track with tread temperatures of 200° is incompetent as its tread compound becomes like "hard plastic" at below 32°". (Entire writeup: http://www.tirerack.com/winter/tech/...age=125#doneed)

Dedicated snow tires remain soft at lower temperatures (super soft at higher temperatures - thus they degrade quickly in summer), improving bite on cold pavement and in snow.

The difference is like night & day. After driving in snow on both summer & winter tires, I'll leave the Benz in the garage rather than snow driving on summer tires again.

Shake

Hahahahahah

Just copy all the the link into your sig and add the [img]linkhere[/img]
.

http://smiliesftw.com/x/soulja.gif

BryC300

4Matic is the way to go. Have 125 miles on my new C300 4Matic now and have already driven in a snow storm here in Minnesota as well driving out of the alleys here after the snow plows come proves to be trying.

I think that Mercedes 4Matic ESP handles better than any other all wheel drive cars/SUV's I have owned. ESPECIALLY better than BMW's Xi series. (sorry, bitter towards BMW now from service, quality and price)

ML55CLA45

need to get and put snow tires on my car.....

-winter pictures...

barrysuperhawk

I just had the opportunity to run a bit in the snow with my new [to me] 99 C230K. With the ESP on, it was just flat wierd, but with it turned off, it handled alot like my truck does, in that the back end seemed to slide as a unit rather than spinning one wheel, like the limited slip on my truck. I probably need to get better tires, but since it handles the way I am used to, I can deal with it for now.

I currently have Continental Touring Contacts on there now.


Tire Rack recommends:
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....cleSearch=true
and
http://www.tirerack.com/wheels/Wheel...9&autoModClar=

...but I am not sure what I would do with a second set of tires and rims, when they weren't on the car.

aolsen

hahaahahah, check out my sig...