rx007racer

Most of you say don't drive these cars in the winter, some of us have no choice. $$$ is involved and if a buy a car for the winter it won't be a rusted pile of **** that hardly runs and is always needing to be fixed. Basically if you buy a winter beater as some say you will probably be fixing somethin on it all the time. Which also involves $$$ too. you might as well pay for it now than later, cuz youll end up spending the same amount if not more than a decent dependable car. Basically it would be a waste of time fixing everything when you could have just spent the money to begin with and not have to waste time on it.

rx007racer

Sonic I'm in Kalamazoo which is 40 minutes north of the michigan/Indiana border. Or 2 hours south of Grand Rapids, MI

SonicRaT

iTrader: (6)

Haha, do you even GET snow? You trolls have nothing to worry about! Us from the UP (Read Upper Michigan), on the other hand.... lol, down there you have nothing to worry about!

rx007racer

Yeah your right it's nothing like the UP. But we still get a considerable amount of snow enough that it makes me not want to drive the 7 in it mostly other ********. Also i love my 7 so much i never want to get rid fo it and will probably go to my grave with me. And already told my parents if for some reason i wreck it i will never salvage it and keep it in the yard, you prolly know what their response was(NO) but any way this year is a bit different I'M in college now and only drove 10 mins to my high school. Now it takes about 25 min only 15 mins more but enough for an accident waiting to happen. Also i Now travel on the highway and would make me more nervous. and don't want anything to happen to the 7. Already have some minor rust don't need any more. Plus want a truck to go muddin with, but if i get a talon will prolly make it faster and rice it out then i'd have a really awesome ride (7) then a chic picker upper cuz the BOV and other cool mods would attract them. I already get looks with the vert why not another car that does the samething but in the winter instead. (Most looks are when the top is down!)

patman

iTrader: (3)

the only problem ive ever had in winter in the 2 fcs i drove for the last 4 winters was getting up steep hills. other than that, i think they are great winter cars. on the other hand, i like to slide around turns. the thing is, a fc is really predictable, you can tell when its letting loose, and you can control the slide just fine.

im not talking about wimpy slushy roads and **** either, i live 5 miles from a 2 lane road, and a mile up a dirt one. none of these roads are ever plowed or salted, and i was in high school for 1 year of that driving, so i had to get out every day and drive 15 miles.

id say, if you want something to drive sometimes in the winter that will be fun, the fc is fine, but if you have somewhere in a questionable area that you need to get to every day, a awd beater is the way to go. salt and **** like that is a whole nother story.

i personally am sticking the TII in the garage this winter, just becuase i have too much money in it to risk some bonehead sliding into me, and i have a spare fwd car to drive.

Aaron Cake

iTrader: (1)

Come on man, that's pushing things a little. If you pull things out of context, the discussion rapidly becomes useless.

My main point is this: I personally have never had any trouble driving RX-7s in the winter. I have not experienced the problems that others have described. My only conclusion on this is that they either don't know how to properly drive in the winter, or are driving with evil clutches on bald tires. Or all three. RX-7s were daily drivers in the winter for many years, and since I do on site computer service, I may drive several hundred KM in a day during all weather. If this disagrees with the experience of the majority, then so be it.

There are some fairly gnarly hills to the North, and it just so happens that many of my customers are out that direction and seem to ALWAYS have failures in the middle of a blizzard. Again, never an issue.

SonicRaT

iTrader: (6)

You guys either have some nice flat roads (ie, not crowned, or have pot holes, etc), or you guys never have standing snow.

Just driving my FC over the crown and then hitting a crown from another road that merges (which causes the slight hill effect), even at EXTREMELY slow speeds will cause my car to slide, granted at like 10mph it doesn't slide far, but if there's anybody in the other lane, chances are a mirror would be coming off. Potholes and the likes knock my car around so much that there's no way I can safely maintain speed with the rest of traffic, simply because it'll knock the car around and you can only correct it so fast without signing your own fate. Now take that versus your everyday cheap *** beater (i'm talking $200 toyota camrey here), it gets out of shape at all just counter and go and it pulls itself into line, unlike the FC where you can counter, turn in, brake, accelerate, do your girlfriend in the back seat by the time the thing actually regains control. Considering we have an average snow fall of about 2" a day, (obviously it's only from storms), there's almost always standing snow on the ground, and I'm lucky if my car can make it up even minor grades without just spinning the tires and going nowhere. (And this is a bone stock clutch, new winter tires, and starting any gear I chose). Not to mention they tend to get stuck exceptionally easily. But, like I said previously, if you only get like 2 decent snows a month where there's not a whole lot on the roads the majority of the time, then there's not much of an issue. Melted slush is no problem, packed snow/light fluff/black ice/etc, is just asking for it. Like I said, skill is relative, it only helps you so much, the rest is luck and circumstance (just like me making it a winter on a damn motorcycle)

Oh, and yes, I know, slow down if the car slides... (which I do), but that doesn't always increase your safety, some people are just damn dumb, and when they've got a FWD or AWD and are going 5x faster than you, slow ain't always good.

Unless, of course, you can use chains, then you've got a bit more grip.

kontakt

The snow cat was an extreme example yes, but... we've already listed plenty of other cars that are better than the FC in the snow. To me, for a car to be a "good winter car" it has to at least be better than half the cars out there. Granted it's better than a saturn (which I've seen 6 national guardsman try to push on flat ground in 2" of snow, with another driving...a nd went nowhere). It also has to be good enough that people without a lot of skill can get around. I would say that the FC is a good winter car for you, but not in general. Basically if someone was asking for a good winter car... I wouldn't tell them to buy an FC.


Edit: But damn are snow cats fun.

Alex6969

I love winter drifting, live fast, die young as I always say

SonicRaT

iTrader: (6)

You pull that **** around my family, and you sure will die young! Winter drifting is fun in empty vacant lots, but on roads where other people are driving? Come on....

kontakt

I like spinning my subie in place in parking lots... it will rotate without moving indefinitely.

SGesel

An old Honda Accord (89) got me through the Carolina winters just fine..... no sense in risking the 7 when I could drive the honda around, and if I slid it into a pole or something......... take the tag and leave it!!!!!! Now I can drive the 7 in January with the windows down and sunroof open, viva Fort Lauderdale!!!!!

SonicRaT

iTrader: (6)

Agreed, RX7's and AWD's are insane fun in a nice flat empty parking lot, I usually hit my local shopko lot at around 2AM, thing is always empty, and it has 6 entrences and is lighted well, so if anybody does show up, I can see them pretty easily, and if for some reason I need to leave quickly, well, lol.

Jager

iTrader: (10)

Shopko?

Isn't that like Pamida?

JSmith0101

iTrader: (6)

I go to school in da' UP, and it's hilly as ****. I'm not afraid of driving my FC. If you go into the situation thinking it's going to be bad, it will be. I've got no skill, but I will... especially because I have a 4 1/2 hour trip to Wisconsin. That and my home is right near a parking lot so I can do mad d0r!fut0 and learn what it takes to control the car.

uRizen

iTrader: (2)

Hehe, I did that a few times last year and ended up getting really stuck once. I had to wait until they plowed the lot and shovel it out.

piscorpio

hmm, guilty as charged, but I will deny the not knowing how to drive in the winter part fervently!

SonicRaT

iTrader: (6)

I bought my GTUs from a Techie who thought the exact same thing, he thought he could make it through a winter, that didn't last long!

86J

SonicRat where exactly do you live where your rx7 is so bad in the winter? I drive me car to go skiing in stormes and there are no problem even driving at 90 to 100 km/h. I drive to golden B.C. with no problem (for those people not familiar with alberta highways past Lake Louise they get plowed maby once every 10 days). I drive my RX-7 to Kamloops and Kelowna at least twice a winter. Last January i drove it from Calgary to Vancouver in one of the largest snow stormes that year, just to go skiing. You just need good snow tires(mine are toyo's). Every car no matter what you drive front wheel drive, AWD, RWD is going to slide in the snow, its just what happens. I often drive a 92 integra GSR in the winter and i have to say my rx7 is way bettter and predictable in the snow. well thats all for now.

Justin

SonicRaT

iTrader: (6)

Michigan, annual snow fall is similar to that of Calgary. How you can keep the thing straight at speed is amazing with snow on the roads. Do you canucks not have crowned roads, or is this highways?

uRizen

iTrader: (2)

I don't know why you guys are having so much trouble driving in the winter with your FCs. I had cheap Cooper tires on mine and it did just fine as long as the snow wasn't deep enough to come up to the bottom of the car.

You just have to pay attention and make your inputs smoothly and slow and you're fine. I never once lost control of the car.

I'm never driving mine in the winter again though, it made such a mess and is horrible for the car. Granted, this one's rockers are rotted to hell and the rear quarters are now mostly fiberglass because the rust was so bad behind the wheels, but I still felt horrible putting it through that ordeal.

kontakt

I think a lot of these guys are talking about driving in more than a few inches of snow...

piscorpio

Yeah, more like 7" or more, something closer to a foot. An inch or two is no big deal for most any car, if you aren't careless or clueless.

Originally, I felt the statements that the rx-7 is a great winter car were crazy, but perhaps my judgement is biased, because my only experience with a 7 in snow was driving through hilly terrain, in about a foot or more of snow, on bald tires, with a 6 puck clutch. Even with that, I was able to handle the car, and proceed safely using care and caution. It never got out of my control, so that does speak well to its predictibility and demeanor.

Be that as it may, I would still think it somewhat irresponsible to advise the 7 as a "great" winter car. On these boards, you don't know the skill level of every driver, you don't know the condition or type of tires they are using, etc. It is an old, fairly light, japanese sports car, you can not tell me it is the ideal car for driving in heavy snow. Can it be done, of course. Can it be as safe as any other car, why not? I just think there are too many variables involved to say it is a good winter car, and then have little Johnny so-and-so in Buffalo NY, wrap his around a light pole trying to drive it in a foot of snow. Then again, maybe I'm just getting old.

86J

Well said piscorpio

inflatablepets

It snows a couple times where I live. The FC isn't too bad to drive, you just have to be very ginger with the throttle and clutch. I drove one with bald tires that still did better than my old truck. The truck was an 84 F-150 2wd L6 with a 4 sp manual. I had some old muddin tires on it that were the worst. The Mazda GLC I had for a short while would go through anything. FWD owns!!! I don't like commuting in the snow. Well, it usually is ice but I try to stay home on those days. I think about it like this: What would it cost you to fix a wrecked car? Now, how much money do I make in a day. I make good money but it's still not worth it. I have been bitched at for this mentality because the really depend on me, but that's just how it is. I really don't like having to go 30+ miles in the snow in rushour traffic.