Never again, my camaro in the snow

[HDDAN]

Hello fellow Bay Stater. I am on Camaro number 4. It is a 1SS. I drove my last three all winter. One was an 87 V-8 Sport Coupe, then a 1998 Z-28 with traction control and then a 2002 SS with traction control. I tried different tire brands on these cars, Goodyear, Firestone, BF Goodrich and Yokohama. They all sucked. I reached a conclusion, Camaro V-8 models are downright scary on a snowy day. I priced dedicated winter tires and wheels for my 2010 1SS and reached the conclusion that I could get a second car for that kind of money. I now drive a 2001 Buick Century in the winter. It was the best thing that I have done. The Buick goes through the snow like a Jeep and my SS stays high and dry. I now treat it like a second motorcycle.

[myold88]

Originally Posted by GEN-IV

Mine got stuck in the driveway with the P Zeroes, they are less than worthless in the white stuff!

Everyone is talking about the snow. It's also just the COLD weather. Below 40-45 the the P/Zeros are scarry/worthless. Don't drive in the winter in cold weather with summer tires .
I just got a set of Toyo Proxes4's- Inexpensive, grip the road, quiet, etc.

[Intimidator333]

+1 on not getting it out of the driveway on P-zeros.

[fastball]

If any of you have watched a NASCAR race, or basically any auto race, you'll see the warm up laps before the green flag is waved. Then you'll also see a few warm up laps after yellow flag accidents. While they're riding the laps you see them turning the car left and right constantly. That's becuase they're trying to keep the tires as hot as they can. High performance tires have their best traction when they are hot. They loose traction as they get colder because the rubber is so hard.

So the stock SS Pirellis are pretty much useless, even on dry roads, when the temps get down as cold as they get in the winter. Poor traction on Camaros is not because they're V8s and fast - if you're older than 30 you grew up with and learned how to drive on a V8 rwd car, and those made in the 70s and 80s had archaic suspension designs and no traction control compared to the 5th gen Camaro. If you grew up in a state that gets snow in the winter, you learned to drive in it with your rwd V8 car. They had soft rubber tires with thick sidewalls, which weren't very good for high performance driving but worked rather well in bad weather. My first car was a 1985 Buick Regal with the 305 V8. RWD and 80% of the cars weight was in the front. I had few problems getting around the Cleveland area in winter.

The Camaro now is more than suitable for winter driving with a near 50/50 weight distribution, traction control, stability control, ABS disc brakes, and a 4 wheel indepenent suspension. Just get a set of decent winter tires and you're good to go. You're not going to drive 80+ mph or whip around corners in bad weather anyways, so the performance tradeoff you loose with a set of Blizzaks is easily offset by the fact you'll be able to get in and out of your driveway with 6" of snow on the ground

[philthy]

Originally Posted by fastball

If any of you have watched a NASCAR race, or basically any auto race, you'll see the warm up laps before the green flag is waved. Then you'll also see a few warm up laps after yellow flag accidents. While they're riding the laps you see them turning the car left and right constantly. That's becuase they're trying to keep the tires as hot as they can. High performance tires have their best traction when they are hot. They loose traction as they get colder because the rubber is so hard.

So the stock SS Pirellis are pretty much useless, even on dry roads, when the temps get down as cold as they get in the winter. Poor traction on Camaros is not because they're V8s and fast - if you're older than 30 you grew up with and learned how to drive on a V8 rwd car, and those made in the 70s and 80s had archaic suspension designs and no traction control compared to the 5th gen Camaro. If you grew up in a state that gets snow in the winter, you learned to drive in it with your rwd V8 car. They had soft rubber tires with thick sidewalls, which weren't very good for high performance driving but worked rather well in bad weather. My first car was a 1985 Buick Regal with the 305 V8. RWD and 80% of the cars weight was in the front. I had few problems getting around the Cleveland area in winter.

The Camaro now is more than suitable for winter driving with a near 50/50 weight distribution, traction control, stability control, ABS disc brakes, and a 4 wheel indepenent suspension. Just get a set of decent winter tires and you're good to go. You're not going to drive 80+ mph or whip around corners in bad weather anyways, so the performance tradeoff you loose with a set of Blizzaks is easily offset by the fact you'll be able to get in and out of your driveway with 6" of snow on the ground

Could not have said it better myself. Anyone that drives in cold weather with summer tires is taking a huge risk. Please, guys...either get snow tires or a beater car. At minimum put all-seasons on if you will be driving year-round.

Plain and simple, with snow tires, the Camaro is great in the snow. All the safety nannies on this car make it handle good. I feel safer in this car than I have in any other car I have owned.

[HDDAN]

Originally Posted by fastball

If any of you have watched a NASCAR race, or basically any auto race, you'll see the warm up laps before the green flag is waved. Then you'll also see a few warm up laps after yellow flag accidents. While they're riding the laps you see them turning the car left and right constantly. That's becuase they're trying to keep the tires as hot as they can. High performance tires have their best traction when they are hot. They loose traction as they get colder because the rubber is so hard.

So the stock SS Pirellis are pretty much useless, even on dry roads, when the temps get down as cold as they get in the winter. Poor traction on Camaros is not because they're V8s and fast - if you're older than 30 you grew up with and learned how to drive on a V8 rwd car, and those made in the 70s and 80s had archaic suspension designs and no traction control compared to the 5th gen Camaro. If you grew up in a state that gets snow in the winter, you learned to drive in it with your rwd V8 car. They had soft rubber tires with thick sidewalls, which weren't very good for high performance driving but worked rather well in bad weather. My first car was a 1985 Buick Regal with the 305 V8. RWD and 80% of the cars weight was in the front. I had few problems getting around the Cleveland area in winter.

The Camaro now is more than suitable for winter driving with a near 50/50 weight distribution, traction control, stability control, ABS disc brakes, and a 4 wheel indepenent suspension. Just get a set of decent winter tires and you're good to go. You're not going to drive 80+ mph or whip around corners in bad weather anyways, so the performance tradeoff you loose with a set of Blizzaks is easily offset by the fact you'll be able to get in and out of your driveway with 6" of snow on the ground

The biggest problem that I had driving my V-8 Camaros in the winter was that the wide tires do not bite into the snow. They also do not squirm enough to clear the snow from the treads. after one revoloution, it is snow against snow. I am over thirty and I live in Boston and I started driving with V-8 rear wheel drive cars. The cars then had very narrow tires and the V-8's for the most part made half the power of todays V-8's. The narrow tires would bite into the snow and would squirm around enough to clear the treads.
As for traction control, on both of my fourth gen V-8's , all it would do when it kicked in was to lift your foot up off of the gas. It does not add "traction". It was useless. That is why I have a winter Buick. Oh, I see that you started with a Buick. I am sure that it did not have 275/35/20's on the back.

[BBQdDude]

Pirrelli Scorpion tires here FTW !.

[pumpkinrancho]

P Zero does stand for ZERO traction in weather.

[heRS]

Driving my winter 4x4 beater here. Access to my home is difficult and our hiway is a sand and salt maelstrom so the Camaro is parked til spring. I did get caught in a late snowstorm last spring, very warm wet snow and about six inches of it. Camaro handled great up 20 miles of hiway on the p-zeros. I grew up driving rwd cars so I was very impressed with that drive in the snow.
Here's a short clip of the ride out of my neighborhood. When the hill is clear enough for the Camaro to make it up, it's late March.
http://youtu.be/WlWpInm28SU

[joey0480]

Originally Posted by myold88

Everyone is talking about the snow. It's also just the COLD weather. Below 40-45 the the P/Zeros are scarry/worthless. Don't drive in the winter in cold weather with summer tires .
I just got a set of Toyo Proxes4's- Inexpensive, grip the road, quiet, etc.

completely agree about the below 40 weather. I drove once around 32 and said nope, winter tires went on the next day....

[Mach]

In cold weather and in snow the P/zeros are worthless. I got LS stock heritage wheels on in the winter. They do great in the snow. I got 4 wheels/tires with TPMS sensors for really cheap off craigslisgt.

[ghostrider2]

What about using cables for a short term fix until I can get winter tires? I am transferring to Michigan next year in Feb. so this is something I want to pay attention to. Thanks

[LS3 SS]

Driven mine in the snow, very bad winter. Rear end of the car was all over the road, but If you know how to drive and don't panic, You won't mind it. Ohh by the way, no winter tires, factory Pirellis.

[ghostrider2]

I have to be in Florida for school for 6 weeks from Jan to Feb then drive from Florida to Michigan to the new house then fly to Cali to get the fam. I've driven in the snow, but was wondering about cables helping til I got winters or all weather installed.