Winter Driving!

[YellowGiser]

Hey! I am buying a 99/00 corvette in couple of weeks and wanted to know if anyone here drove/drives their corvette in winter? what I was thinking about doing is buying 16" wheels for winter and putting on nice winter tires. Would that work? Will it be driveble in winter?

Thanks Vit,

 

[reefdiver]

I wouldn't do it.

 

[GS Diva]

I wouldn't do it.

Not for one minute would I drive any Corvette in the Winter!! Good way to ruin it!

Elaine

 

[Tom Kearns]

Have driven ALL Winter, EVERY winter since 1994 in my 93-96-98-2003 Corvette.

That includes rain and even SNOW. As long as dthe depth is not over around 5 inches. Vette becomes a plow after that. Live in the Kansas City area and we have all four seasons here, so you just get USE to IT.

I found Firestones to be better than Goodyears during wet and snow. Put 80,000 on my 98 Pace Car. Tom Kearns www.cckc.net

 

[YellowGiser]

ruin it how?

 

[YellowGiser]

Not for one minute would I drive any Corvette in the Winter!! Good way to ruin it!

Elaine

oN YOUR 98-2003 DID YOU KEEP YOUR STOCK RIMS ON?

 

[yellow_2002_germany]

I drove my '78 Pace Car in Colorado Springs for 2 winters with no problems. Well, except finding it in the parking lot after some of the particularly heavy snows!

 

[GS Diva]

ruin it how?

Salt (and, yes, salt can have ill effects even on fiberglass ), snow, rain, ice...dangers of driving in snow and ice.

To answer your other question, we have ZO6 chrome wheels on our '02 convertible.

Elaine

 

[Remo]

Corvettes in the Winter

I agree with GS Diva - nothing good can come from driving Corvettes in the winter. But if you like white knuckle driving, endangering your life and others and just generally beating a good car - than knock yourself out.

Remo:cool

 

[Tuna]

I drive my Vette all year here in OK except in the snow and ice. Of course, we don't get that much snow and ice here in OK but enough to make me park it for a day or two. Also, they don't use salt here, just sand and even that is a royal mess.

As for 16" wheels on a C5 - probably will not work. The front brakes are pretty large and will require 17" wheels minimum to clear the caliper.

I think Michilen makes an 'all season' tire for the C5 size but I haven't looked for it.

 

[YellowGiser]

Thanks for all the info, and one more thing: for the people who drove in winter, did you have your stock wheels on with the winter tires?

 

[mindy]

I drove my 2002 coupe for most of last winter, with worn out goodyear runflats. I have a job where I can wait until the road crews plow and the traffic lightens up before I go in. There was about 2 weeks last winter when I wouldn't drive it, too icy (or too deep snow). I keep lots of distance between me and everyone else, and always think they are going to do the stupidest thing possible (am right about 50% of the time) :duh


My driveway has quite a slope to it (lightly scrapes front spoiler with 2 in car). If I had trouble on it, the vette stayed home.

Something I noticed, if I left the traction control "on", the computer would keep cutting power until there was none left (6 speed). So I turn it "off", and with careful throttle/clutch usage I could make it up the driveway, even with snow on it.

Last Month, I bought Michelin Zero pressure all-season tires all-around (finally saved up the $$), hopefully this winter I can get rid of the "white-knuckle" grip I developed !

 

[DRTH VTR]

In the book "All Corvettes Are Red", there was a section where some beta C5's, a C4, and some Japanese competition got to the bottom of a snow covered hill. All the cars went up easily except the C5. It struggled. The book laid the blame mostly on the tire design. My '97 and my '02 were both TERRIBLE in the snow. My Corvette is the only car that I own. Sometimes when the roads are bad, my girlfriend and I make arrangements to share her car, but most of the time I drive the 'vette.

 

[Tom Kearns]

YES, drove all year with stock wheels and tires. Then upgraded to Firestones on my C5's. They helped winter wet driving.