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Another winter driving thread......


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Just a few questions. Only two months + into Spark ownership. It's alright. Sometimes it's difficult to put the car into reverse gear.....shifting into third then BACK into reverse generally works when it won't engage. Other then that....we'll see.

So some winter driving questions I didn't find specific answers to.......Thanks in advance for all advice/information/what have you.

Can I put a similar bolt pattern 195/65R/15 wheel/tyre combo in place of the standard 185/65R/15 stock combo? If I can do this, that opens up my market and greatly reduces my cost on a snow tyre package.

Anyone use ballast weight in the trunk with this car? I've never driven a vehicle with such a short wheel base before so I'm not sure if this will make any difference. It's a five speed manual and considering the weight of the car, should have plenty of low-end when I need it...but I was still thinking about tossing 120 lbs in the trunk. I do a lot of winter driving over a wide range of roads....plenty of steep hills.

I saw a few mentions about ground clearance but nothing TOO specific. When it comes down to it......how much will this limit me? Will I be able to drive on unplowed roads under any circumstances at all?

I will be facing upwards of 100 miles of driving per snow storm. I can generally handle situations when they arise, but goddamn it's nice when they don't occur at all.

If anyone could point me in the direciton of a specific steel wheel/tyre combination that will work for a 2014 Spark who's exact model designation I do not remember. Wheels must be the same on all models, but see above.

And one last question...... Is there any feasible means of disabling the traction control? As in completely.....to the point where it is never on. Easier for me to not even have it as a consideration. I'd can the ABS if I could too......I'm not used to it and don't feel like altering my driving style....but ABS isn't THAT horrible....stilll....I'd rather lock up than uncomfortably and uncontollably stutter. Simply removing fuses is fine if it won't create any computer or circuit related problems. Are either of these things even legal in the USA too I guess? I might not care though.

Hoodie Hoo when it was still on the lot:

post-1830-0-86911700-1415749825_thumb.jp

Edited by bmf.whoo
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Thanks schlatz.....sorry.....195/55/15 is what I had in mind........thanks for that. Can you recommend anything currently available that's affordable? Simple oversight, but you obvioiusly understood where I was coming from. Do you hassle with the sensors or do you swap back and forth between wheel sets through the winter as needed and just run it?

Honestly, so far this year the few mentions of snow have been quickly replaced with weather that could be considered as tropical in comparison, so I have a feeling snow tyres might be a waste of time this winter.

Sparkfanatic.........putting weight on the rear wheels of a fwd car will create ballast forcing the tires into the ground more-so than the lack of 120 lbs would.

PUTTING WEIGHT OVER ANY WHEEL, DRIVEN OR NOT WILL INCREASE THE CHANCE OF ACQUIRING GRIP AS THE INCREASE IN WEIGHT WILL HELP THE WHEEL CUT DOWN INTO THE SNOW REGARDLESS OF THE LACK OF POWER.....

Simple physics.....the heavier something is the the greater the effect gravity has upon it. Toss in the forward momentum and boom. I'm cuttin' and pushin'.

If you honestly think that adding weight to the rear end will lift the front end of the ground and decrease front wheel traction, I am not interested in your advice. I thank you anways for wasting my time.

Edited by bmf.whoo
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I have been driving for 45 years and from experience you never want to increase the weight over the nondriven wheels on a front wheel drive car. On a front wheel drive it as main advantage in winter driving is having the weight distribution forward biased. The more weight you add to the rear reduces the forward bias of the weight distribution reducing the FWD advantage. Remember the front wheels not only drive the car but the steer the car. You will be decreasing the traction of the driving wheels instead of increasing it.

If you don't believe us next time it snows take your car and with no weight in the back drive up a hill, then add your 120 pounds of weight in the trunk and try the same hill. See which way gets your car up the hill better.

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I have 2 sets of rims and tyres: the expensive rims for summer with good summer tyres, and some cheaper rims for winter with Michelin Alpin 4. The salt on the roads during winter really destroys our cars and rims, so i am glad i have cheep winter rims.

By law, we change to winter tyres when the outside temperature is under 7 degrees celsius, and can change back when the temperatur is above again.

Edited by Schaltz
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Yes,

I understand that the more weight in the car, the more work the drive wheels have to do. So this can create a situation when starting or stopping......much easier to compensate for than oversteer and understeer caused by such an extreme lack of weight and power. While this would be more pronounced in a car with a longer wheelbase, it still exists here.

I personally find increasing the downward force when moving at speed to be more important than possibly spinning my wheels from a start or not being able to stop in time.

As far as hills go, I'm not worried about the impact that 120 pounds will have. I'm capable of deducing exactly what speed I need to carry into a hill in order to make it to the top with no problem. The greater my downward force.....the more speed I can carry......so with my driving style this is an added bonus. If an extra 120 pounds is such an extreme load that the Spark's engine can't handle it, I might as well get rid of the car now because it certainly wouldn't be safe carrying passengers.

Fanatic......the lessons you will learn at an introductory race driving school may not quite translate into loose surface, practical winter driving. So no.....my physics is not flawed. I'm perfectly willing to sacrifice 1 whp in order to achieve increased balance and handling. Much more imporant with performance driving than outright speed and power.

Adding 120 lbs to the rear of the car is not going to shift any meaningful weight off the front of a car with independent front and rear suspension. If that's the case.....every time you did something as simple as load the trunk with groceries you would be significantly changing the cars handling characteristics. Not good for the average driver, people's general lack of adaptability and all.

Edited by bmf.whoo
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You missed the point entirely. It's not the increased overall weight you have to worry about it is moving the weight bias from the front driven wheels towards the rear undriven wheels. Nobody said anything about 120 pounds being hard on the engine so I don't know where you got that from. If you add weight to the rear of a FWD car you are defeating the purpose of FWD in the first place.adding some weight to the rear could help rear traction to assist with a problem fishtailing but with a car as light as the Spark it wouldn't be hard to add too much weight to upset the weight distribution to make steering an issue. I still recommend not adding weight to the rear and just put on 4 good winter tires. It's worked for me driving front wheel drive cars since 1983.

Edited by Angrybird12
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What kind of Spark are you driving? The "Spark Z06"? My car has unresponsive, regressive steering to begin with. And as far as "weight bias" goes. You can feel how slow the rear end is to come around a corner because it's barely getting any rear end grip! Even for a FWD car the front tires are wearing at a comparably alarming rate to the rear. (Yes, I understand the front tires wear faster than the rear in a FWD car, however, the difference should not be as significant as it is at 8,500 miles....I shouldn't have to rotate the tires every 2000 miles or less)

You're assumptions are based on a car that is already perfectly balanced. This car is designed for fuel economy. Quite frankly, I don't think GM gives a shit about how easy a sub-compact car is or isn't to drive under any conditions, let alone snow. They're not selling these things based on top notch handling. Again, it's a car that costs less than 12,000 USD new.

I'm not worried about "over-all weight".....I'm worried about the fact that the car comes straight from the factory with a poor "weight bias". I would prefer the rear end of my car to bear down on the road surface more than it already does.

This car is designed with one thing in mind, 34 mpg highway. NOT handling and comfort.

Defeating the purpose of front wheel drive? Are you kidding me? Everything else aside, the purpose of front wheel drive is to pull the car versus push the car. Plain and simple. That's the effect it has on handling. It's not about putting the weight onto the drive wheels, though it does have a positive effect. Mid and Rear engined RWD cars are only minimally better at handling than front engined. Get real. It's not about having a front end that's takes up 2/3's or more of the cars overall weight. What you are both talking about with the front end, has the same effect on the rear end!. Weight needs to be EVENLY DISTRIBUTED........AND IT'S NOT WITH THIS CAR. Two able people have been able to lift the rear end of the car (at the same time)....the same two people could barely depress the front struts when lifting. With a front end that is absurdly heavy and a rear end as light as a feather, you're going to spin. Bottom line. The rear end floats on the surface while the front end digs in. It's like running too fast in sand.

Edited by bmf.whoo
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You asked questions but don't want answers so not sure why you asked in the first place.The weight you add to the rear will only help somewhat with keeping the rear from sliding. It will do nothing for traction to move and in fact reduce traction by causing lift in the front end.Its your car do what you want. I use snows on all my FWd cars and am using 4 Nokian WRG3 tires on the Spark.BTW GM did consider winter driving with the Spark and have a video of it .

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Just a few questions. Only two months + into Spark ownership. It's alright. Sometimes it's difficult to put the car into reverse gear.....shifting into third then BACK into reverse generally works when it won't engage. Other then that....we'll see.

So some winter driving questions I didn't find specific answers to.......Thanks in advance for all advice/information/what have you.

Can I put a similar bolt pattern 195/65R/15 wheel/tyre combo in place of the standard 185/65R/15 stock combo? If I can do this, that opens up my market and greatly reduces my cost on a snow tyre package.

Anyone use ballast weight in the trunk with this car? I've never driven a vehicle with such a short wheel base before so I'm not sure if this will make any difference. It's a five speed manual and considering the weight of the car, should have plenty of low-end when I need it...but I was still thinking about tossing 120 lbs in the trunk. I do a lot of winter driving over a wide range of roads....plenty of steep hills.

I saw a few mentions about ground clearance but nothing TOO specific. When it comes down to it......how much will this limit me? Will I be able to drive on unplowed roads under any circumstances at all?

I will be facing upwards of 100 miles of driving per snow storm. I can generally handle situations when they arise, but goddamn it's nice when they don't occur at all.

If anyone could point me in the direciton of a specific steel wheel/tyre combination that will work for a 2014 Spark who's exact model designation I do not remember. Wheels must be the same on all models, but see above.

And one last question...... Is there any feasible means of disabling the traction control? As in completely.....to the point where it is never on. Easier for me to not even have it as a consideration. I'd can the ABS if I could too......I'm not used to it and don't feel like altering my driving style....but ABS isn't THAT horrible....stilll....I'd rather lock up than uncomfortably and uncontollably stutter. Simply removing fuses is fine if it won't create any computer or circuit related problems. Are either of these things even legal in the USA too I guess? I might not care though.

Hoodie Hoo when it was still on the lot:

attachicon.gif95ea7d8fa7dd4f669b2d3601c9416295.jpg

Interesting thread. For someone who is unaware of their car's stock tire size and unaware of a button to turn off traction control to suggest a wider tire and adding weight to the rear will help traction or plowing through snow, well, not a lot science or common sense here.

First off, a wider tire will cause more resistance while driving through deeper snow...more snow area to push. A narrow tire will have less snow area to push through while having less resistance to reach a road surface below the snow. Of course a snow tire with proper treads for the conditions at 185/65R/15 would have better traction than the 185/50R/15 stock tires due to the higher sidewalls. For example, 205/50R/15 would have less traction in snow than the stock 185/50R/15.... So, higher sidewalls are preferable to wider tire sizes. Since 'loose' upper snow has less traction than packed lower snow or road contact, you want the drive tires to 'dig in' rather than 'float' above the traction area. Next, adding weight to the rear will add to the drag at the rear end as the rear tires encounter more resistance while riding deeper into the snow while being pulled along by the front driven wheels. A heavier rear end will, however, slightly improve rear end sway around corners. And finally, yes, there is a way to turn off traction control. A button on the lower dash marked with a 'traction off' symbol will do this and illuminate the traction control off symbol on your instrument cluster. ABS cannot be practically disabled.

This advise may seem funny coming from someone in Miami, but the science behind it is is pretty well universal and applies to roads that have water or sand on them as well.

Here is a handy link: http://blog.kaltire.com/how-will-wider-and-taller-tires-affect-my-car-in-the-winter/

Edited by Retired old Gearhead
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Thanks schlatz.....sorry.....195/55/15 is what I had in mind........thanks for that. Can you recommend anything currently available that's affordable? Simple oversight, but you obvioiusly understood where I was coming from. Do you hassle with the sensors or do you swap back and forth between wheel sets through the winter as needed and just run it?

Honestly, so far this year the few mentions of snow have been quickly replaced with weather that could be considered as tropical in comparison, so I have a feeling snow tyres might be a waste of time this winter.

Sparkfanatic.........putting weight on the rear wheels of a fwd car will create ballast forcing the tires into the ground more-so than the lack of 120 lbs would.

PUTTING WEIGHT OVER ANY WHEEL, DRIVEN OR NOT WILL INCREASE THE CHANCE OF ACQUIRING GRIP AS THE INCREASE IN WEIGHT WILL HELP THE WHEEL CUT DOWN INTO THE SNOW REGARDLESS OF THE LACK OF POWER.....

Simple physics.....the heavier something is the the greater the effect gravity has upon it. Toss in the forward momentum and boom. I'm cuttin' and pushin'.

If you honestly think that adding weight to the rear end will lift the front end of the ground and decrease front wheel traction, I am not interested in your advice. I thank you anways for wasting my time.

I think you just wasted my time

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Wife has a stick.

Reverse is hard. Grinded it once or twice when we first got the car. Solution: Double shift into reverse.. you'll feel when it goes in. No worse than Mustangs with T5s that all grinded going into reverse too soon.

Clearance: Actually lowered hers with springs an inch or so. Car's been fine. If it's THAT bad out, we are staying home anyway.

Traction control: Derp, push the button.

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I have 2 sets of rims and tyres: the expensive rims for summer with good summer tyres, and some cheaper rims for winter with Michelin Alpin 4. The salt on the roads during winter really destroys our cars and rims, so i am glad i have cheep winter rims.

By law, we change to winter tyres when the outside temperature is under 7 degrees celsius, and can change back when the temperatur is above again.

I'll stay out of the arguing and say the above is what I did, and even with a Spark that pulled to one side I managed to keep it out of the ditch on the worst of days with my 30 mile each way commute through the hills of central New York. Snow tires on a separate set of wheels is the only way I will go through winter. You can fit 14 inch wheels to the spark which opens up a lot of choices in tires for a lot cheaper than 15 inch sizes.

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  • 3 years later...

I didn't bother getting a set of winter tires this past season, but my first winter with the Spark went well. I drove through a pretty tough winter storm from Sudbury all the way to Toronto and the hours of driving didn't feel particularly out of control, just had to watch my speed and stability was fine.

 

But to be fair, the tread on the all seasons they installed was very good and it was only a few months of driving from when I bought it to the winter season. So, next year the tread may be worn to the point where it would be noticeably poor.

 

Bottom line, as you may know, winter tires mean everything with winter driving. If you experience poor control with regular tires, just get a quality set of winter tires and you'll be fine. Since winter is over, maybe this time of the year is a good time to buy to prepare for next year. Maybe get some closeout specials somewhere and just store them for the fall.

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  • 1 year later...

Since winter is several weeks away, it is time to start this topic back up. If anyone is visiting this forum and looking for advice, last year I bought a set of Dunlop Winter Maxx tires and threw them on the rims. The Spark appears to have good handling in the snow with proper tires, since the stock Kumho all seasons were getting some wear on them they began sliding around crazy with no traction on any incline or small hill. While the Dunlops aren't top rated winter tires, I can report that any winter rated tire is far superior than all seasons. You don't have to buy the most expensive winter tire to get significant upgrades.

 

All in all, I highly recommend installing a set of winter tires (regardless of brand). My Spark went from a hockey puck to a stable machine that navigated some pretty heavy snowfalls last January. I can imagine a set of higher quality Michelin XIce or Blizzaks would have been better, but the Winter Maxx did the job well. The Winter Maxx seemed to have good tread after 5 months of use (I had them on from Nov '18 to April of this year).

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