I just ordered my car about 2 weeks ago(Roadster, Sapphire, ASP Tires, Two-Toned Gray interior) and its 'scheduled' to come in around the first week in November. In suburban Philadelphia, it's not a shock for us to have our first snow by Thanksgiving. I'm still going to have my other car available until the spring to use, as I am wary of driving my brand new XFire with the chance of ice or snow. I've noticed some of you have pictures up with snow on the ground. Anyone have trouble in the winter months? I know its a real wheel drive car, and my dealer who I trust and have purchased from a lot(KNOPF IN AMBLER, PA) said they have customers who drove them all winter with no major issues. The townships do a great job of cleaning the streets in my area, so it would never be more than an inch or two. I'm obviously not going to try plowing through a snowbank, but I'm wondering how the ASP tires do with ice? Any thoughts?...

 

i put a cover over mine until spring. NO salt or sand or clinkers. But be realistic even if it has traction control with those fat tires i doubt if it has much traction in snow and ice. You want the maximum pounds per square inch on your tires for getting thru snow. With a light(3100 LBS) car and really fat tires you are going to slip and slide a lot. Just ask any corvette owner who has really fat tires. Also what to you think they have that wing for? it is to increase the weight on the rear tires. It not just for decoration. They made it fixed on the srt-6 because they didn't want to give the guys with all that HP the option of putting it down. I've had two cars that were great in the snow here in ohio. A 92 cavalier with front wheel drive and really skinny tires and a 94 caddy seville with a really heavy engine over the front wheel drive tires. The common thing is a lot of lbs per sq inch of tread surface.

 

Please tell me you're kidding...wings are never there for the weight, only to generate down-force when the car's in motion (and only effective at high speeds). A couple of lead blocks in the trunk would be far more effective for "weight".

 

let's not get picky about the vernacular. Weight and down force are the same thing. weight is the down force generated by gravity. the wing generates down force measured in lbs on the tires generated by the moving air over an inclined wing. and yes lead blocks would do the same thing in the trunk. unfortunately in order to have the same effect as a movable wing or in fact a fixed wing(ala srt-6) you would have to throw the blocks overboard every time you stoped and then pick them up again to generate down force on the driving wheels when you started up. Ever see blocks or sand bags in the bed of an empty pickup truck? It's because there is no weight on the rear(driving tires). the cab and engine are mostly over the front tires. there is not much rear of the rear wheels in the xfire. Now the term down force in race cars is a different matter. The shape of the underside of race car actually generates sort of a vacuum (measured in lbs)which holds the car down. We don't have that on the xfire.

 

Sorry...you were talking about the wing in the same paragraph that you were discussing driving in the snow, during which the wing will have absolutely no effect (deployed or not), so I thought you were mentioning literal "weight".

 

So what does the "W" (winter) button by the shifter do anyway? Does it start out in a lower gear to prevent slippage or something? My CTS had a snowflake button that did that. It really worked if you were stopped and had to go, if there was any ice.

 

I don't have automatic, but I imagine it is a position that starts the automatic in 2nd gear to prevent wheel spin. You can do the same thing with a stick in winter by starting in second gear.

 

That's what it is. The car will start in 2nd gear rather than 1st gear to improve traction, unless you select 1st with the Autostick.

 

Put it away for the winter. No sense in getting stuck, running off the road or having someone smack into you, not to mention salt and sand on the road. Last winter, I had just returned home with mine and parked it in the driveway. It was starting to snow lightly and the roads were clear but wet. My wife was trying to move it into the garage last winter and couldn't get enough traction in our driveway, which is flat and graveled, so had to put out some cat litter.

You'll enjoy it all the more in the spring.