Yo

Other than better tires and not being aggressive, what is another good way of better traction? For driving in diverse weather conditions such as dry, wet, icey, and snow... thanks

Chris

 

honestly..... a FWD car
snow and sleet type weather i would say thinner tires with a taller sidewall (with a good snow tread) and some added weight in the back (keep a full tank of gas) like HUGE bag kitty litter that can double as a traction device if you got stuck and if you dont ever use it for that then if you have cats you wont have to worry about cat litter for awhile

 

A front wheel drive vehicle IS NOT a better rain/snow vehicle. It merely bandaids poor drivers. You have more control with a rear wheel drive car than a front wheel drive one, especially in a slide.

 

I think I used just about every rick in the book for when it came to traction. Cinderblocks...sand bags...Rain Tires...traction was still horrible. These cars just make too much TQ to be practical in wet conditions. THe only improvements I ever experienced were after the Eaton upgrade...big difference...also the wider wheel base helped allot with the traction. Best bets for conditions like snow is to pull out the Salad Tossers and throw them on.

 

Thats insane, fwd is 10x better in snow and icy conditions. First because your drive wheels are your steering wheels so you can control where your going the slightest touch of the throttle with a v8 powered rear wheel drive vehical will create oversteer and send it slideing. Second because of weight distribution you've got a lot better chance of more traction in a normal fwd vehical then in a nose heavy camaro.
Just my 02 cents.

 

In all honesty, you NEED to go buy a set of ****ty wheels(you can get salad shooters for $100 all day long. Then go spend a couple hundred on snow tires. You will be AMAZED at the difference.

 

No offence, but you havent a clue what you are talking about.
Let me ask you, in a front wheel drive car, if you are coming up to a turn, and the car starts sliding straight, what happens when you hit the gas 99% of the time? YOU KEEP SLIDING STRAIGHT.

Same situation, rear wheel drive. You turn the wheel, tap the gas, car turns

 

I must say form experience my old car was FWD...and in the snow manuevered very well. FWD cars are more responsive than RWD cars and that was the advantage of the FWD in the snow. It's responsiveness made it easier to drive. The Down side of it was that if you lost traction with the FWD car you were F34ked. Becasue there is almost no way to steer the car without control of the Front wheels. If you were sliding you were screwd. I found that on the RWD sliding out was just the opposite. If the Rear wheels broke traction you could still manuever the car since the rear wheels are spinning wildly while the front is going at a slower momentum. Pretty fun. I think last time it snowed I just kept playing around doing 360's and what not without even wasting rubber. I found that by tapping the throttle and breaking the rear loose I had pretty good control still...so in other words FWD's can manuever better in teh snow but RWD's have a bit more control against spinouts.

 

In a FWD car, if it has little traction, it simply will not move. The tires will simply spin. In a RWD car, you will move, just not strait.

A FWD is probably a tad bit safer, but overall not 100% better than RWD. And lets not forget that even with a FWD car, you still can't stop in the snow, just like a RWD car.

One that my father used to do was add add a lot of weigh, get the Mud/Snow tires and ALWAYS start off in 2nd gear. IDK if your car is a M6, but if it is, all of the above, plus keeping it in a high gear will help.


I was also thinking about simply tuning the car for very little air and fuel into the car so it reduces all that torque, which is the real problem.

Just my .02

Todd

 

Almost forgot this too...I think everyone did...most FWD cars are like 1K lighter than the RWD cars. The weight difference alone gives it a better advantage in the snow.

I can't explain why really but it's a noticable difference than when your driving a heavier car in the snow.

 

Lighter= less mass to stop.

Front wheel drive, low powered cars will start moving better than a high powered car of front or rear drive. Have any of you driven a GTP in the snow? It dosent go anywhere either.

It is pretty rare that you need to accelerate from a stop to avoid an accident. Most accidents you are trying to steer around while moving. Once again, you can CONTROL a rear wheel drive car better than a front wheel drive car in the wet or dry , IF you know how to drive.

 

I've driven my dads 99 GTP for 2 years before I got the camaro and I can tell you that i'm not taken the camaro out any bad day I don't absolutely have to. Front wheel drive cars do have a lot more traction in snowy conditions our heavy rear wheel drive high powered cars with Z rated tires can't compare. And yes its a hell of a lot easyer to recover from a slide with a camaro then a fwd car that has a lot of understeer designed into it but imo that also makes it that much easyer to get into one. Honestly tho if you really think about it what would do you think would be more reliable to get you were you want when theres 3 inches of snow on the ground, a 300hp rear wheel drive camaro or a fwd grand prix?

 

altho I will admit that getting out of trouble when your already in it is easyer in the camaro in the snow, I've had to tap the e brake once or twice to straighten the car back out in the prix.