Winter Driving in SW Ontario?

Well, I'm not as far north as you are (I'm in eastern Pennsylvania) but both of my Miatas have stayed on the road all winter. Nora from Canada, who used to post here, also used hers year-round. IIRC, she had a battery tender. Four good snow tires and a lot of common sense are what's needed. For instance, my car stays in the garage when there's ice, but has only been stopped once by snow - and that was a storm that dropped over a foot of that nasty white stuff.

Iva & Vixen

2004 Classic Red No more winkin' Miata

With winter tires, the only limiting factor is ground clearance. If you don't have a hard top, be careful clearing snow from the roof--the vinyl gets brittle in cold weather.

I'm still using the stock tires (AFAIK). They aren't good in the snow, so I avoid driving when we get fresh stuff. The main thing I've noticed is that the Miata reacts very quickly... if the rear end swings out it does so FAST, more so than other (bigger) cars, so I feel I have to be ready for it. That's sometimes a little nerve-wracking. But I'm due for tires anyway... do I remember someone here saying Goodyear all-weather Eagles did ok in snow?

miker

SW Ontario? You're practically a southerner.

With four snow tires, a Miata handles very nicely in snow -- far better than most cars do, IMO. Up here in Minnesota I drive past a lot of SUVs in ditches every winter.

An LSD helps for getting going, but will cause the back end to be a bit loose on very shap turns as the two rear wheels fight each other (e.g. u-turns). I do sometimes wish I had ABS in the wintertime.

Just don't try to drive in snow too deep: no matter how good the tires are, they've got to have weight on them to work. :)

As somebody else warned, vinyl tops and plastic rear windows get brittle when cold, so treat them gently.

Could someone please explain "snow" and "ice"? These are unfamiliar terms to those of us living in Phoenix...

I used my Miata as my daily driver when I lived in Edmmonton and I use it here in Vancouver which includes driving up to the local mountains to ski along with trips to Whistler and Kelowna.

I won't say that it's the best handling car on snow and ice I've ever driven -- something with four-wheel drive takes that title -- but it's not bad. Yes, it's rear-wheel drive, but the weight distribution puts nearly 50% of the weight on the rears, so they don't spin at the slightest touch of the throttle.

The only thing that it absolutely can't handle is deep snow. There's just not enough ground clearance when the snow is deep.

Thank you all so much for your comments. It is appreciated. Yes, I do have a hard top -- bought it when I bought the car so it could be safely stored outside in the winter!! Little did I know that it would be a "requirement" now that I will have to drive it.

Thanks again!

And I goofed, I'm actually in SE Ontario.... but snow and ice are snow and ice.

Carol

Well, Carol, that is a *strange* mistake. I am not saying that other people do not make mistakes. In fact, Wednesday I was explaining to my class about how my vectors were oriented according to the right hand rule, thumb/index finger/middle finger. But then it turned out that they were not. Of course, I immediately explained to my students that these notes were designed to be viewed in the mirror, (silly that they did not understand that right away.)

It was only a couple of minutes later that I started wondering if I applied the right hand rule with, say, the right hand. Anyway, the point is that *even I* would never get mixed up between east and west. East is at your right hand when facing north; everyone knows that!

Leon

Hey, I believe him, this rule got him from FL to Canada and back IIRC. Of course, it did seem there were allot of (unintended?) detours along the way!

Chris

99BBB

And so at the South Pole you cannot face east... it's always to your right, no matter which way you face.

miker

At the south pole there is only one direction, north. No matter which way you face, you're facing north, there is no east or west or south.

Thus, at the South Pole you always have both North and East on your right hand. East is always 90 degrees off north, so if every direction is north, then every direction is also east, but 90 degrees out of phase with north, even tho that direction (east) is also north.

Except up. I'm not sure which direction up is at the South Pole.

miker

Nobody knows except for one penguin and he's not telling.

Actually, at the south pole, everything is east, everything is west, etcetera.

If it was also so liberal about left and right, and not much colder than Tallahassee, I would move there is a second. :)

Leon

Obviously every land direction would be north, but I hadn't thought before about down, which is most directly north since it's the only vector that points in a straight line to the north pole. So up, while not actually pointing to Earth at all, is most sensibly south since it's opposite of the most direct north.

miker

...OK... Which brings to mind, I've often wondered how astronauts navigate the space shuttle. In outer space they don't have N/S/E/W, do they use an a 360 degree circle with an arbitrary zero degrees, and how does that translate into 3 dimensions (never mind the

4th!!!)

... I told you; "never mind the 4th!!!

All that's needed for navigation is reference points, the astronauts have the earth, the sun, the moon and all the stars.

One of the most interesting navagation systems I encountered was in the wheel house of a river boat, there was no compass. There are only two directions on the Mississippi, up river and down river and a compass would only confuse since "up river" can be north, south, east or west, the Mississippi winds around a bunch. There are charts, radar, depth finders, etc. but the main navigation tool is still the same one used by Mark Twain, the pilot's memory. Before becoming a licensed pilot, Twain writes he had to draw the river, every curve, every bridge, every sand bar and that's, believe it or not, still true. The coast guard requires licensed river pilots to be able to draw the river from memory and if you can only draw a portion you get licensed for that portion only.

Personally, I think space navigation would be a snap by comparison, you can't hit a barge or a bridge or ground the shuttle on a sand bar that wasn't there yesterday.

I agree that there are in it obscurities as strange as those of Mahomet; but there are admirably clear passages, and the prophecies are manifestly fulfilled. The cases are, therefore, not on a par. We must not confound and put on one level things which only resemble each other in their obscurity, and not in the clearness, which requires us to reverence the obscurities.

599. The difference between Jesus Christ and Mahomet.--Mahomet was not foretold; Jesus Christ was foretold.

Mahomet slew; Jesus Christ caused His own to be slain.

Mahomet forbade reading; the Apostles ordered reading.

In fact, the two are so opposed that, if Mahomet took the way to succeed from a worldly point of view, Jesus Christ, from the same point of view, took the way to perish. And instead of concluding that, since Mahomet succeeded, Jesus Christ might well have succeeded, we ought to say that, since Mahomet succeeded, Jesus Christ should have failed.

600. Any man can do what Mahomet has done; for he performed no miracles, he was not foretold. No man can do what Christ has done.

601. The heathen religion has no foundation at the present day. It is said once to have had a foundation by the oracles which spoke. But what are the books which assure us of this? Are they so worthy of belief on account of the virtue of their authors? Have they been preserved with such care that we can be sure that they have not been meddled with?

The Mahometan religion has for a foundation the Koran and Mahomet. But has this prophet, who was to be the last hope of the world, been foretold? What sign has he that every other man has not who chooses to call himself a prophet? What miracles does he himself say that he has done? What mysteries has he taught, even according to his own tradition? What was the morality, what the happiness held out by him?

The Jewish religion must be differently regarded in the tradition of the Holy Bible and in the tradition of the people. Its morality and happiness are ab

As in the passage of Moses: Tentat enim vos Deus, utrum diligatis eum.205

Ecce praedixi vobis: vos ergo videte.206

843. Here is not the country of truth. She wanders unknown amongst men. God has covered her with a veil, which leaves her unrecognised by those who do not hear her voice. Room is opened for blasphemy, even against the truths that are at least very likely. If the truths of the Gospel are published, the contrary is published too, and the questions are obscured, so that the people cannot distinguish. And they ask, "What have you to make you believed rather than others? What sign do you give? You have only words, and so have we. If you had miracles, good and well." That doctrine ought to be supported by miracles is a truth, which they misuse in order to revile doctrine. And if miracles happen, it is said that miracles are not enough without doctrine; and this is another truth, which they misuse in order to revile miracles.

Jesus Christ cured the man born blind and performed a number of miracles on the Sabbath day. In this way He blinded the Pharisees, who said that miracles must be judged by doctrine.

"We have Moses: but, as for this fellow, we know not from whence he is." It is wonderful that you know not whence He is, and yet He does such miracles.

Jesus Christ spoke neither against God, nor against Moses.

Antichrist and the false prophets, foretold by both Testaments, will speak openly against God and against Jesus Christ. Who is not hidden... God would not allow him, who would be a secret enemy, to do miracles openly.

In a public dispute where the two parties profess to be for God, for Jesus Christ, for the Church, miracles have never been on the side of the false Christians, and the other side has never been without a miracle.

"He hath a devil." John 10:21. And others said, "Can a devil open the eyes of