miata in ice and snow

as a followup to a query of several months ago about the miata on snow and ice, the northern owners who said it ran well in winter were right-on. it functions at least as well and maybe better than the big guys although once you're on pure ice, you're more like a ski. an important drawback, and one that keeps our '91 in the garage during the worst of days, is that i don't want the bozos whacking into it (or me) on slippery streets. beyond that, the miata is a great 12-month performer in any climate, sez i. art, '91, ex-balmy san francisco, now icy spokane, wash.

Reply to
Art McGinn
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No car can drive on pure ice without chains or studs. The tire is way more important than the car. With the tires that came OEM on my '96, you couldn't even drive in the rain.

Reply to
Frank Berger

true enough. our '91 is using all-weather and we're satisfied. mostly what you've gotta do is crawl in snow and hope there is no ice. there's a big debate in snow country over studs vs. snow tires of various types. in farm or woodsy areas you need studs (chains seem to be rare). but they also chew-up paved roads, from city arterials to freeways, forcing many, many millions of dollars to eliminate the ruts they dig. the (washington state) highway patrol doesn't use them for that reason. but if you need 'em, you need 'em. they are, of course, illegal in some states. as vonnegut says, so it goes.

"Frank Berger" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@news.supernews.com...

Reply to
Art McGinn

"and so it goes" !! In Seattle this week, not much of anything "goes" ! :-) We had up to 8 inches of snow and then the ice! "Bing" is inside in it's nice garage and will stay there until the "ice" goes. Our '02 Honde Accord ES/LE has snow tires and goes OK, but we sure have some dumbass drivers here in the snow and it is a, "war of the fenders" with some of them. When the sonw comes, they just stop and leave their cars!! (that might be at the side of the road, or in the middle of the road. Tha snow plows can't get down the roads, so everyone gets stuck. I sure wish they would go back to where they came from. :-)

About 1 inch of ice and 8 inches of snow here in an eight hour time space.

Bruce Bing '03 LS ( and cold )

Reply to
BRUCE HASKIN

i lived in seattle from 1941 to late 1945 and there was exactly one (1) snowfall of about an inch, which melted by noon, at just about the time of the battle of the bulge (is this dating me?). but that stormlet shut down the city of seattle good and proper. hard to imagine that hilly, wonderful world-class city in the grips of a minneapolis-type winter. it must be a city of 10,000 ski-jumps. abandoned cars? that sounds like washington d-c, with any serious snow. downtown manhattan simply clears out, leaving a white-blanketed ghost town. seattle really has joined the big leagues. so move to spokane, where bad weather is normal and barely noticed. miatas are also rare enough that the drivers sometimes wave at each other, like the early days of the vw bug.

"BRUCE HASKIN" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@storefull-3336.bay.webtv.net...

Reply to
Art McGinn

Click on the picture on the right-bottom.

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Yes, a '91 Miata can be driven in some pretty nasty conditions but certain limitations apply. Like if snow starts packing in the wheel wells you can find the vehicle unsteerable and the suspension uncompressable. Of course an early-season blizzard in the Yukon Territory of Canada is not what most Miata drivers face regularly. BTW: the car survived the ordeal quit well and after 15 years it was traded last spring for an '06. The only dent anywhere on it was a small one inflicted by a shopping cart in a parking lot.

Reply to
John McGaw

Ouch!

Chris

99BBB
Reply to
Chris D'Agnolo

It makes our summers seem not quite that bad....

Pat

Reply to
pws

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