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This is the worst car ive ever driven in snow

25K views 152 replies 82 participants last post by  felixthecat 
#1 ·
First snow of the year and the car was pretty much immobilized. I have Michelin Alpin snow tires and this car was pretty much stopped in an inch of snow . Could not make it up a slight grade. Got so bad I had to shut the traction control off. It's a bit of a weapon. I barely make it through an intersection before the light goes red. Not impressed.
 
#5 ·
Are you trying to gun it or what? Not trying to be rude but I just drove through 3 inches of snow and slush with the oe 16 continental tires. I never even had the tcs turn on. With a light foot and slow steady movements this car is pretty capable in the snow. Now I did get stuck in my girlfriends driveway but it is super steep, gravel, and iced over. I could've made it with snow tires though.
 
#6 ·
Car has 7800 miles or near as makes no difference, but the o.e. continentals in the 215/55/R16 seem to have pretty poor snow traction as it keeps engaging the traction control at light throttle application as well as locking up the brakes and setting off the ABS seemingly well below the typical ABS thresholds on the previous cars I'd driven with ABS. (I.e. at 5-10 mph instead of just over 15).

Yesterday was the first day I'd actually driven on fallen snow deep enough to be a concern, when light/ wet flakes were falling it wasn't an issue, but on compacted snow and fresher snow its slippery and it didn't really want to track straight.

If I had to guess at the root cause of the issue would probably be the tires have no traction for snow/ slush/ etc but then again they would spin or trigger the tcs with anything approaching a quick start on dry pavement.



Even when I was very light on the throttle the TCS was kicking in immediately, and the car felt very unstable.

I was able to consistently provoke it with a heavier throttle when I wanted to test the theory, but that's not the same as the problem I was having with just 7800 miles on the tires.

I would feather the throttle and the car would jump and jolt and dart side to side, if I tried to basically drive without the throttle it would crawl, but it still didn't feel like going straight without a lot of effort.

TCS and ABS were a lot more intrusive than anything I've experienced before.

I had driven my old car over 44,000 miles including a lot of time in the snow, it lacked any abs or traction control though so I had to keep a light but steady throttle pressure and plan out my braking moves properly without killing myself. I was sorely disappointed with how unstable it felt. It seemed like the tires had zero traction most of the time.

The car which felt very planted on dry or wet pavement for the most part felt like a nervous poodle on snow/slush.
 
#7 ·
I'm currently in Toronto going through the same snowstorm too and I'm riding on the 17" all seasons that came from the factory for the sports package. I guess since I have a manual, that may help?

Anyways, I actually thought the car did wonderfully. I was plowing through at 60+km/h. Stopped and started fine. Granted you have to be gingerly with the throttle or all you're going get is the traction control light. I was getting way less understeer than I would have expected for the conditions too; did a right hand turn at 25km/h with hard packed snow and had zero plowing.

You're going to have to expect some slippage with packed snow on the ground, but you shouldn't have problems unless you're trying to change speeds quickly. Snow doesn't kill speed: it kills acceleration/deceleration. Come drive in the snow belt for a few seasons and you'll get what I mean ;).
 
#13 ·
I don't know how you could have had such a good experience if you're tooling around on the 16" continentals, either that or the roads where you were were cleaner, as the car slipped and slid all over the place and was not at all confidence inspiring even with light throttle applications, or what I felt was very light, it turns out that what's really light on dry pavement is lighting the tires up and slipping/ sliding in the deep tracks left by other cars.

It was definitely side stepping and slipping through the deeper stuff.
 
#16 ·
That's weird. My TCS light flashed a few times today while accelerating, but not once did I feel the ABS pulse.

I think I did smell some clutch though. I swear these DCT's are frying themselves.

p.s. My poor friend has a 3 liter, 2wd ranger. I can't believe he's still alive after today. Haha.
 
#17 ·
I can see this guy being one of those the firmly plants his foot to the floor and can't seem to figure out although the speedo is reading 120 the car has barely moved a few inches.

I have found in my experience with automatics at least, just simply taking your foot off the brake in drive, the car will simply move on it's own once it gets moving then I apply some power.
 
#18 ·
The OP perhaps, but I know in my case I was very light on the throttle yet the car was still jumping around. I also know that if I were to plant the throttle to the floor the tcs would clamp down on the power and the car wouldn't move any faster than the conditions allowed.

The car was still quite a bit twitchier than I recall from my last car on similar conditions, but I might have had a touch more feel with the throttle as it was mechanical.

My last car was a single clutch sliding gear manual, the new one is an automated dual clutch automated manual, not a torque converter automatic, so the responses should be roughly similar to a manual at least as far as the low speed behavior.

I was more perturbed by how frequently the traction control was stepping in at low throttle applications as well as how often the abs was fighting to prevent brake application (to prevent lock up) even at speeds normally below that of which the older cars worked. That and it really didn't want to go in a straight line without a lot of effort, or so it seemed. I haven't put too many miles on the car in the snow yet however.
 
#22 ·
Live in Toronto, going through the same snow storm. Stock SEL tires (haven't gotten snow tires yet) and drove on unplowed roads. The TC comes on sometimes and does limit your power but i still passed other civics and corollas on the road. I wouldn't say it's any worst then any other car. Actually the civic driving in front of me with snow tires was fishtailing around and the focus was staying pretty stable, im assuming it's because it's a heavier car. Pretty happy with the winter performance so far.
 
#27 ·
First significant snow in my part of the Northeast last night since 2010 so I finally had a chance to put my P195 65 15 Michelin Ice-X12 winter tires to the test.

Visually, the tires do not look that aggressive so I had my doubts but all that changed after driving in bad snow/ice conditions. Best snow driving experience ever! The car felt very secure with minimum wheel spin. Under load, the traction control did engage a bit but not as much as other TC equipped cars I have owned.
 
#28 ·
The Focus in snow, as long as you know what to do with it, is a great car. Yes, the TC can be somewhat too "intrusive", but just let go of the gas pedal and let the DCT do its job and you'll be good. We had today some 15 cm of snow and we'll be getting up to 30-35 cm and the car was great on the way to office (some 25 km -city and highway). I have 17" winter tires and I cannot be happier with the way it handles snow. Even better than my ex Mercury Cougar (MT transmission).
 
#29 ·
I have the stock tires and wheels that came with '13 Hatchback SE Plus Package with the 17". I drove last night in Toronto and also this morning and thought it faired pretty well. Only problem was trying to get out of the snow back that stupid snow plow made, but after a bit of shovelling, I was fine.

Snow=drive gently
 
#30 ·
I had the same tires (I'm guessing? Alpin PS3) and had no trouble last winter or the one snow I drove in this winter. Seemed to handle the snow pretty well, and I'm not talking about 1 inch...I live in Cleveland.

Then again I just traded in the car yesterday for a 2013 Accord Sport, and this thing kills the snow like it's on a mission.
 
#61 ·
Last winter sucked. We barely had any snow and I still managed to total my GTI in the whole, about 1 inch of snow we had. Oh well, I made out in that crash, got a new car and a few grand. [thumb]

On-topic though, we've been gettin EFFING HAMMERED lately and I haven't had 1 bit of a problem in the snow or ice with the original Continentals. Even on my driveway with an incline, throw it in 1st and just ease on up. I will admit I do have a sandbag in the back though. Seems to keep the ass end of hatches from sliding around like Apolo Anton Ohno. You have to take it slow and steady and know how to drive in the snow. Besides from the jeep I used to have, this is the best handling car I've owned so far snow-wise.
 
#33 ·
I feel the need to make a Toronto driver joke...

But seriously. I've had my mk3 since the first week of October and there has been snow and ice one the ground since mid October. Mine is one of the best cars I've driven in the snow. Right behind my old Taurus but that thing was a tank. I've only turned the traction control off once because it was getting in the way. I think you might be a little heavy footed? My girlfriend was having issues at first with the car in the snow. But she was used to our old car where you had to put it to the floor just to get the sucker to move. If you're driving a mt you should gear up a little quicker once you get moving. It'll keep the tires from spinning and the traction control from kicking in. It's worked fine for me that way. And if none of that works then maybe you need to get some better rubber.

Edit: I see you drove a Sunfire before this car. So did I up until the engine quit in September. This car is way better than that was with all season on in the snow. Just my two cents
 
#35 ·
Lol I know where you were going with that Toronto driver joke. I can assure you, born and raised here. I know how to drive. I'll have to say it's a tire issue then. My bad. I guess they are a little to worn out. I mean it's driveable if you know what your doing, but the "Toronto drivers" will have it on the roof in a ditch in no time.
 
#34 ·
My SE Sport is still doing fine on the OEM Conti's (winter #2). I am certainly getting something different after this season. They simply aren't very good tires.

At least on level roads.

The traction control definitely has to be turned-off for me to make any incline in packed snow. I just wish there were a simple switch or button to defeat the TC instead of going through the menus. Not a good thing when already driving in less-than-stellar conditions.
 
#36 ·
I am good so far. Also in Toronto, drove from Milton to the East side of Toronto (404&Finch) and not a single problem. Roads were horrible, especically the 401, but I was able to change lanes doing 75+ and not one ounce of nerves going. Car felt solid.

This is on the stock 17" alum's. Very well pleased with the car.
 
#37 ·
I've driven in snow a couple times now with my 2012 FF Ti HB with stock Conti's on the 17's and I'd say it handles the snow better than most of the small cars I've owned. We had 6 inches plus this morning and I was passing most of the other drivers and not feeling at all like I was pushing it.

Now, the worst car I ever owned for the snow was my 1989 Nissan 240SX, that was a witch in snow. OTH, it had great, no make that GREAT, dry weather handling.


Brian
 
#40 ·
Since my 2012 has about 13K miles on it the tread should be good enough this winter and when they're worn enough to replace by the beginning of next winter I'll likely order a new set of wheels and summer tires from Tirerack then put Blizzaks on my OEM wheels for winter use.


Brian
 
#41 ·
Yep, probably the tires. I had a set of Dunlop Winter Sport M3's that still look good, treadwise (1/2 gone). But, the traction really diminished to being worse than an all-season, so they were replaced.

I have General Altimax Arctics on my '12 and it goes very well. The TC light flashes a bit when you're just starting off, but it doesn't seem to kill the engine power dramatically. Alas, I can't disable that.
 
#42 ·
This is the first year for me on snow with this car. Very wet snow with an underlay of slush/ice. at first it did activate the tcs and abs getting rolling but after that was ok. In the parking lot behind my place it started acting up again. I have a very steep ramp with no way to get a rolling start up it and there was no way the car was going to go, the tcs was kicking in and robbing all the power. I turned off the traction control and the tires spun but the car did get up the ramp. This was with the stock 17" tires and DCT. I was impressed it made it up. My old 4x4 ranger with new tires wouldn't go up this incline without the 4x4 being engaged so for the Focus to be able to says a lot. Every car needs to be driven a bit in all the different conditions to find out it's limits and how to work with what you have. After that you will know how good or bad it is. At first blush, I thought the car was pretty bad in the snow but after getting to know it's quirks I think it is fine and better than some I've owned.
 
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