Do you drive your lowered car in the winter?

[bigbadboss101]

Do you guys drive your low rider in the winter? With some suspension setup one can set it back higher when snow falls.

Also, do you have problem with your driveway where it's quite a bit higher than street level?

I had a lower Prelude before and had to be super careful with speed bumps and driveways. Said to myself I will not buy a lowered car again. However there is a car that I quite like and it has Ground Control so it can be set back up 2" or more.

Opinions?

[jdmakkord]

I drive year round with my tanabe coils dumped all the way down. No problems at all.

[spike98]

I drive year round with TIEN streets and i dont mind at all. Sure you have to be carefull of curbs and speed bumps but the benifits totally outweigh the cost.

[HRD2PLZ]

I drive year round on my Eibach Pro's with no real problems, occasionally I scrape, but its because I am not being careful.

[nismodrifter]

I just went through my first winter with a lowered car. I'm dropped around 2 inches all around and man o man..sometimes it was just scary. My main concern is not bumpers or anything but my oilpan which sits extremely low to the ground. There was alot of times that I just couldn't drive because there was too much snow on the ground.

http://members.shaw.ca/nismodrifter/winter.jpg

[GTS Jeff]

I drove my car with no real problems this winter. I raised it up an inch, got winter tires, and I have an LSD, so the car was ok. I did get stuck in really deep snow a couple times, but that was when I was just being a jackass and trying to see what it would take to get my car stuck. The LSD helps a lot, as do studded winters.

Here's a pic of my car in the summer:

http://www.ualberta.ca/~jkm1/pics/car/low.jpg

Then raised up an inch, and on winter wheels/tires (which are higher profile so there's probably another inch up):

http://www.ualberta.ca/~jkm1/pics/car/thanksgiving/2.jpg

[core_upt]

When I had my Lude I never drove it in the snow, but then again, not much ground clearence at all...



http://forums.beyond.ca/attachment.php?s=&postid=958039

[l8braker]

The only problem for me was pulling into the driveway as there tends to be a ton of snow that piles up on the sides of the road. Embarassing getting stuck so close to home.. haha.

Take it slow everywere and you shouldnt have any issues.

[Accord_tunerx]

nope! never drove mine in the winter, bought a $800.00 winter beater to drive.

[gp36912]

hahaha do what i did, though my car isn't lowered yet, the rear springs are sagging and need to be replaced soon. i took snow and packed it into the gutter, it gives out a very nice smooth ride onto the driveway :D

[^SkylinE^]

I drive year round with mine and its even a bit lower with the winter rims on. Its all about angleing when you have to go up a curb or speed bump. I hate when huge snow chunks fall off trucks though ... im constantly dodgeing them.:rofl:

[gp36912]

^^^^ not a fan of civics but yours does look nice :D

[dooman24]

haha i drive my lowered civic 1.75" and it's not too bad in winter just don't go over big chunk of ice lol!

[boopydogg]

I like to follow around the lowered cars cause its a free snowplow :D anyways i bought a beater for winter cause im not into getting stuck in a parking lot

[CrvenaZvezda]

yeah i drove all year on my tokico struts and h&r springs, wasnt too many problems it was just that I had my car painted in october so all the rock chips made me cry and now i need to repain the front end lol... NEXT WINTER BEATER... i wish i still had my old neon!!! :thumbsup:

[TurboMedic]

Always driving lowered.....no prblems whatsoever...

[Supa Dexta]

Marda loop has some nasty angles.. Hell I was following a corvette on 17th today and he scraped (high center in the road) around 1st I think it was....

[kane584]

Originally posted by HRD2PLZ
I drive year round on my Eibach Pro's with no real problems, occasionally I scrape, but its because I am not being careful.

exactly what he said

[Tech2]

Originally posted by nismodrifter
I just went through my first winter with a lowered car. I'm dropped around 2 inches all around and man o man..sometimes it was just scary. My main concern is not bumpers or anything but my oilpan which sits extremely low to the ground. There was alot of times that I just couldn't drive because there was too much snow on the ground.

http://members.shaw.ca/nismodrifter/winter.jpg

Dude, now i know what you were talking about. You're ridin' looowwwwww.

[SilverBoost]

At least in Calgary driving a lowered car isn't a real problem because of weather. Never any real snow accumulation that stays around too long to worry about it. It is a challenge though compared to other cities I've lived in just navigating around any time of the year. I find Calgary has lot's of main roads that seem to be lower than every other road or business parking lot that you might need to get onto off of said road. :) OF course it doesn't take long to learn how to take the angled approach. Sometime other drivers though can make it hard because they assume you're going to take a turn quick so they'll pile in behind you with other vehicles coming and almost rearend you when you slow to make the angle approach. I'm sure other guys here know what I'm talking about.

As for switching back and forth between ride heights, a lot of people buy adjustable coil overs for this option, but realistically it never really happens for the most part. Mainly because you really should get an alignment done when you switch between ride heights and if you are driving all year, it's going to make those coil overs pretty much a PITA to work on after they start getting cruddy and such.

IMO, buy it if you want it, and when you do get the extremely heavy snowfalls, park it for a day and take a cab/bus. After the intial first few days, I find the roads aren't so bad anyhow around here.

[TimG]

I've got a drop similar to nismodrifter and i've driven it after a 25cm dumping of snow with no problems.

That said, chunks of ice and speed bumps are my nemesis. I've also scraped my exhaust a few times when i don't do the angled approach on steep ramps.

[nismodrifter]

Originally posted by TimG
I've got a drop similar to nismodrifter and i've driven it after a 25cm dumping of snow with no problems.

That said, chunks of ice and speed bumps are my nemesis. I've also scraped my exhaust a few times when i don't do the angled approach on steep ramps.

Impossible.

25 cm is way above the bottom of your bumper. My oem plastic skidplate is like 6 cm off the ground = No chance of moving in 25cm.

[frostyda9]

I bought coilovers so I could raise the car up in the winter. However, being lazy prevailed...


http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y38/frostyDA9/ResizeofIMG_4487-small.jpg