Winter Wonderland

[Newlook]

Did everyone have fun today?

There was probably 5 inches of snow here this morning in Mississauga when I left home at 05:20. I figure I needed some tractor tires.... But at least with the Hankook W300s I was mobile. Last year I remember it took me forever just to get out of my street. I still fishtail somewhat but controllable.

I entered the hwy onramp at like 50km/h and figured it wasn\'t plowed at all..... Got onto the QEW it was kinda bad. As usual, the mother truckers zoomed by at double of your speed. When I was leaving the highway, I hit this huge chunk of snow which caused me to have a big fishtail... fortunately it was early in the morning and traffic was very light. Over all in the morning was alright. My ABS kicked in a couple times and I fishtailed a few times... Made it to work in 30min.

It took me half an hr to deice my car after work..... That damn ice was so thick! I think it was about 1cm thick on the roof and thicker on the windshields. Of course I had to do it carefully so I wouldn\'t scratch my car. Scraping the ice off the side windows were not fun at all and took the longest, but the windshield was kinda easy, I picked up all the big pieces by hand. Then I used the brush end of my snow brush to slam on the roof and hood in order to break the ice into pieces.

I was running a bit low on gas, so I stopped by the gas station on my way home. Damn my fuel door was frozen by ice!

I still got some popsicles on my car over the doors and body, as well as my rims.... but they should melt by tomorrow morning since my car is parked in the garage.

[S.F.W.]

After today\'s drive, the KW17\'s I bought were the best investment I have ever made. my street was not plowed at all when I left @ 10am. then Yonge was fine, but 16th ave was a nightmare...even 404 wasn\'t great. Overall, a few minor fishtails but overall not terrible...all thanks to the tires and driving at a reasnable speed.

[majic]

the ice was a B!7CH

*note to self* DE-ICE wipers COMPLETELY before driving off!!!
*note#2 to self* never leave wipers in auto while parked in the winter

man.. i didn\'t realize till i was on the hwy (coming home) that my wipers were only sweeping on about 1/3 of their usual area. stupid ice.. stupid me for not taking care of it.. ugh.. I wonder if aftermarket ones would have an easier time

also easy pay paid off today as i had to remove the ice from the space at the gas tank lid :D it fits perfectly.. ironically i filled up at esso ;)

oh also, on the way home (black/wet roads) when i reached 80kph+ the steering wheel shook pretty harshly.. is it due to some snow/ice build up inside the steelies? it didn\'t happen at lower speeds

the slush b/w lanes on the hwy was VERY easily conquered with the hankooks, except on one occasion where there was just more ice and my wheels kept wanting to go in another direction.

[Newlook]

Originally posted by majic

*note to self* DE-ICE wipers COMPLETELY before driving off!!!
*note#2 to self* never leave wipers in auto while parked in the winter



My wipers were de-iced by hand and wipers on manual mode :p



oh also, on the way home (black/wet roads) when i reached 80kph+ the steering wheel shook pretty harshly.. is it due to some snow/ice build up inside the steelies? it didn\'t happen at lower speeds


Yeah same here. I figured it must be the ice on the rims and snow inside my rims. I was a rough ride but I didn\'t worry about it much.

Oh one more thing to add... I think my brakes were frozen as well when I left work. For the first few stops when I put on my brakes, my car pulled to the left.

[Dr Butcher]

Getting around this morning wasn\'t too bad except I\'m not used to the lower ground clearance the 3 has over my old pickup. I bottomed out over quite a few snow drifts on the roads going into and coming home from work and it\'s a little unnerving.

One huge complaint I had was that the rain this morning swithing to freezing temperatures this afternoon played havoc with my driver side door latch. I jumped in the car tonight to grab a bite to eat and when I went to close the door it didn\'t latch. I tried closing it about 10 times and realized it wasn\'t going to work. Since I was only going around down the road a little I figured I could hold the door closed. It\'s not as easy as it seems. :( I figured if I could get the car warm enough, whatever was stuck should come loose. Luckily I only drove a couple of kilometers before the latch started working again. It was a bit of a scare however... Damn freezing rain......

[bluntman]

Here\'s what I had to deal with this morning!

http://members.rogers.com/alegardo/winterwonderland.jpg

[Newlook]

Originally posted by bluntman


Here\'s what I had to deal with this morning!



Reminds me of the 10ft tall snowblower I saw at Thunder Bay Transit....

[Saphress]

hmmm... well I guess I will put my two sense in... AFter waking up to see the rain fall down at 9am this morning... Idecided to put a huge amount of layers on and basically started tracking down the stairs to shovel the snow. In which.... it took me two hours... why? because it was all heavy HEAVY snow. As to which after even cleaning my car off.... I forgot to put my wipers up. So when I left for work at 2:30... I spent almost a half hour cleaning the ice off my wipers... and windows... how lovely! :P In the end of it all... I hop on the highway... doing 60kms like everyone else... getting splashes on the window sheild... So what do I do? TRy putting on my wipers.... as to which I end up finding that my wipers weren\'t working properly.... so here I am stressin my balls off (IF I HAD BALLS :D ) praying to god that nothing would happen until I got to a gas station. Thank god nothing happened... my windows were so dirty that it was just insane that I could barely see through anything.... and people were lookin at me thinkin I was on crack. HEhehe... anyway.... arrived safe here... a few fish tails here and there... and now am anticpating the drive home at 12:00am... woohoo.... no snow tires.... so far it hasn\'t been too bad... Just been trying to not jump the gun... ;)

[Melenium]

Just got in a few minutes ago from a quick run to the store. Holy crud are the roads bad up here. The tires handled great, but there\'s only so much they can do when its sheer ice. As I was heading down a hill on Bayview approaching a traffic light (I was doing about 40km/h at the time), about 30 metres from the light the road turned to solid shiney ice for about 20m. ABS kicked in but did nothing until I hit a dry spot just after the ice at which point the car stopped fast. Good thing it was a green light and there was no traffic or it could have been really nasty.

A useless tip I found: turn on the fog lights, that way you can see if its ice you\'re driving on (you get a glossy reflection).. its too late to do anything about it though :sarc

Given that this is the most shaking/rattling my car has received, I noticed a really annoying squeaking coming from the back (sounded like a rubber seal). The car was parked inside all day so it wasn\'t frozen or icey in the least. I slammed the trunk and the 2 back doors and that seemed to fix it up for the most part. Anyone out there notice similar squeaks driving on the rough terrain? (if your car was an ice cube, you\'re disqualified from answering :p)

[AfterBurner]

I had a site visit at a school yesterday and naturally nothing had been plowed. My first try to make it over the ramp to get into the parking lot from the street failed. I had to back out into the middle of the street and make a direct run at the ramp. I managed to fly over the ramp and park horizontally, not by choice of course. I then find out that my contact to open the school was not going to show.:(

Today, on my way to the office Highway 7 was brutal. It appeared to have been plowed improperly as there was lots of ice and it was very bumpy. Cars could not move cause of the ice. Why is there an inclination to floor the pedal when your wheels are spinning and you are not moving?

[civiclad]

I saw this guy last evening using his \"ice scraper\" to loosen ice from his car. The way he was hitting his car with the scraper, I sure hope he doeesn\'t screw up his paint job.

[bluntman]

Another owner at M3F.com broke off one of the windshield washer nozzles from the hood of this car when he was using his ice scraper. He wants to know how to reattach it.

On the hood?

[Newlook]

Originally posted by civiclad


I saw this guy last evening using his \"ice scraper\" to loosen ice from his car. The way he was hitting his car with the scraper, I sure hope he doeesn\'t screw up his paint job.


I saw this at the gas station yesterday as well....

[///M]

I saw someone ram his car with an ice scraper too.

I didn\'t like the idea of scraping ice off the paintwork so I just took it to a hot touchless wash to melt the ice. :)

[chaser]

Originally posted by autoexe
I didn\'t like the idea of scraping ice off the paintwork so I just took it to a hot touchless wash to melt the ice. :)

Do this in some warmer day, otherwise you\'ll experience \"The day after tomorrow\" :p

[billyfo]

because the cars are not them:D , so they hit the ice hard.

lucky, yesterday was my last day of work, so at least this 2 weeks I no need to deal with traffic at busy hours.

my snow tires handled extremely well, only one or two occassions slide sideway slightly when tires hit track on snow built up. surprisingly when I drove on 407 to and from work I only saw one car into the ditch, but one 18 wheelers got stuck on Dixie and Derry causing huge jam up.:(

[Newlook]

Originally posted by majic

*note to self* DE-ICE wipers COMPLETELY before driving off!!!
*note#2 to self* never leave wipers in auto while parked in the winter



*note #3 to self* remove ice/snow on rims before hitting the highway


Originally posted by autoexe

I saw someone ram his car with an ice scraper too.


Actually the ice on the car is pretty cool.... It\'s a natural \"shield\" to keep your car from rock chips and elements don\'t you think? You could spray mist on the front bumper/grille of the car and create your own 100% natural clear bra :D

[bubba1983]

note #4...how about we all drive liek normal people and stop complaining about fishtailing! Or...how about we put hot water on an iced over windshield!!! OR...lets NOT clean off our cars from teh snow and ice and turn on our wipers!

no problems here in kitchener watsoever with driving..ice...fuel doors freezing (are you on glue) stuff like that....

[majic]

Originally posted by bubba1983

how about we put hot water on an iced over windshield!!!


yah.. ok.. and you\'ll hear some cracking.. but not in ice.. in your windshield.. smart :sarc

and i\'m so excited for you that you\'re trouble free, no freezing fuel doors etc. you must be special.. gold star for you! :sarc

[AfterBurner]

A bottle of Jack Daniels will loosen that ice faster than it will loosen your tongue!

Cheers!:D

[bubba1983]

im wrong, your right...*bows to the master*....sarcasm much people!