|mpulse

Now keep in mind I have lived in the North East my entire life so driving in the snow is nothing new or foreign to me. With that being said the IS350 with the stock tires SUCK in the snow. And by snow, I mean the dusting we got here in Connecticut Thanksgiving day (see pictures).

I live close to a movie theater with a giant empty parking lot – the most logical place to test the handling and braking power of the ride. I got to the lot and didn’t because a cop was parked a stones throw away (though not within visual distance of me) I didn’t go nuts with the car, I just did some basic turns and stops both with and without the snow control option on.

Cornering: The car did an excellent job NOT going out of control each time I cornered hard, however the car would cut major power and made it extremely difficult to pick up any speed.

Stopping: Braking in the car was horrendous. The car wouldn’t go squirrelly; it just wouldn’t stop in a feasible amount of time, even with hardly having any speed behind the car.

Reverse: I to back the car up at one point and was astounded to find the car wouldn’t let me move backwards. At all. I thought it might have just been where I was at in the snow so I lurched forward and tried again. The car HARDLY moved at all.

Now something I didn’t do because of lack of time (we had to drive to NYC… in our Passat ) was use the brake trick to disable traction control… I’m curious how the car would have reacted then.

Something the snow was good for were these pictures:

sajonf

A bobcat would suck in the snow with summer tires..

It will be interesting to see how much snow tires make a difference.

|mpulse

I know I know.... I'm getting some good snow tires on ASAP. I just wanted to let people know how it was with the stockers. Not fun.

Oh... and the pinstripe IS being removed by the dealership.

upbull340

Thanks for the pictures. . .

Nine years ago I came to Nebraska in the winter and found out that summer performance tires are not safe to drive with in the winter. The compound is too hard. I will never do that again for my safety and the safety of those around me.

I do beleive the car will do very well with UHP all season (Michelin or Continential) or dedicated winter tires even on the 18 inch wheels in all but the worst of conditions.

NotFatBoy

Summer tires on my S4 (with quattro) make the car basically undriveable in the snow. Snow tires make all the difference in the world. Summer compound gets too hard in the winter and the tread is not meant for snow

Let us know how the car does once you throw some snow tires on (Dunlop M2/M3 or Blizzaks)

CDN_Lexus

I have fitted snows (17" Pirelli's on Lexus IS 17" OE wheels) on our IS350 and and the snow traction is good. Definitely worth the investment.

ShooExpert

Snow tires make all the difference. The car will be fine with snow tires. The summer tires are absolutely worthless in any amount of snow.

chuckb

nice pics but you need to clean those wheels. when I saw the first pic showing just the front, I thought you had some special dark gray finish on your wheels.

XeroK00L

Beautiful pics... Good to know the VDIM is keeping your car in control while cornering. And yeah, definitely put on snow tires or it'll hardly move. Thanks again for the great report.

What color is your car? Tungsten Pearl? Looks great in the snow!

OneOfOne

what color is that? and thank god the stripe is leaving.

Xanadu350

I hate when dealers pin stripe your car thinking it looks good, that is so 80's. I hate pin striping.

Yeah, don't let that brake dust stay on your wheels for very long, it will actually eat through your finish on your wheels if left on too long.

kingrach

whats color is your car impulse?

DallasLex

iTrader: (1)

Great pic.s! Hope dealer didn't charge you(originally) for the pin stripes!
Looks like silver with black interior to me.

diablo1

Ya it looks like tungsten pearl with black leather. Did you get sport package? If so, you have the exact same car as me.

hashs99

just tested out the awd in the snow---simply amazing!!!!