Winter tires would totally change how it behaves in the snow. Agreed the LS400 and LS430 were terrible in the snow...but I still got where I was going during that snowstorm on my way to WV on allseasons

My RWD LS460L was much better in the snow, it shows you how far traction and skid control systems have come.

 

The traction control is in fact a big part what makes it so terrible. A good example of a good modern-ish traction control system is on my mother's Enclave honestly lol. It will spin the tires sort of a lot, yet it still works great. I have driven it on slick winter roads, it's very good. It's FWD anyway, but I notice it every time how well it works. LS430 is just horrendous, the TRAC. The Merc I'll never drive in snow but the TRAC doesn't completely kill all the fun either. You can still peel out a little if you're driving aggressively.

She still hasn't bought another car yet lol btw. She doesn't go anywhere lol. I need to have her old SLK towed to the shop to see if it's worth fixing or not. I hope that it's just a couple grand or so, she loves that thing.

 

Steering at full lock and WOT you can KIND OF get it sideways. But just for a moment. Then it’s all “I’m sorry Dave, I can’t do that.”

 

I honestly feel if you DISABLED the traction control on an LS430 it would do better than it does in snow. But you can't on the refresh cars (04-06) without pulling the fuse. Even in the rain it's so bad it's almost dangerous, it saps virtually ALL power.

 

Drove mine through a blizzard that stranded my friend in his Jeep, was not comfortable but it did it.

 

So what if it saps power? You don't WANT a lot of power in low-traction conditions.

 

Oh trust me, I know lol!

 

Oh, I made it through the boonies on 4 inches of solid ice once now that I think about it in the LS430. I had to get out and shove the back around, like you say not pretty.... but doable.

I can't believvvvvveeee I forgot that for a second, this is a cool story: That was on our journey out to California (moving there). In March 2014 the Memphis/East Arkansas got hit bad with snow and ice, and the interstate, I-40, completely stopped a little ways into Arkansas.

We were stuck parked for about 6 hours, with 2 cats in the car and the car full of stuff the moving truck didn't take. As soon as my fuel tank got to 1/4 I started to get nervous (it was like 15 degrees outside), so I did make it around stuck traffic and up to an on ramp to get off the stopped interstate at least. We then were on that 2 lane road covered with 4 inches at least of bumpy, nasty ice. We had passed this shythole motel, and I mean BAD. That's why I had to literally physically spin the car around while my spouse (well I wasn't married then!!) spun the tires, to get it into the other lane to go back to that motel because I was nervous others would get the same idea first. But yep, we made it right in. LS did make it, but it wasn't pretty like y'all are saying.

This hotel, was so disgusting... The peephole was wadded up with toilet paper. We slept with our clothes on, on top of the sheets. We had no food and had to eat Tums, and not many bc they're bad for you. It turned out the national guard came out and was dropping food for everyone stuck on I-40. But with the pets in the car etc etc I thought it was best to get off the interstate onto the side road. Man, that's one for the books. The LS also made it out of there the next morning even on a few hills and back onto the interstate. Trucks had wrecked all over the place and were blocking the interstate, that was the problem.

Here's the kicker..... my best friend since literally 1989 who lived in Little Rock tried to warn us what we were headed into but it was from a phone call. 2 cats in the car wasn't fun, and they had JUST shut up after driving from Knoxville to half way between Memphis and Nashville, so we stopped talking in the car and I didn't answer the phone.

She could have saved us from all of that by just sending a simple text message, and we could have detoured through Alabama, etc. lmao. I still give her shyt about it.

LS430 was such a fabulous car to drive across country now looking back as well. Another reason I refuse to get rid of it, just where it's been etc. throughout all these years.

 

You need power to move. Without any power and without the ability to turn off the traction control you’re 100% going to get stuck.

 

Totally agree, you need to be able to turn TC off in really bad conditions

 

Agreed....but my point was that power will do no good if the tries cannot use it in low-traction conditions. All you will get, with the T/C turned off, is wheelspin, and little or nothing else.

 

You would be surprised. Accomplishing 5% of desired power delivery to the pavement is a dramatically different story than 0%.

I have never been more terrified than when the traction control on my E46 decided that the pavement was too slippery, and a 60mph T-bone was preferable to a little wheelspin. I narrowly escaped its stupidity. From that day forward, disabling DSC happened 0.1 second after ignition on every drive for the next 10 years. There was never a similar incident.

 

You don't in that Enclave, it lets you spin just enough and it works great. Granted it's FWD but still, GM had it calibrated just about perfectly.

 

Thats just not the case. Often you can move the car with wheel spin and rocking and you can’t do any of that if you can’t move the wheels since TC keeps cutting power. I’ve owned many cars that were better in the snow with the TC off. The worst was my wife’s 04 Prius. FWD but the overzealous TC made it impossible to drive in the snow. LS400s was also overzealous but you could turn it off. Couldn’t be turned off on the Prius

Much less of an issue with modern cars and I haven’t had a car that had problematic traction control in 20 years

 

God I hate that. My LS460 did that once on a wet day (I wanted a left turn across another lane) and pulled power when I really would have it rather not have done so.....freaking scary.

Thankfully the Audis have a two stage ESC and stage one allows controlled drifts/wheelspin while still keeping assistive features active. Stage two is pure mechanical limits/drift the roundabout with the rears smoking mode (until the TVD complains of over temp lol!), that's the best way to send off a set of tires IMO.