I'm considering buying a used 98 GS 300 or maybe 99.

I will be using the car primarily in the Cleveland are (where it usually snows quite a bit in the winter). Is a GS 300 a bad idea?

I've taken my gs up to tahoe in the winter, and had relatively good experiences. The traction control system works perfectly, BUT, i've had it kick in when it wasn't necessary before. It may have been just my car...

I have one in Philly it rides real smooth. You have to use common sence in the snow as with any car know the limitations.

the GS300 might bot be as bad as the GS400, I have a GS400 in Seattle and it rains like crazy here, as long as you are xarfull with launchs and dont speed in turns the car will be fine, but the 400 likes to stick the tail out every once in a while for some odd reason

It's a heavy enough car that it does pretty well on a few inches of snow. You can set the Electronic Throttle Control to "Snow" to keep the engine from spinning the wheels when you accelerate. I've found sometimes it actually works better to turn Vehicle Skid Control off when you're at a standstill or going very slow to allow the wheels to spin enough to get through icier spots.

Freezing rain or snow that melts on the road and then freezes is another story. Unfortunately most of the time when it snows in Kansas City the roads are still warm enough that the snow melts and then freezes. When that happens I try to avoid driving my GS if at all possible. It can be a real pain to try to get around in rush hour traffic in those conditions. To me it's not worth the possibility of doing damage or somebody else doing damage to it.

i drove half of the country in very heavy rain on my gs400.. it was fine..

make sure you keep nice set of tires on and you pretty much covered

I'm just trying to convince my dad for a GS 300. Right now he's leaning towards the RX 300 because it was AWD or FWD.

I would much prefer a sedan, especially the GS. I would consider Acura, as they are all FWD, but the only model I might consider would be an RL. The RL only comes with a V6, but I think that a car thats very close to the size of a LS 400 really needs a V8!

MrMan95 - I can definitely back this up....I live a couple of hours from you (Pittsburgh) and I had my GS3 for the better part of last winter. I had no problems whatsoever. Guess it depends on what type of vehicle you learned to drive in snow with....FWD or RWD. Isn't it mostly flat around Cleveland anyway??? TRy that angle on your Pops....heh heh.

Good luck,
Eric

At this very moment I have both a 00 GS300 and a 01 RX300 AWD. We're selling the GS300 becuase with the RX available we juct never choose to drive the GS, normally not even in the summertime.

If you're going to make long trip often, then the GS will be more comfortable for those, otherwise get the look at the AWD Chrysler, the ML320, the BMW X5 and then get the AWD RX if that's still your choice.

FWD is a lot like 4WD, going great right up until you get into trouble.

u want a nice 4wd drive car....Audi 3.0 Quattro. Nice car.
or you can wait for the new IS 300 AWD.

Actually, I was considering A4 Quattros but almost every long term report I looked at inisted that A4's after 1998 are unreliable.

I live in the Washington DC area, and previously owned a FWD ES300. The first time I drove my GS300 in the snow, I was ready to go back to the ES - it was terrible! There is a slight incline at the entrance to my development, and the GS just sat and wouldn't move, and there was only about one inch of snow. Very frustrating! I really dread driving the car in the snow or ice.

Do you have summer tires on Larryf? My Gs in MICHIGAN works great in snow, a lot of snow at that with reg 16" stock tires. The VSC and snow button worked great on uphills as well as downs.

Next time it snows and you want to drive your GS put a raw egg between your foot and the gas pedal and don't break the egg as you drive smoothly away.