rleggs

do we/can we "raise the car's clearance" for winter?...

tfischer

The tires will not go through any significant snow very well at all.

You have a rear wheel drive car with all the weight in the front and, just for good measure, wide tires. This adds up to no traction.

Unless you change to snow tires on all four wheels, this car will not give you much traction on snow or ice at all. It's horrible. It's great on dry or even wet surfaces, but keep it off the road in the snow.

I live in Southern Ohio, which is much warmer than Chicago, and I just bought an AWD RX330 as the solution. This also gives me some room to cart extra people and stuff around in. The other temporary solution is to load up the trunk with dead weight, but that's a real pain and really cuts into your mpg.

Keep it out of the snow.

As for your other questions, you car raise the car, or increase the clearance (I don't think you can raise the clearance), but none of that is going to give you any extra traction and will just look funny.

Max707

I look at my PZero Nero M&S rated tires this way. I'm out running errands and it starts to snow. If I head for home at that moment then the M&S rated tires should get me home. I can get my car back out after all of the roads are cleared If it snows and I need to go somewhere because there will be snow on the roads for the next couple of days, then I call a rental car company and drive their car around for a few days. Much cheaper then owning 2 cars. I live in the KC Missouri area, we won't get more then a couple of days a year when you (can't/don't want to}, drive the SC430 because of snow. Global warming can be a good thing