So this past weekend I went up to Vermont to go skiing with my Ski club. Its about a 3-4 hour drive in regular conditions from Norwalk CT, and took about that amount of time going up there on Friday. Ski conditions up there are great right now considering the time of year. On Sunday Vermont got hit with a huge snow storm that pretty much affected the entire country. Anyway we got about 24 inches on the mountain which was great for skkiing but not very good for driving home to CT.

So my girlfriend, me, and my MCS made our way back Sunday night. After stopping to get gas about 50 miles int to the trip I had to pull out onto the road and go through a deep section of snow. Since I only have all season run flats I had a lot of trouble getting grip. eventually I made it back out onto the highway when I then noticed a horrible vibration through the streering cloumn. The faster I drove the worse it got. It almost became violent before I decided to stop. I didnt know what was wrong but decided to check the wheels. There was some snow inbetween the spokes on my s lites so I poked it out with my window scrapper and took to the road again and WOW......It fixed the problem! Anyone have this problem before? I never thought snow make my wheels spin off balance like that.......

 

Do you mind sharing where you skied? I am traveling to VT after christmas and I can't wait to hit the slopes , more so after suffering through last year's skiing season .

 

We went up to Stratton Mountain. Not a bad resort. Smaller scale mountain with a nice village that has pubs and bars within staggering distance from where we stayed Im going up to Mt Snow first weekend in 2008... This is going to be a good season for skiing....Where are you going?

 

Small world, my office is in Norwalk.

I had that exact same experience once in my Honda CivicSi. The vibration was awful ...all I had to do was get rid of the snow stuck in the wheels and everything was fine.

I put 4 Blizzaks on my MINI and I cannot recommend it highly enough. Very impressive.

dean.

 

Nice...I moved to Norwalk about 6months ago. Joining a ski club was the best thing I could have done to meet people. I highly reccomend it if you are a skier....Its called Ski Bears of CT. Great bunch of people.

 

I'm going to Okemo Mountain, about 30 minutes from the Killington area. Relatively small mountain (compared to Killington) but great conditions. They go out of their way always to get the best grooming done to the slopes. I agree, this is going to be a good skiing season...

 

This thread qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment for someone who's a CT native (Milford) that has been on many mountains all across New England but is currently trapped in well....... that big cornfield that spans from Clevland to Denver

I had the same issue to a much lesser degree with the S-lites last year, I'm glad to report the big open holes in the R99s have done a good job dumping snow this year though.

 

Get some better tires for snow driving.

And I love vermont and woudl move there if I could.

 

Yes, I've had severe out of ballance on other cars based on snow build up. Usually not too big of a problem because of the slow speeds necessary in such conditions and other problems being of more immediate concern (for esample, doing 560 degree turns). Of course, I am very aware of how sensitive we are to our babies!

Yes, winter performance tires are very good and runflat all season tires are very bad.

 

VT is all that and then some. I lived there for 5 years, albeit without my mini. Head north to Stowe, its worth the extra couple hours.

 

I had this same problem (the shaking) in my 06 MCS on Monday. We had about 7 inches of snow here in Barre, VT and some had frozen inside the wheel. Poked it out, and the problem went away.

On to tires, last year I just had the stock all-season runflats and they were fine for the entire winter. This year I needed new tires anyway so got some Continental TS-810 Winter runflats and they are very nice, the ride seems better than the dunlops and they definitely have more grip in the slushy stuff. This is the first time I've had winter tires in my 10 years in Vermont, and the decision was really based on availability of all-season runflats and the fact that I moved to a new house with a sloping driveway.

 

Happy Holidays from Northern Vermont!





aYup, we've got loads of snow up in Northern Vermont - perfect skiing. Photos taken several minutes ago (12.21.2007) at the shop.

Usually when I get wobbly snow packed tires means that my driving is a tad off, been getting too sideways or the snow is too deep . Snow brushes work fine to remedy this.

I drive a 12 mile twisty mountain road everyday, and for the last three weeks solid it has been like a rallye stage. The road conditions vary every hour. Hands down best snow tires are equipped with big open grooves to get rid of the snow and bite hard. My personal choice is a non-runflat 215/45-17 Dunlop Winter Sport M3 aired down to 28 psi. I also run 235/45-17 Nokian WRs on my Audi //S6. Both these tires are very similar in tread pattern and provide a good mix and feel for the road when the loose tarmac shows it's stuff after the snow is gone. When you choose too narrow a tire for the snow you've taken all the fun out of it.

 

Thompson,

Your MINI is too clean... that doesn't represent a Vermont MINI to its fullest.

 

I rallye to work so fast the dirt doesn't stick! It is kinda clean looking, I'll have to do something about that. Just give me a few more weeks...

Ok, J let's see how nasty dirty your R56 is !!

 

Since it got above freezing today, I took the opportunity to remove most of the frozen stuff from the wheel wells... so it doesn't look quite as nasty today as it has for the last few days. Sorry, no pics.

 

I used to live in Brookfield. :-)
Yeah, if there's snow stuck to the wheels, you'll definitely get a horrendous vibration... it happened on my Jeep once and really freaked me out until I realized what it was. It happened on my '05 S last week and I knew pretty much what it was. A couple of bumps in the road later and the snow/vibration were hiostory.

 

small world indeed, im in Guilford and lived in Norwalk till i was 3, around 1991 for the record!

Anyway, I go to school in Nashua, NH and if you guys plan on driving in snow every winter, I HIGHLY recommend getting a set of steelies and nice snow tires. You can put them on yourself (for free!) and they are a Very nice thing to have in the slushy stuff It makes a fwd feel like an awd!