How's Your MINI In The Snow?
 

I've been playing with my new '07 MINI Cooper in the early Winter snow that we're having here in Connecticut, and I'm surprised with how well the car is doing. Sure... it's not as good in the slick stuff as old Audi A4 Quattro, but it's quite stable in the snow as long as you drive it sensibly. I was worried that it would try to fishtail out of control when it starts to skid, but it seems to stay straight and controllable.

The only problem that I've had with it so far is steep hills... the poor car just doesn't seem to be heavy enough to give adequate traction on the front wheels when climbing. The poor thing ended up sliding backwards half way down the hill the last time I tried it :sad:

Where in CT are you at? I am in Stafford/Ellington area. I was just driving today in the snow on I-84 in E. Hartford and it handled pretty well with my Blizzak WS-60 Snow Tires and DSC. I had a car do a 360 in fornt of me. Lucky it was far away.

I just have stock tires on my Cooper and it handles pretty good, but I'm coming from a RWD Blazer that was horrid in the snow.

I'm in North East Ohio, and we got dumped on the past few days (not a ton of accumulation, but slippery roads!)... I found no problems in my MINI. ABS kicked in twice and I never went above 2nd gear.

I'm running Kumho All-Seasons, and they seem to be quite suitable for the snow.

I actually kept up with the SUV's and trucks just fine... saw other cars fishtailing... but I was pretty stable.

I really want to test my mini cooper in the snow, but it's missing the passenger door window, shattered by a punk thief. I drove a loaner 1998 M3 to work this morning. Rear-wheel drive with performance tires and snow don't mix. Lucky to be alive actually. I'm glad to hear the mini cooper handles well. I have the standard skinny 15'' all-seasons.

My previous 4 wheeler was a 4WD Blazer that did quite well in the snow. Before that, a 244 Volvo that was not so good. The Mini has LSD, DSC and the stock all weather tires. So far it has done much better than the Volvo and has done quite well even on ice. We’ve had three ice storms and two 5-6 inch snows so far and I’ve been ok in all of them. The only problem I foresee is that if the snow is too deep the low ground clearance may turn me into a Mini snow plow. I keep a close eye out for ice chunks and the artificial snow banks the plows make since I want to avoid tearing up the lower front body work and foglights.

I plow with my mini all the time, and clearance really isn't a big deal. Only time I've gotten stuck because of clearance was when it was close to a foot and I was on my summers.. Slapped on the blizzaks up front and was good to go. :wink:


No problem getting out of the driveway here after 6" on Wed. Lowered too nowadays. :thumbsup:

I'm not far from you and we have some wicked hills in Ridgefield. I've got four Blizzaks on my MINI and its almost like driving an AWD car. I'm really pleased.

Like most cars, I think if you have 4 good snow tires you will do fine. I've driven in a couple of storms now. I have found that the traction control will go off if you give it a little too much gas on startup. I used to have an A4 quattro, you had to try hard for the traction or stability control to come into play. The biggest problem in a snow storm is the other driver, especially if you live in a high traffic area. Nobody moves because there are too many cars.

With the Blizzak snow tires, the MINI is a get-through-almost-anything tank.

Keep in mind that AWD or 4wd does nothing to increase the stopping ability of a car. All cars already have 4 brake discs or drums. The only thing connecting a car to the road are the four little contact patches from the tires to the road. Snow tires optimize those contact patches in all conditions. Thus, they're the only thing that enhances your stopping ability on snow and ice.

Of course the ultimate is an AWD car, with ABS, traction control and 4 snow tires. In our blizzard last year I was driving around stuck SUVs with our hakkapelitta shod WRX (which doesn't actually have traction control).

My wife is running a set of 16" Michelin Pilot Alpins on her MCS. She has had no problems yet this season here in Minnesota.

First chance to drive in the snow this weekend. Things went pretty good, but the DSC really limits the power when accelerating. So much so that it was borderline dangerous getting into traffic. I'm on stock tires though, so they just be really poor for these conditions...

(Disclaimer: I have fair experience driving very difficult cars in the snow.)

Mini did very well in the snow.

I suspect it was ASTC that limited your power, not DSC, unless you were already sliding sideways.

Are you sure you had enough traction to apply more power? ASTC kicks in when your wheels start spinning.

Snow is Great
 

We has about 8in here South of St. Louis and the Mini has been more than great! Nothing special about the tires, 15" all seasons.

Molly has DSC, LSD, and 16" winter Dunlop runflats, besides the standard traction controls. She has been great on snow and ice when the mighty SUVs have been fishtailing. I experimented a little on snow, goosing the accelerator to try to break loose. I could sense some wheel spin, but she kept a straight and true course.

This morning while driving to work I got quite a bit of snow driving time in, for whatever reason the main roads still aren't plowed. The only thing I really noticed is I get quite a bit of FWD walk when taking off from a stop light, even if I'm easy on the throttle. I'm guess that is due to small tires?

I have the same (4 16" PA2's) on Lewis and I was surprised at how much I slid around on my way in this morning. I know the car is light, but I'm only used to a bigger coupe (Alero) that wouldn't have gotten loose in any of the corners that Lewis was stepping out on. I never felt like I was going to lose it, but I didn't have to dry to drift around every corner with a little snow in it.

That said, he had no problem getting up the hill to the garage with a few inches of snow Saturday night.

I am here in CT, so far no problems in the snow. I have the run flat all-seasons.

So far, it works just great! (only if has not left the garage since before thanksgiving)

Our MCSa does fairly well in snow with stock all-seasons. The problem we've noticed is that snow really clings to the fabric-like material in the wheel wells, to the point of completely filling them and causing a problem with steering. Has anyone else experienced this?