With winter being right around the corner, I'm left with 2 options. The first one is to buy a cheap winter car that I don't have to worry about. The second being coilovers. This seems like a decent idea since I could raise and lower the car between seasons and not have some POS sitting in my driveway all winter.

I already have a good set of winter wheels & tires, and last winter I went through the season on H&R springs. The car handled great in the snow but I would like it to be a little higher through those months.

So the big question is... what coilovers can I be comfortable with using in the winter months? I need to make sure I can raise the car up in the winter and slam it in the summer, without any crazy rust problems or anything stopping me from changing the ride height.

Thanks in advance!

I apologize if this topic already exists on here somewhere, but after 3 years on this forum with it's horrible search engine, I gave up searching for things.

 

Most coilovers won't really get you up past stock height. Also keep in mind you'll need an alignment everytime you raise/lower it.

- Andrew

 

Buy a winter car!

Even with high quality stainless steel, your coilovers will get absolutely trashed. It won't be the rust if they're made of high quality SS, but lots of bits of dirt and road grime getting stuck in the exposed threads. It's going to be a pain cleaning them up in the Spring, especially if you want to tweak your ride height a little bit.

I've exposed my MINI to two salt-laden Michigan winters. I WILL NOT expose it to round 3 Yes, the car handles great with snow tires, but that salty concoction on the roads is relentless in eating away at unprotected metal. The underbody does have good rust protection, but the exposed subframe components with only black paint on them WILL get rusty. I plan on owning my car for over ten years so this level of concern is appropriate for me. If you're just going to sell it not too far down the road it may not be such a large concern.

 

Yeah, I promised myself last year would be the one and only winter my car would ever see.

I only drive 3 miles to work now so I was looking for cheaper options. After thinking about it long and hard today I'm thinking a 2nd car might be the best way to go.

 

I drove all winter last year lowered more then 3". Never had a problem.

 

Do you really need to get an alignment everytime you raise and lower the car? I thought you only had to get one right after the install.

 

If you're a perfectionist yes.

Creeve hasn't drove through two salt blazen Michigan winters. If you love your car keep out of the snow!

 

He lives about 70 miles inland from me, so I doubt my winters are too much worse than his. We have salt all over the place here. I'm thinking about some KW V2's now. I would like a second car but I would also have to store my JCW somewhere and I don't know how I feel about that, plus it would get quite expensive.

 

You won't have rust issues with the KW's at least. Some of the cheaper stuff can give you problems with that.

I don't know....just don't slam the car to the ground and you'll be fine. If the roads are ever so bad that you can't drive on them with snow tires, you probably shouldn't be out driving anyway.

We had 2 consecutive awful winters here in MD with several feet of snow and I didn't have any issues (i'm not lowered though). I did get caught out when a snow storm started but was fine. Snow tires would have been nice, but with some careful driving and my all seasons I was okay. I'd definitely get snow tires for Buffalo though. Ground clearance is only an issue for unplowed roads, and I'd much rather be drinking beers and going sledding when that happens. Not driving to work.

- Andrew

 

I run mine lowered all the time, but don't drive it for a after a real storm until the ruts are plowed off. The plus is that just driving out the driveway will effectively plow from the parking location to the street!



Mebbe I'm lazy, or perhaps I had the car corner weighted -- but I would not crank each corner up and down.

What I do is switch from the 15" racing rims back to the 16" stockers - that picks the car up half an inch, which really isn't much.

 

I already have the winter rims/tires, which is another reason I'm leaning more towards coilovers than a winter car. Enkei Performance Imola 17x7 with Pirelli rubber.

Thanks for all the input guys!

 

...cheap winter car...I got a 93 Saab 900S. Just like every other front driver moving away from a stop light in the snow...and way better than anything I've ever driven in the snow when up to speed...and that inlcudes my A4. On the flip side, it doesn't excite a hair on my body when the roads are dry...but it is silly stable in the snow...shockingly good...and on four different, old, all-season M&S tires! Shocking! Okay, I've over done it...but it is a great snow car. Get one and park the mini.

 

Jeez, when I started reading this I thought it was just another Saab story...

<duck><run></run></duck>

Well I'm, off to India -- y'all won't miss me for a couple of weeks with jokes THAT lame!

Cheers,

Charllie