Maxima Driveability in Snow
 

For those who owns Maxima and live in the city which got a bunch of snow , what do you think about its performance on snow ?

I am getting this car as my second car (my 1st car is also FWD) and it has been fine for me. But my wife who is a beginner driver will be driving too (while carrying our baby..and she never drives in snow) so I really want to make sure if this is the right car for us for the sake of safety..

This car is on top of my list in term of price& features, but the fact that it does not have an AWD is making me unsure about it... My other options is Mazda CX9, but that car is not as fun to drive, as the maxima, thirsty of gas and it is at the end of its cycle (with possible full refresh next year)

(My early apologize if this might be similar to the other post about winter driving, but that post is focusing on whether or not the car is kept in the garage during winter, not about the snow driving performance itself)

the stock RS-A tires are not the best for snow - although I did fine here in MD last year in the snow. basically any aftermarket tire you can get besides the RS-A's is better; and winter tires will turn your FWD Max into a snow plow.

I will let you know as soon as STL gets some snow!

Why don't you get an Audi A4 Quattro or another similar prices car that has AWD?

audi is a pain to maintain.. I was originally wanting the TL with the SH AWD, but it's a little over my budget :D .. I have a baby coming next year.. so i need to be a little frugal about it...

Pain to maintain? My mom has an A6 she drives and the maintenance is no more than my maxima...

Audi parts are way more expensive if things broke down... it might cost the same if everything works, but not the case otherwise... I own a bmw before and the cost of the spare parts burn a hole in my wallet...

Oh I see what your saying... I think Ford Taurus comes in AWD the SHO is pretty damn fast

I just traded in my 08 Armada for my new max... Worried about the wife in the snow as well. We will soon see...

If the Audi is not in the budget I'd take a serious look at Subaru.

buy and f150 go big!.. and subaru's are good cars my cousin has a sti. my overall opinion on subaru is there a piece of **** and there designs are horrible lol.

but my max is on the stock tires and last winter it plowed threw the snow no problem

first winter for my car aswell we wil see lol

subaru is not my cup of tea... not a big fan of the design...

The Taurus is not bad to drive , but not a big fan of the design as well... I don't feel the luxury+sporty feeling in the Taurus like I do in the Maxima...

Buy a set of dedicated winter wheels and tires and the Max is a beast in the snow. I have dedicated snows for all my vehicles and the cars are better than my 4Runner in snow. For tires I recommend Bridgestone Blizzak WS60 snow tires. They perform well and have good tread life.

My winter Transportation:

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/h...97%20Ram/1.jpg

I can always park the maxima in the back of her

They don't make WS60's anymore, they are now the next generation WS70's. They don't make the WS70's in the stock Maxima 245/45/18 size, you have to buy the LM 60's which are the performance snow tires. They don't have the tube-multicell compound like the WS70's, but they are much more stable on dry surfaces. They sacrifice a little bit of grip on the ice for all condition performance but they are still great in the snow.

I'm in Toronto, Canada and with a set of winters I have had NO problems. It has been great so far.

i'm just outside of Toronto..this is gonna be my first year with the Maxima. I bought winter tires so from the sounds of it I should be good :)

Not sure what you mean by design as that is subjective but the engineering of the AWD system that Subaru has is one of the very best.

Maxima is only good in snow because of FWD and if you have decent snow tires otherwise it's no different than the other 35 FWD car models available in North America.

driving in the snow
 

my 2010 max sport package has 19" dry weather tires standard
i went out and bought rims and all season tires for the winter
we had a crap load here in south jersey and didnt get stuck at all
would def reccommend 2nd set of rims and tires ur gonna need tires with the sports package anyway
i bought a nice set of rims and tpms at www.tirerack.com and this site lets u put in ur info including color to see what the rims will look like on your car
pretty cool feature
u can order the complete package tires rims tpms all mounted and ballanced and shipped to your door

Back in the day, people used to drive cars in the snow that had no power steering, no power brakes, no traction control, and bias ply tires that had nearly no grip whatsoever.

Your Maxima will be fine. Get a dedicated set of snow tires, on a separate set of wheels. Skinnier snow tires track through the snow better. a 215 or a 225/55-17 would be a good size. You can even pick up a wheel and tire package from Tire Rack.

Skinny tires are awesome in the snow...

And without a LSD too :D

how much are you guys paying for a good set of 18" winter tires? i might throw these on my 18's if i means i can stop driving like an old lady in the snow

Step down to a 17" wheel for the winter. You will end up with more sidewall on your tires which is very beneficial to your ride quality when it gets cold out and the tires stiffen up, and also protect your ride from potholes and ice chunks that you may run over.

I've had a bit of experience with bad winter driving, living in Saskatchewan, with it's horrible roads, -50 temperatures and poor snow clearing policies.

A setup like this is what I would be ordering:
http://www.306motorclub.com/Dan/23-1...11-28%20PM.jpg

This.
Real snows are a night and day difference from "all seasons".
I've dragged chassis through the snow, uphill from a standing start, with snows.

My Max has owed through the NY winters with 19" rims and the stock all seasons. Not one problem at all.

Great thread, but what do you recommend us Maxima drivers do who can't afford to roll out an extra $1,000-1,200 on a dedicated winter tire?

To suck it up and either deal with the stocks or shell out $1,000-1,2000...

if you want you can keep your existing rims and just get the tires replaced every winter. You will save about $200-$400 if you don't buy dedicated winter rims.... just a suggestion...

I have Yokohama W drive series winters. Tire swapped my 18"s. Ride quality is great on dry pavement, road noise similar to the OEM tires, grips well, and always in control.

For those of you who have troubles affording winter tires, on your above affordable to the average person car, you can always look for a used infinity G series winter package that someone is selling?

Overall the maxima is heavy enough to keep control, and with a set of good tires it is very comfortable to drive and the extra confidence of keeping your passengers safe.

does anybody know the different between blizzak ws60, ws70 , lm60 and lm60 run flat ?

You just bought a $40,000 vehicle and can't afford $1000 for tires that can save your life? Like, really? I see cars every year, in the ditch, upside down because they spun out on their all season tires, went down the embankment sideways and flipped. My family's safety is worth more than $1000 to me.

Bad idea. I used to do that when I was 16 and first got a car because I was a broke high school student and couldn't afford much. In the long run, it costs you much more. Each winter you pay a tire shop $75 to swap your tires over to your stock rims. Then in the spring you pay them another $75 to put your summer tires back on. That's $150 a year for swaps. Those rims in my screenshot above are $400. In less than three winters, the rims have paid for themselves because you don't have to swap tires on and off of rims anymore.

Add to that the benefit that

• You're not risking damaging your nice stock rims on poor winter roads
• You're not risking the rims getting scratched by the tire shop's tire changing machine (or the monkeys working it)
• You can change the tires over yourself in your garage from now on, avoiding the lineups and frustration at tire shops after the first snow of the year

And you don't have to go with those rims I posted above. There are cheaper options. You can go with steelies, but they're generally about $70 and those rims are $99 each. You save about $120, but then your Maxima looks cheap and those steel rims start to rust out after a while.

The other alternative is to turn to kijiji and craigslist and look for used rims. I found a good deal last year on a set of stock wheels from a Nissan Skyline someone has imported. I got the set of 4 for $250. Plus they're OEM Nissan rims and built a lot stronger than the cheap cast "Sport Edition" wheels from Tire Rack. So there are deals to be had out there as long as you're looking in the right places & you're flexible on tire size.

The WS series are aggressive winter tires, meant for grip on snow and ice with a flexible sidewall for extra cold days, but have poor dry road handling. The WS60 is the ~2008 design, the WS70 is the new 2011 design. They're both good, but of course Bridgestone will always say that their newest product is better.

The LM series are high performance winters which are basically performance summer tires but with softer tread and sipes cut into the blocks. It will handle moderate amounts of ice and snow and be much better than the WS series when you're on dry pavement. They're a harder sidewall and come in low-profile sizes for people who own BMWs and Audis who drive their car in the "winter", but never drive it through a blizzard.

I'd personnaly recommand Kuhmo KW27 high performance winter tire. They are not so expensive, I paid 960$CA for my set of 245-45-18... we didn't had so much snow yet (its 7 celcius now..) but in the first snow storm of the year (5 days ago) they were merveillous.

In my opinion it all depends on the driver. I've been driving only Maximas since 1998 and I've gotten stuck in the snow approximately once. Of course now that I said it, I just jinxed myself and will be getting stuck at some point in the near future.

I was very impressed with the way my maxima handled the snow. I live in Michigan and we recently got 5 inches of snow, and I got new tires (goodyear Assurance Touring) about 2 months ago and I had no problems what so ever and I am a (spirited) driver!!

Sucks up here in NY