Yep, had the Nokian tires on one of my cars when I lived in Norway. They were excellent

 

Yep, Nokian Hakkapolita R is rated top three tires for winter. And the set cost nearly a thousand for this car.
Not surprised that you may not have heard of them.
From about.com
Ask 100 people about the Nokian Hakkapeliitta R, and you'll get 96 blank looks. 3 people will ask if it's a new cell phone. Only 1 person will nod confidently, because that person is a snow tire geek. “Best snow tire in the world” they will quite possibly say, because it quite probably is.

Did not help my track pack Mustang though.

 

I have a 2013 6 spd with the Track Package and have made it through the last two winters with no issues. Keep in mind I have a set of winter wheels with blizzaks on right now though. We just got 14" of snow on tuesday and the car made it to and from work with no problems.

 

What size tires are you guys using? I could imagine 255's would be terrible, but if you went with a 215-225 it wouldn't be bad

 

Just drove my track pack two days in the snow on the stock pirellis, did fine. Did way better than my past car which was a dodge caliber srt4 with no LSD and hankook v12s.

 

The track pack pirelli's have zero traction in the DRY cold, nevermind snow!! Have you driven snow tires before?

 

haha I live in va beach, so we see at the very most 5 days of snow a year. Never driven on or needed snow tires in this area.

 

haha that makes sense... i'm a bit jealous, it's been snowy and cold for... well... too long here!!

 

Yeah, I def feel bad for those up north. I can drive mine all year but it needs a serious wash from the stuff on the road.

 

I agree with that! I have to switch to winter tires when the temps get in the 30's or else the stock pirelli's lose traction. I think they are rated 50 Degrees and up?

 

That is correct - summer-only tires are rated only for 45-50 degrees and up.

 

I've said this before and I'll say it again. The problem with these cars, or any RWD for that matter isn't neccessarily traction. It's the oversteer and the fact that the lighter rearend moves around a lot. So they are dangerous when road conditions change from stretch to stretch or the road is not level. Definitely don't drive these cars on summer tires in the snow. These cars can lull you into thinking they are as good as AWD....until...you find yourself in certain road conditions which make it blatantly obvious that these things are not meant to be driven in snow and ice. Where I live we average 100 inches of snow a year and it snows between 70-100 days a year. So I've seen every possible cold weather scenario. Granted, I have all season tires and snow tires would probably function even better, but it still doesn't remove the fact that the Mustang will still have a tendency to oversteer.

I just got reminded of this yesterday. My car got me into a very dangerous situation. A VERY dangerous situation. I was driving along and the weather wasn't too bad when all of a sudden I got caught in the middle of a clipper system. For those of you who don't live in a snowbelt area, a clipper is basically a band of lake affect snow that is as bad as a blizzard. But they come from out of nowhere.

I'm driving along and I hit this wall of snow. I can barely see and the snow is falling so fast in this band that there's no way the plows have gotten to this area yet. So the road is full of snow and I'm going up a hill on our local expressway. I have traction...everything is going good and I'm feeling alright that I won't have any issues. All of a sudden out of the blue, the rearend of my car goes straight for the ditch. There's no controlling it. Every time I give it any gas, the rearend slides towards the ditch. The reason? Because the road is completely slanted where I am towards the ditch. I'm going uphill and to to top it off, the road sharply falls. I slow way down...and try steering the car more towards the center of the road. But the rear tires just keep kicking out every time and sliding down. I have to stop on the side of the road. It's way too dangerous right now.

In the meantime, all the suv's and front wheel cars drive right around me. Albeit they are struggling a little bit too. But with FWD car, the rear end follows the front tires. So they can drive through this since the rear will follow the front wheels and not kick out each time.

The traffic gets by me and I can try again. So I turn my steering sharply to the left and try offsetting the rear end's tendency to keep kicking out. Well...I find I can drive sideways doing this. I'm literally DRIVING SIDEWAYS up this hill....LOL. You had to see it. I'm sure it looked like the most ridiculous thing ever. My girlfriend is crapping her pants. But I feel that as long as I continue to have traction (which I never lost), I can at least get up this hill this way. The traction control is doing its' thing. So I just floor the gas at this point and let the traction control take over acceleration. I'll tell you what though...the traction control in these cars are actually pretty good on snow. Anyways, I finally get up the hill going sideways, the road levels back up and I can go back to driving straight now.

so there's my public service announcement...lol. These cars will lull you into a false sense of safety on icy/snowy conditions. But be alert that under the right conditions...it will feel like you are driving a totally different car. And there's no warning when it happens. You find out in a matter of a few seconds when it does.

 

^ u have good writing skills.. felt like i was reading action novel. Good that you maneuvered to safety.

 

I don't know ... my first car was RWD so I learned on that through 3 winters in New England.
The Mustang's traction control, while decent, I find that I'm best to leave it always off and trust my skills and the tires to do the job.
No problems so far.
Driving sideways in a RWD car in the snow is sometimes just a given, it happens. It's how you control it that decides if you make it to the top of the hill or not

 

Great story, but the fact that you get that much snow and you don't have winter tires baffles me. The difference they make in all facets of driving, especially braking and handling, is huge and it's foolish to drive through that much snow without them, IMO.

 

Totally agree with this Gabe. I learned on an old RWD Datsun 610 wagon with all seasons on it and did just fine. As long as you have proper tires and the knowledge to control your car in varied situations you will be fine. My car is just fine and I drove through 4+ inches of snow when it was snowing the other morning and made it there just fine. I just left early to account for the extra travel time.

 

+1 on how good the traction control is. I got caught in unexpected snow on summer tires. Had to go up and down some very steep hills in bumper-to-bumper crawling traffic...so no room to gain momentum and no extra space. On a couple of those hills I thought for sure I was gonna come sliding back down, but the TC found every last bit of traction and I made it.

 

I've got 150lbs of nice and sturdily packaged play sand ($4/bag at HD) in the trunk with blizzaks on all 4 corners and I have yet to get stuck. The snowfall here has been just evil heavy this winter too. My wife and I looked at a foreclosed house the other day with nearly 8" of snow on the driveway and I plowed right-in and right-out and I'm lowered 1.5". My roush front splitter kind of parts the powder nicely : o )

 

slightly south of you in DC, all season tires, no sand. I've been doing just fine.

 

I'm going to keep some sand in the garage for deep snow days and I like the plow feature that the Roush front lip has. LOL