dbegley
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Aug 28, 2017
- Threads
- 3
- Messages
- 121
- Reaction score
- 81
- Location
- Minneapolis MN
- First Name
- Dennis
- Vehicle(s)
- 2017 Mustang GT Performance Package 401a
- Vehicle Showcase
- 2
- Thread starter
- #1
I live in Minneapolis. Our fall has been pretty short. Think it lasted a week. I always get the oil changed before I park my Mustangs for the winter. This year the season and weather prevented me from doing that earlier when I planned on it and usually do.
So here we are in early December. I either park the car without the oil change or I venture out to the dealership for that free oil change. I looked at the weather and saw a window of sunshine. We had an inch or so of snow last week but Minneapolis does a tremendous job of getting the roads clear. I talked to my dealership and they said bring it in. Are you sure it's ok to drive it? Sure. Come on down.
My gut was telling me to skip the fall/winter oil change since it was so late but hey what the heck. I love driving my Mustang. I have a 17 GT with PP so it has the summer tires. What could go wrong?
Time to leave for the appointment. I walk through a couple of inches of snow to get to my garage. I had already shoveled out the driveway. Open the garage door and start my Mustang. I haven't had it started for almost two months with the weather being so poor. I don't do rain or cold weather in this car. Can't wait to drive it again.
I drive it out of the garage and quickly close the garage door. The temperature is 25 degrees and my garage is heated at 50 degrees. So far so good. I edge the car down a bit of a slope into the alley way. The alley was a compressed sheet of packed snow often referred to as ice. I decide this is a bad idea and try to back into the garage to forget the whole deal. Can't do it. I can't get traction. The tires spin, traction control kicks in which is no help. I can't get back into my garage. Since I had the car out I decided I might as well continue. I can move forward slowly so I continue down the alley way to the street. The street is just as bad as the alley way and my Mustang is almost uncontrollable. Well ok I am an experienced driver in the snow so it was manageable chaos. I can see at the end of this short street the next street is clear.
I make it to the clear street and carefully get it off the snowy street. Only a few miles go to. What can go wrong?
My drive on the main streets is uneventful although I am NOT taking anything for granted. The streets I need to take are all clear of snow. I make it to the dealership with no issues.
At the dealership I got the oil changed and had fun drinking coffee and talking to the sales and service people. I head home after about an hour. No issues getting home until I got to my street. I crawled to the alley way and slowly inched to my driveway. Popped up the garage door and attempted to drive in and can't. No forward traction. ZERO on that packed snow. I try 1st, 2nd and third. With and without traction control. Can't move. I can't leave the car in the alley. But I am able to move the car in reverse. So I back all the way down the alley to get the car on the side street.
Now how am I going to do this? I get out my snow shovel and spend an hour removing as much snow and ice as I can in my drive way slope. The alley way is solid packed ice so my shovel was of little value. How am I going to do this. Sand? I have a bag of sand and take it to the alley way. I can see where my tires were spinning. I dump the large bag of sand in those slick tire paths. I am also thinking if this doesn't work what are my alternatives? Ice melt, old carpet? Getting my neighbors to help push me? I move my Ford Escape from the parking area so that is not a concern thinking that I may get one shot at this and don't need to worry about hitting the Escape.
I go get the Mustang. I creep slowly up the alley way, position the car on the sand, put it in reverse and go for it. Fortunately my Mustang backed up the slope into my garage. Safe!
What did I learn? Obviously that was a BAD idea in the first place and my gut was telling me that before I pulled it out of the garage. Secondly I had a meeting today with a client who is in the tire business. I told him what I encountered. He said that I was very lucky. He had another customer with a Porsche who did the same thing for the same reasons except when he entered a corner on a very dry street but at 20+ degrees his Porsche slide sideways and hit the curb breaking both rims on that side and doing some pretty serious damage to his suspension, bending parts, etc. He said I was lucky that my only issue was getting into my garage. He said that those summer tires are more than worthless on a cold day, they are in fact dangerous. And that when it comes time to change those tires to swap them out with all season performance tires. Get comparable performance but you can drive the car if you need to on a cold day.
So if you are tempted to drive your Mustang with summer tires on a cold day even if the streets are clear, don't. Lesson learned and yes the manual does say NOT to drive it if the temp is 40 or less.
So here we are in early December. I either park the car without the oil change or I venture out to the dealership for that free oil change. I looked at the weather and saw a window of sunshine. We had an inch or so of snow last week but Minneapolis does a tremendous job of getting the roads clear. I talked to my dealership and they said bring it in. Are you sure it's ok to drive it? Sure. Come on down.
My gut was telling me to skip the fall/winter oil change since it was so late but hey what the heck. I love driving my Mustang. I have a 17 GT with PP so it has the summer tires. What could go wrong?
Time to leave for the appointment. I walk through a couple of inches of snow to get to my garage. I had already shoveled out the driveway. Open the garage door and start my Mustang. I haven't had it started for almost two months with the weather being so poor. I don't do rain or cold weather in this car. Can't wait to drive it again.
I drive it out of the garage and quickly close the garage door. The temperature is 25 degrees and my garage is heated at 50 degrees. So far so good. I edge the car down a bit of a slope into the alley way. The alley was a compressed sheet of packed snow often referred to as ice. I decide this is a bad idea and try to back into the garage to forget the whole deal. Can't do it. I can't get traction. The tires spin, traction control kicks in which is no help. I can't get back into my garage. Since I had the car out I decided I might as well continue. I can move forward slowly so I continue down the alley way to the street. The street is just as bad as the alley way and my Mustang is almost uncontrollable. Well ok I am an experienced driver in the snow so it was manageable chaos. I can see at the end of this short street the next street is clear.
I make it to the clear street and carefully get it off the snowy street. Only a few miles go to. What can go wrong?
My drive on the main streets is uneventful although I am NOT taking anything for granted. The streets I need to take are all clear of snow. I make it to the dealership with no issues.
At the dealership I got the oil changed and had fun drinking coffee and talking to the sales and service people. I head home after about an hour. No issues getting home until I got to my street. I crawled to the alley way and slowly inched to my driveway. Popped up the garage door and attempted to drive in and can't. No forward traction. ZERO on that packed snow. I try 1st, 2nd and third. With and without traction control. Can't move. I can't leave the car in the alley. But I am able to move the car in reverse. So I back all the way down the alley to get the car on the side street.
Now how am I going to do this? I get out my snow shovel and spend an hour removing as much snow and ice as I can in my drive way slope. The alley way is solid packed ice so my shovel was of little value. How am I going to do this. Sand? I have a bag of sand and take it to the alley way. I can see where my tires were spinning. I dump the large bag of sand in those slick tire paths. I am also thinking if this doesn't work what are my alternatives? Ice melt, old carpet? Getting my neighbors to help push me? I move my Ford Escape from the parking area so that is not a concern thinking that I may get one shot at this and don't need to worry about hitting the Escape.
I go get the Mustang. I creep slowly up the alley way, position the car on the sand, put it in reverse and go for it. Fortunately my Mustang backed up the slope into my garage. Safe!
What did I learn? Obviously that was a BAD idea in the first place and my gut was telling me that before I pulled it out of the garage. Secondly I had a meeting today with a client who is in the tire business. I told him what I encountered. He said that I was very lucky. He had another customer with a Porsche who did the same thing for the same reasons except when he entered a corner on a very dry street but at 20+ degrees his Porsche slide sideways and hit the curb breaking both rims on that side and doing some pretty serious damage to his suspension, bending parts, etc. He said I was lucky that my only issue was getting into my garage. He said that those summer tires are more than worthless on a cold day, they are in fact dangerous. And that when it comes time to change those tires to swap them out with all season performance tires. Get comparable performance but you can drive the car if you need to on a cold day.
So if you are tempted to drive your Mustang with summer tires on a cold day even if the streets are clear, don't. Lesson learned and yes the manual does say NOT to drive it if the temp is 40 or less.
Sponsored
