Winter daily?

Kingske

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I did not have any problems at all last winter with my 4S on all-season tires in New Jersey. Admittedly, we did not get a ton of snow. In more polar climates winter tires may be a good idea.
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Live in the Chicago burbs and just put on some p zero winters. No snow yet but plan to daily it unless we have blizzard like conditions. Was able to find some 20 inch oz rims from tire rack that fit.
Thanks. Tirerack didn't like the Turbo even if I select 20", but my local dealer was able to find OZ HyperXT 20" + P Zero Winters for about $4400 total (not including TPMS). Apparently they're not able to get the Elect right now.
 

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My Taycan is my daily driver, and I used it all last year as my ski car. I drove it through some major snow storms where lots of cars and SUVs wound up in ditches. I drove a couple times in unplowed snow as deep as eight inches. Overall it was rock solid in the snow and I never felt like I needed more ground clearance.
 
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Todd Rose

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I live just outside of Boston. My TT has 21” Contis and I just ordered 20” sport aero winter tires. After reading up on it, it seems clear that the torque and weight combo would make for difficult driving on ice and snow. Having them swapped next week.
 
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I know tons of folks in the area (or even more north) that daily even their RWD cars with winter tires. When you get to low temps, the tires make all the difference.
Yep, you can daily-drive anything in winter as long as you have suitable tires. My mom drove me to and from school in western Mass all winter long in her 924. One time the snow was so high on the roads that we were shaving off the top couple of inches with the front bumper.

My RWD 550i was perfectly fine on snow, and I have no doubt my Taycan will be at least as good.

Really, it's the salt that I'm dreading.
 


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I did not have any problems at all last winter with my 4S on all-season tires in New Jersey. Admittedly, we did not get a ton of snow. In more polar climates winter tires may be a good idea.
What area of NJ are you in? All I remember last winter was shoveling massive piles of snow in Jan-Feb.
 

Adriansjo

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I’m using my taycan as a daily driver, even in the worst snowstorms and snow falls here in Norway, and it’s so good on snowy conditions, just be a little gentle on the throttle.
For tires I would really recommend to go for a separate wheel-set for winter tires because of the risk of potential damage and wear from the tire change on a rim. I know there are a lot of professionals, but it’s really easy to make some scratches etc on the rims. And you don’t need to balance out the wheels every time you change.
separate wheels also gives you the chance to change them yourself at home, which is nice incase of unsuspected snowfall.
 
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KTC

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I’m using my taycan as a daily driver, even in the worst snowstorms and snow falls here in Norway, and it’s so good on snowy conditions, just be a little gentle on the throttle.
Thank you. That's about as strong of an endorsement as can be. No ground clearance issues even with heavy snow?

Any pictures to show us what Norway winters look like? I can't even imagine...
 


whitex

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Thanks all for your answers. Just to clarify, I'm not questioning the value or advantage of winters over all-seasons. My last several cars all had dedicated summer and winter sets for that exact reason.

The question stems more from the fact that 1. if the Taycan's ground clearance is low enough that it'll become a big snowplow, then maybe it'll stay in the garage and is not worth getting winters, and 2. some folks believe the extra weight of the car helps w/ increased traction. The latter is not intuitive to me because all I can think of is the braking distance or emergency handling of a 6000 lbs flying mass. I've also never had these Conti ProContact RX before, and have no idea how well they do in light snow.



I especially appreciate this post coming from someone who lives in my area. Unfortunately for us with 21" wheels right now most places don't have snow tires available, and with global shortage there also aren't too many 20" winter wheel+tire packages available. The cheapest for a set of wheels + tire is probably 5k right now.
When I lived on the east coast, I swapped summer/winter tires every year. When I lived in Silicon Valley, I ran summer tires all year long on my Porsche and all seasons on an SUV. Similar when I lived in Texas. Living in the pacific northwest however, we rarely get snow, and average temperatures don't drop below freezing much, and even if they do, they bounce back up a day or a week or two later. Swapping tires every day or even every week to get optimal performance is just impractical, so I've been running good all season tires since I've lived here, seems to do the trick with only a day or two per winter where I wish I had winter tires (but on those days, as you might have noticed living around here, most people panic when there is an inch of snow on the ground and most people don't leave their homes). However, if I was planning many road-trips into the snow country, then by all means, I would get winter tires for the snow.

PS> Another thing about the pacific northwest is the quality of the roads. I've driven through many states, and Washington state roads are the worst. Last time I drove coast to coast I knew I entered WA state simply by the road feel I get from my sport suspension. When I moved from California to Washington, for the first little while whenever I drove my 911 on I5 or I405, I actually pulled over a few times thinking I had a tire blowout, because if felt exactly like when I did have a tire blowout in CA (my bad, wore right through the tires in under 10K miles in 3-4 months after I picked up my 911). Since then I started buying the smaller wheels with more sidewall to cushion WA roads a bit (also helps not to damage the wheel on the pot holes we have around here). For my Taycan order I'm going with the 20" all-season tire for these reasons. I also plan to use it year round as my daily driver. No plans for any ski trips though.
 
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Kingske

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What area of NJ are you in? All I remember last winter was shoveling massive piles of snow in Jan-Feb.
Princeton. True, we got several days of serious snow but the season did not last that long. My Taycan still did what it had to.
 

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Non snow related PSA

now that temps are getting lower you should check your tire pressure because you can easily lose 5lbs of PSI because of the lower temps
 

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Non snow related PSA

now that temps are getting lower you should check your tire pressure because you can easily lose 5lbs of PSI because of the lower temps
Good to Know app specifies that tire pressure should be measured cold at 20’C outside temp. And yes, lower outside temp reduces your tire pressure significantly thanks to the Ideal Gas Law…. (P = V x T)

So at startup at 0-5’C, my pressure is a few PSI below recommended but after a few miles, it goes up to recommended pressure
 

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Here is a link to a post I made about winter driving last year where I included some photos of driving in 8" of unplowed snow. The photos don't quite do that storm justice, but let's just say that many of the roads had 8" or more of unplowed snow as the plows were waiting for the storm to end before really hitting the streets.

I have learned to raise the height of the car if it is really deep, but I rarely do that as long as I am in normal driving mode. I would stay away from the driving modes that are lower to the ground (sport, sport+, and range).
 

TycanNewHampshire

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I drove my Panamara GTS throughout winter with all-seasons and it did well...but could be better. You can see from my other thread on the Nokain Haka-10 group buy that I plan on putting on studded winter tires this season, but supply chain issues are the biggest challenge that I am having right now. First, we have to wait for the production run with the Nokian factory and then have to deal with them being shipped on a container and deal with the off-loading and shipping challenges we are having in the US right now. This may not be an issue globally, but is certainly an issue in the U.S., especially for the rear tire sizes. I can find front's but that leaves the rear to slide around.
I will be putting these on the stock wheels, the 20" Turbo Aero wheels and then ordering a new set of Vossen wheels for my summer tires. Once they come in, I should be able to get 3-winter seasons out of the studded tires and should also allow this to be a beast in the snow/ice. Studded tires on an all-wheel EV with nothing but torque....magical!!! This will be a different beast than just the GTS as the EV has so much torque, I would think anything but dedicated snows or studded-snows, will have a challenge and am not risking it with so much torque on a set of all-seasons this go-around.
 
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KTC

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Here is a link to a post I made about winter driving last year where I included some photos of driving in 8" of unplowed snow. The photos don't quite do that storm justice, but let's just say that many of the roads had 8" or more of unplowed snow as the plows were waiting for the storm to end before really hitting the streets.
Thanks for sharing this actual experience! Also great to hear that the P Zero Winters actually did well... there's almost no reviews of them online as of this date (surprising).

Also interesting that you used the staggered Aero setup. Some folks advocate for a square winter setup.
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