I prepped my 991S for winter storage 3 days ago and I am having serious withdrawal symptoms! This is worse than when I quit smoking.

 

eek..nod. At least you have the forums for a daily fix

 

Yes, that will help but.........

 

I'm sending you warm wishes of gin and tonics, pics, and thoughts of spring my friend!

 

Easy fix: Winter tires

 

You know, the reasons contributing to winter tires for me were:

a) wanted different aftermarket wheels. Had to keep Porsche wheels to CPO the car.
b) Porsche dealership offered to pick up oem wheels from where they were 80 miles away for free and deliver them to me, but:

c) Porsche dealership treated me so well, I decided to have them hold onto the wheels and put winter tires on and then deliver them to me. I just love our local dealership, kudos to Roger Jobs Porsche in Bellingham and Elliott my service advisor. It's nice to be treated well.

- - - - -
Costs I didn't quite realize in advance that were over and above the winter wheel/tires if I wanted to change my own wheels:

a) torque wrench
b) breaker bar (to loosen lug bolts, people say dont use the torque wrench)
c) floor jack
d) 5-6 inch extender to get past fender area safely with 19mm adapter for lug bolts to connect to torque wrench/breaker bar (Griot's has a nice kit with protected pieces so you don't damage your wheels)

So..I'm out, easily, a few thousand on this winter driving adventure. I drove a 2010 Audi A5 (quattro all-wheel drive) through two winters before upgrading to Porsches- but I never changed Audi quattro summer performance tires and frankly, I'm lucky I didn't have any accidents. The all-wheel-drive systems on summer performance tires are just as slick and slippery as can be in snow, and offer no real benefit that I could tell.

Hence my decision to try this little winter experiment with the Porsche

Maybe I'll end up wishing I had just garaged the car for the winter..but I'm hoping there is fun to be had with the proper setup.

 

That's what I bought my Forester for. I just can't drive my sports cars when salt is on the roads, which is aplenty around here soon.

 

Send it to me in Caifornia, I will drive it for you.

 

+1. I'm also in sunny CA. Hard to imagine not being able to drive my P car for the winter!

 

Thanks for the offers, you Cali guys are very generous.

 

I know a lot of owners feel this way, probably fueled by memories of their older cars that developed rust. But, I have yet to see a modern 911 that has rust on the undercarriage or other problems from salt. If someone has actual evidence to the contrary, I'd be happy to be corrected.

My own intuition is that we're living in 2012: If Red Bull can drop a man from the edge of space safely and Porsche can build a car like the 918 then surely they can also figure out how to build a car that's not affected by salt.

 

Uncertain that salt contributes to rust, but I'm under the impression that it's not good for the paint?

 

Maybe. So get an extra detail or two before/during winter and wipe down with detailer around the fenders after driving.

 

Seen many of these threads and it really all comes down to personal preference I guess.
I usually don't get to specific on this topic but this time let me share what I found out the hard way.

The body is not the only part of the car which is made of metal... the engine, suspension, nuts bolts etc.. are VERY effected by the corrosive nature of salt (just try to take of a set of headers on a 911 which was used during winter without breaking a few!!!) and then we haven't talked about electrical, gaskets, seals, rubbers etc... they will dry out or get hard and start cracking much much sooner!

Of course there's also the terrible effect on the painted surfaces, salt crystals are very sharp and can actually be more abrasive than sand...
Sure you can have a compound done but it is extremely hard to find a good detail expert whom will do so without swirl or buffer "ghost" marks and the cost for someone who is good will be between $600,- to 800,- easy.
Also you can only do a compound a certain amount of times (clear coat gets thinner each time) and then there's what salt does to all those plastic/poly finishing bits all over the car...

Now add the adverse effects on components by going from a +15 C garage to -20C or starting the car after it's been sittiing outside (when you're ready to come home etc)...now you can add a whole new reason why driving a 911 during cold climate winters is not a good idea ( cracked ignition coils etc).

Oh and of course the fact that a 911 has it's boxer FLAT six engine laying much more exposed than any V engine...

Like I said in the end it's a personal choice made by specific reasons but I wouldn't underestimate the negative aspects of driving your 911 during winter.

 

Thanks for going into detail on this subject Sid, I wanted to list the reasons why I feel as I do but I probably would not have done as good a job as you did. All that you wrote about is true and put simply; I do not enjoy driving my toys under these circumstances including all of the lesser skilled drivers out there.

Even if I was very wealthy I would not drive them in the salty months. What a joy it will be to pull off the cover on my detailed S, disconnect the battery tender, pull out the desiccant packs, fire up my beauty and back it off the tire cradles for it's first spring run.