Sandbag in the front - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

A friend brought up an interesting point. In the case of driving in winter or in rain, would it help any by putting sandbags in the front trunk?

Why would you put them in the front trunk? The Boxster is a rear wheel drive car. If you hope to improve traction by adding weight, you'd have to put the weight on top of the driven wheels. Gary

Probably. I can't imagine it would hurt. Friction is a function of the force being applied to a surface and the coefficient of friction of the surface. So the more force you have the more friction you'll get. That's why snow tires work better than summer. The extra treads help increase the tire's coefficient of friction. It's probably negligible, but heat is function of pressure so more force pressing down on snow/ice will cause the temp. to rise which could lead to water on ice. But again, this is probably minimal considering the short time any point between the tire and snow/ice is actually contacting each other. Plus the heat generated from your car driving over a patch of ice will probably be so minimal that it wouldn't even be enough to melt the ice any appreciable ammount, especially if it's very cold.

I would agree, I don't see any advantage to this move!

True, but the front wheels actually steer the car. And that requires them to have grip in order to essentially shove the car on a different direction than the straight line the rear tires are trying to make it go. If they don't have any grip, then it won't make one damn bit of difference even if your rear tires have chains. This is one of the reasons front-wheel drive cars work better in the snow and ice. The wheels with the most friction (those with the engine on top) are pulling the car in the right direction, rather than those with the least (the rears) trying to essentially push the car straight ahead while the fronts try and redirect that force in the direction you want to go. If those front wheels can produce enough frictional force to push the nose to the left or the right, then you lose control and bad things happen.

I you are planning to sprinkle a little sand around, in the event you get stuck, I don't think it matters where you keep it! I hear kitty litter works well too.

Wouldn't you need more than 80 lbs worth of sand to make a difference? I know the front wheel drive cars are something like 65/35 front weight bias.

Bruce has a point on this one....bro had a little Z3 roadster and while adding I'm thinking 3 bags of sand at about 50 pounds a pop, the advantage was minimal....kept the car down a bit better but you still were all over the place especially turning... snow tires make the difference....his Z and my Box are 4 season rides in chi town no problems to date....

Yes, I would agree, real snow tires all around make a world of difference.