What to do for the Winter - Drive or Store??

I've only had my 2004 996 Targa for two weeks. I LOVE THE CAR!!!! Winter is coming, and I need to make a decision: 1. Do I get winter tires and wheels (at $1600 for 18" wheels and Blizzak tires) and drive my Porsche all winter, or 2. Do I take the $1,600 and buy a beater to drive all winter long, giving my precious Porsche for a nice long winter nap? My mechanic says, "sure, you can drive your Porsche all winter, and the body won't rust, but you'll pay the price for additional maintenance as the undercarriage gets corroded by the salt, and the distributor and the cables, and the . . . . . . " OK, so I buy a beater for the $1600, and then . . . . . I have to put new tires on it, and brakes, and a battery, and new struts, and the rest of the front suspension, and before I know it, I have spent an extra $1,000 - $1,500 to fix up the "beater" so that it's safe to drive. Who wants to do that? And, even though my car is nice, it isn't like it will be a classic car that needs protection to maintain its value. Right?? So, what should I do, buy winter tires or buy a winter beater?? TIA for your thoughts. larry

buy a dd! (daily driver) beater for the winter.

I assume it will wear faster but i doubt it will really fall apart. Cars are meant to be driven. If it was a collector I could understand the preservation idea, but it is only a 996. It all depends if you are on a budget or not. I think that driving a 996 is a little more pricey than a 'beater' and even more so if you drive it in the snow, but driving it all year... isn't it priceless

i dont dd mine because id put way to many wear and tear miles on in. and would get damaged at my work. the stuff they put down in the winter is terrible for cars and id rather not have my 996 exposed to them ie gravel and chemicals... i bought a 1998 jetta gls for 1500$ its a very nice comfortable car for a dd. and muc cheaper on gas lol

keys, brakes work and it still burns fuel makes a simple formula for turn the key and take off. When you get older please tell me how didn't enjoy yourself as much as you could off and regret it. That's a hint

Oh yah, when you approach old age and wonder if the back pain will ever go away and be able to drive the porsche? just drive the thing. it's only a car. If I had a 917 I'd daily drive the heck out of it.

Get the tires and drive it.......

Drive it! Enjoy! In Madrid (Spain) we have between 20� F and 45� F My friends and me usually go out to drive not so far from Madrid to the mountains, and there we can get snow in high points... before going out we hav a look to the weather forecast, but It's not a problem cold temperatures to enjoy your car in winter season. It's an evident that water, ice and snow are not a 911 best friends, but I don't store my car. Our cars are always equipped with summer tires, but we get care where to go. It's a pity a car storaged

I drive mine all winter. I've seriously considered a winter beater car, but I haven't bought one yet. I keep driving the Porshce, and I keep loving it. I just put my Blizzaks on last weekend. (It snowed yesterday by the way, so the timing was good).

Drive it and enjoy your Porsche year round, it will be happy and so will you.

Drive mine year round. You should too! I have a set of Blizzak on 18" turbo twists. They work great.

Porsches do not like to sit. In fact they get down right pissed off. I found the best way to handle the winter is, Plug in the battery minder. Drive it as long as you can till the first flake falls. Then drive it in-between storms when the roads are dry. This has worked out quite well for me the last 5 years. And maybe it is my imagination.. But in colder weather the thing seems to gain about 30 hp

Quotes source post: 7970374

Hell, I already AM older. That is why I decided not to wait any longer to buy another Pcar. I'm 62. Was I going to wait till I was 70 - 75 - 80 to finally buy a Pcar and have fun driving it? Nope. I decided to do it now. The Votes are in and the winner is . . . . . . . "Drive the hell out of it all winter." So, that's what I'm going to do. Now, where did I put that $1,600?? larry

My winter beater is a Cayenne but on any nice days where it's not to cold I take the 996 out for spin! Just drive the hell out of it!

My beater is a Grand Cherokee. As a previous poster stated, I put the car on a battery maintainer and drive it in between storms.

I'll never understand why anyone would buy a Porsche only to stick it in the garage while they drive a thousand dollar car for a huge chunk of the year. It's a car, not a Faberge egg. Also, you can get a winter tire setup way cheaper than $1600. Go get some replicas from wheelsandcaps.com for $5-600 (that's shipped) and some basic winter tires from Tire Rack (I went with Hankooks...about the same price as the wheels) and hit the road.

Quotes source post: 7970881

I am getting to the point where I agree. I just wanted to see what the "community" felt about this. If this were a classic car, I wouldn't do it, but this is a modern Porsche. It's not going to appreciate in value the way some other Pcars do. Thanks for the suggestion, I'll check on wheelsandcaps.com. I did check out a winter tire package for my car on Tirerack.com. The wheels (look like 18" Turbo twists) are 179 for each front and 189 for each rear. The Blizzaks are 177 for each front and 241 for each rear. Tire Rack mounts and balances them for free, which I would have to pay for if I bought the tires and wheels separately. I can put them on the car myself - I have a service jack and compressor and airgun. Don't see how I can get by much cheaper than the $1,600. The selection Tire Rack gave me didn't include Hankooks. Just Blizzak, Pirellis, and Dunlops. Maybe I need to call and talk to someone . . . . . . . larry

Quotes source post: 7970881

+1, especially on the Faberge egg part.

I debated initially, but concluded that buying dedicated winter tires would enable me to enjoy driving my Porsche instead of only looking at it in my garage, wondering when I might drive it again. This will be my 3rd winter with 4 Blizzaks, and although I don't drive it everyday, I can still enjoy my car in winter coditions just like they do in Europe.

I for one hope we get enough snow so I can try a bit of sliding in a parking lot!

Just don't leave it parked on the street : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyfjZlOSq2A

Quotes source post: 7970653

+1 for my 911. And...my Boxster is a daily driver all year long.

Nevermind...my Porche's going up on jack stands and I'm selling the snow tires. Talk about an insurance hit that day!

Quotes source post: 7970945

For good service at Tire Rack, call Damon at [phone removed] ext 643. Keep in mind that winter tires and wheels should have a more narrow width than summer tires/wheels. Damon will give you "the scoop" on which size and brand tires and wheels make sense for you car. Good luck, and let us know what you've bought.

I bought my winter wheels and tires at www.wheelenhancement.com . They have Porsche OEM wheels, Porsche replica wheels and aftermarket wheels, depending on what you want. They shipped my new wheels mounted, balanced and ready to go. The experience was good - they are very knowledgable about proper Porsche sizing and offsets.

The only thing I would add is to take a hose to the under carriage to wash the salt and grime off every other week. My car came from Chicago and the bolts to the Cats and mufflers was so rusted and basically broke off when swapping headers.

I thought I'd lower mine into a small swimming pool, fill with liquid plastic, and have the largest, genuine Porsche paperweight possible. No more maintenance costs, no worries about rust, could add some lights for illumination, ......

Quotes source post: 7970653

You nailed right here. This is what I plan on doing.

try get some 17" boxster wheels, its mufh lower then $1600 good luck

So, Boxster wheels fit a 996? I would hate to buy wheels and tires and end up with something that doesn't fit on my car. larry

Quotes source post: 7970945

Ah, I just realized that I got my winter tires from Discount Tire Direct. They have the Hankook W300 Icebears for about $770 shipped (after messing with a $50 rebate) and the wheels at wheelsandcaps.com are $569 for a total of about $1340 + mounting/balancing ($80 around here)...a little more than I thought, but about the cheapest you'll find for a brand new 18" winter tire/wheel package for a Porsche. I struggled with the same thing last winter and finally found something that works great. There's no reason you have to go with a narrower wheel/tire than stock, and if you have any fitment questions, post them here and I'll try to help you. Careful with the Boxster wheels--many (all?) of them have a different offset and there's a good chance they won't fit your 996. Can anyone confirm that the 996 Targa is a narrowbody car? I don't want to lead Larry down the wrong path...

996 Targa is narrow body I imagine you could get away with 17" wheels/tires for winter. Yes, Boxster wheels (7x17 and 8.5x17) would fit (996 base wheels were 7 and 9x17 ) I always grin when I see other porsches out in "bad" weather.. rain, snow etc.. because they are being used and enjoyed!

I bought used replica 17" twist rims with Pirelli winter tires, for $800 or so when I first bought my car in '07. I've installed them every winter, and drove the car between storms. There are some winters where it doesn't snow until December or January. Most of the time, when it does snow, I keep the car in the garage until the roads are clear. Our cars will not disintegrate from salt. Wash the cars on 40 degree sunny winter days, and enjoy until you have to put the summer wheels back on on April!

Quotes source post: 7972499

Thanks...that's what I thought. But what about the offset? I recall looking for Boxster wheels to use for the winter on my 996 C4 and finding that the diameters and widths were fine but the offsets were completely wrong.

I have some 17" Boxster S (twists) rims I use in winter. No snow tires. With LSD & traction control the car is great in snow. The nice thing about 17" tires are they are really cheap compared to 18/19".

I am also running Boxter Twists for my winter tires - the offsets are fine. Bought used for $900 for everything (and the tires will have 2 or 3 years of life in them). I do have a small spacers in front, but I do not think it makes any difference (they are for my summer wheels, but I leave them on due to the longer bolts they require)

Quotes source post: 7973687

The problem I'm facing is that I have called Tire Rack and talked to them about tires for the 17" wheels. They said that they only have one tire, made by Pirelli. And that tire is a winter performance tire, not a snow/ice tire. That is the only tire in an "appropriate" size for Porsches for a 17" wheel. What I don't understand is that the wheels are, let's say, 17' in diameter. But some of them are 7" across, and some are 8.5" and some are more. How do I make sure that i don't get too wide a wheel, and then how do I know what tires will fit a wheel of X width? Certainly I can't expect that a tire that will fit a 7" wide wheel will also comfortably fit an 8.5" wide wheel, or a 10" wide wheel. I would rather get 17" more standard wheels to save money. The winter tires and wheels I bought for my Lexus (which were 16") were less than $900. It seems to me that I'm just not finding the right source of information to get what I need in the cheapest solution. I don't need Z rated winter tires!!! Any standard sedan tire (like a T rated tire) would work fine for me for the winter months. larry

The Pirelli Wintersport tires are N rated, meaning you can drive the car the way it was designed to drive on those dry sunny winter days. You wouldn't like doing anything but going straight using sedan T rated tires!

I bought my Blizzaks in 17" sizes so I could use my stock wheels, I imagine they are still available from Tirerack, and they are dedicated snows.

Quotes source post: 7973920

Go to tirerack.com and punch in Porsche, 2001, BoxsterS (17") 29 tire combinations came up. Including Pirelli snows for $674/set, or even Hankooks Hi Perf $392/set. I run summer tires in winter, and have driven the car in 3-4" of snow. Any more and clearance will probably become a problem. Maybe best to work from home til they clean the streets. For me ice is a bigger concern.

Quotes source post: 7974321

I did as you suggested. Unfortunately, of the 29 sets of tires shown, there is only one that is winter, and the Pirelli's are labeled as winter tires, not snow tires. I am really looking for snow tires for the winter. I don't have LSD or Traction Control. I think that with these wide tires, I am going to need all the help I can get - getting actual SNOW TIRES. If I go up to 18" wheels, there are three different labels of tires. If I try to get them on 17" wheels, there are NO SNOWS listed. I called and talked to someone at Tire Rack. He confirmed the issue. Porsche uses a very wide tire in the rear, and it is only Pirelli that makes a winter tire for the Porsche. Looks like I may have to do 18" wheels anyway. If no mfgr makes the tires, there is really no way I can buy them. larry

Quotes source post: 7970653

+1.... ultimate CAI!

When I went to tirerack for 17's I found this: http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....a&autoModClar= When I read the description of the tire, it says for use in Snow, rain, and Ice.. You might also review your owners manual as Porsche has, for many years, listed recommended winter/snow tires for its models. When I searched for 18's I got: http://www.tirerack.com/snow/WinterT...&performance=W leaving 4 different tires..

Racer: I came up with the same choices, I think, when I surfed their site. But when I called Tire Rack, he told me that the Pirelli was a plowed street winter tire, whereas the Blizzak was an all winter heavy snow tire. Certainly a $1350 tire package is better than a $1700 package. It looks like a viable option. Thanks for bringing it back to my attention. larry

Also consider the limited ground clearance on the 996. you won't have too much luck in more than 6" of fresh snow no matter what tire you have since it will build up under the car. Having at least a "winter biased" tire will make travel in a small accumulation suprise easier and also easier on sloppy, wet, icy roads as well.

You could consider 17s for winter...that's the setup I have and they work great. Hopefully we have a long fall and they won't need to go on until December. They won't go on until the snow starts coming down. Summer tires on cold and dry pavement are fun.

From a fellow Chicagoan, Even if you put winter tires on, it still won't stop stupid Chicago drivers from running into your baby or the occasional salt plows from spitting up snow/salt rocks. Even if that $1600 budget grows a bit more for winter tires/battery/winter maintenance on a beater, it could still be hell of a lot less than if your porsche got crunched(both in repairs and later resale if given salvage title or unclean carfax). If you're all on vanity and have to look great all the time, I'd say go for it. If you're more about practical sensibility, I would think about it. Just my $.02

Quotes source post: 7975813

I think it's key to know that winter tires aren't only for snow. They are softer, and don't turn into slippery rocks when the temps fall. When it snows, my car sits in the garage waiting for the all-clear!

Quotes source post: 7976138

Agreed. This is a widely misunderstood thing. Winter tires are all about the compound. Summer performance tires start to lose some adhesion as soon as 10C, and harden up quite suddenly at about 5C. Without intending to slag anybody, I think that driving on summer performance tires in the cold is irresponsible even if there's no snow at all. For the kind of use most Porsche typically get in the winter, deep snow traction seems much less important to me than good ol' friction does. I run the Pirellis in the winter on 18" wheels at the OE widths. Given my winter use is almost all urban, I am far more concerned with water management and adhesion (hence the contact patch) than I am with cutting through deep stuff. It's all about the right tool for the job.

I run PS2's on 18" for the summer and have 17" Blizzaks for winter. While I think the choice is a good one, I'm impressed at how much less stable & planted the car seems on the smaller snow tires. I was thrilled to take them off in the Spring.

I would love to run Blizzaks on my car, but when I ask for tires for 17" wheels, the only ones that Tire Rack gives me are the Pirelli Winter performance tires. These give up performance in snow and ice to provide high performance running in cold weather on dry roads. I am more interested in traction than high speed runs in the winter. What size 17" wheels are you running? (what width) What size Blizzak tires are you running on the front and rear of your car. Maybe I need to back into the size of tires, and rather than letting Tire Rack propose a size, I need to tell them what sizes I want. thanks larry

Quotes source posts: 7975813, 7976541

An accident can happen at any time in any season...if you're uncomfortable with that, you shouldn't be on the road regardless of what you're driving. + a million Winter tires aren't all about driving in the snow. Sure, they're good for that, but the tire compound is what makes a winter tire a winter tire. I cringe every time I hear someone talking about how the tread pattern is the difference between summer and winter tires...not even close.

Quotes source post: 7976739

That's what I love about this forum. I learn things that I never expected. That's another thing to put into my car-memory-bank. And, I concur about accidents at any time. I enjoy driving this car. I LOVE IT!!! Any opportunity to continue driving it all year long just continues to reinforce why I bought it. When I had Kermit, the winters always seemed long and longer, because it was a Garage Queen, and I only drove it on occasion. This car, I drive on all occasions. I even find short errands that I wouldn't drive on - just to have an excuse to drive the car!!! Like I've said, my biggest complaint right now is that I don't have a longer commute. larry

Quotes source post: 7976716

My Blizzaks are 205/50/17 and 255/40/17 from the TireRack purchased 12/08.

Quotes source post: 7976739

I understand that but you obviously have never lived in Chicago lately. Chicago takes idiotic drivers to another level and then increases exponentially in the winter. Found out OP is living in the burbs so he should be fine.

I personally wouldn't drive it.

Hello, since I'm a new Porsche owner (4 days as of this post!), I plan to regularly start my beauty ('87 928 S4 auto- amazing condition!) and drive it when roads are clear and dry throughout this winter. Will I need the winter tires or can I gingerly use the performance tires on dry, clear roads? The plans are for cruising semi-regularly and some trips to/from work which is only 5 miles from home. My regular auto is a Pathfinder so that will be used all other times when the weather/ roads are inhospitable here. Please give me feedback as I am very concerned that I might be doing the wrong thing. Thanks, Matt

The misunderstanding of winter tires is that the only advantage that they provide is traction in snowy conditions. In doing a bit of scouting on this topic, I have discovered that there is a totally different rubber compound used in summer as opposed to winter. The difference is that the rubber on summer tires becomes hard when the temperature drops below 30 degrees F, and makes stopping very problematic. Winter tires use a softer rubber compound that stays soft even though the temperature drops into the teens or lower. That enables you to stop more quickly, even on dry pavement. Of course, the tread design also helps you in snowy or icy conditions. larry

DRIVE IT ALL YEAR. Life is short, and smiles are worth more than $$. If Porsche can run one in the Decar Rally, I can run mine in the snow! Get a set of snows and separate rims, and drive it!!!!!!!!!