New Caprice - Discussion forums

Is it just me or do these cars handle like crap in the winter? this is my third winter with it and it has winter tires but it gets no traction and thanks to the posi it fishtails. Has anyone come up with any ideas to make their car more user friendly in the winter? I bought my Caprice because I figured a Camaro would not be a good winter vehicle.

I have driven mine some in the snow. I have very new "factory equipped" brand and model tires. Yeah, I'd say it sucks. The stopping isn't as bad as I would have expected. I leave my traction control on and take it easy. Better still is to banish it to the garage until you get dry streets :S
I have had a number of cars that were worse if it makes you feel any better (in no particular order): '70 Nova, '70 Chevy pickup, '89 Mustang, '75 Nova, '75 Camaro, 69 Camaro, 2004 Dodge Ram, 1999 Dodge Ram, 2006 Dodge Ram. If my memory serves me, I'd say they were all much worse (except the 2wd posi Dodges?!). Many of my "other" cars were front wheel drive and I'd say they were a lot better. The best I've ever had is a '17 Ridgeline AWD. Stops, Goes, all business.

My car came with Ultra Grips on the steelies so that is what went on for winter use. They advertise being for winter use, so I expected reasonable performance. I was not impressed so I left them on for this summer to get a little more use out of them before retiring them. I've now installed the Michelin X Ice XI3 (discontinued) on G8 rims and am hoping for better results. They ride quiet and smooth, but so far we have just seen some snow flurries and wet roads so I don't yet know what traction will be like.
I did find that turning off traction control so that I could control the amount of tire spin seemed to help some. The ultra grips seemed to want to spin a little bit to find traction.
Fishtailing doesn't bother me a bit. I'm happy to be spinning both tires. I know a lot of people don't like tail happy cars, but my wife and I seem to do just fine.
My '95 Caprice wagon is a tank in the snow with Blizzaks. I was expecting similar out of the PPV - maybe not quite as good. But have so far been disappointed.

thanks for the replies....I guess it was not just in my imagination that these are not good winter cars.....I assumed they would be especially since mine was an upstate New York cop car...I can only imagine the fun they had trying to chase someone with the way they handle...I am in Minnesota and bought it for a year round hotrod....I think next winter I will go back to a front wheel drive.

I haven't driven my '12 or '13 in the snow. Both are too low. They get to spend salt season in a shed.
My winter car is a '96 Roadmaster sedan.
To prepare it for this duty I put a new posi in the rear and bought SNOW tires.
If I get caught with the summer tires the car goes nowhere. Real snow tires are like day and night. I can stop with the snow dragging on the underside and while it will spin....it always moves again. And stops. Snow tires on all 4 corners.
Rear wheel drive won't act like front wheel drive(thank God). The Buick will do awesome doughnuts and hang the tail out any time I want for fun but still inspires confidence when I lay off the go-pedal.

20139c1 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 07, 2021 12:37 pm Real snow tires are like day and night.

For sure! I have spare rims and snow tires for all of my (4 wheeled) vehicles. All season tires are a joke.

20139c1 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 07, 2021 12:37 pm Rear wheel drive won't act like front wheel drive(thank God).

AMEN!

It snowed lightly all day here (about 4” on the ground) so I just went out for a test around town. I’m currently in a river town on the Mississippi, so the whole town is a hill. Had no trouble getting up or down any of the streets. The PPV still won’t come anywhere near my wagon’s snow abilities, but it did just fine with the X Ice tires.

Mine sits in the driveway. But have u tried blizzaks?

I do have winter tires on it now but the guy at Discount Tire said that what I have on there is the best I can get so in a nutshell these cars are pretty worthless in the winter.....mines going up for sale, I might as well have bought a Camaro

I remember driving my '78 Camaro in winter and it was just garbage. Drove a lot of RWD cop cars and they were also just as worthless. Was a step up when my '94 Caprice was retired and replaced by a Lumina. Now everything is either 4x4 Tahoes or AWD Ferds.

Don't buy these cars expecting it to drive like a tank through snow. Probably was one of the reasons that they never were very popular with PDs.