Snow handling capabilities

newshopping

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CX5
With the late release and last winters snow fall, (or lack of) I haven't seen much on the CX5s behavior in adverse conditions. Any of the early buyers have any opportunities to check out how CX5 stability on various conditions (packed snow, slush, deep loose stuff)? Any comments welcome. Looking for my wife with limited driving experience and even less winter driving. Thanx in advance.
 
Awsome, 4 inches of snow in calgary today! First time to play. Passing everything. I put on bridgestone blizzak DM-V1 225 / 65 R17's on basic steel rims. Finally felt the rear wheels push the car under heavy exceleration.
Plowed through road ruts. Only negative was center of the defrost on the front window does not clear as fast as the rest of th widow due to the centre speaker. Im looking for an abandoned parking lot to see what i can really do.
 
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Thanks. I have a Rav4 that really needs to be pushed hard to get the stability and or traction control to kick on, long enough to get an indication on the dash. It does very good in it's basic FWD config. Jmem is this what you were refering to by, "Finally felt the rear wheels push the car under heavy exceleration"?
 
Awsome, 4 inches of snow in calgary today! First time to play. Passing everything. I put on 225 / 65 R17's on basic steel rims. Finally felt the rear wheels push the car under heavy exceleration.
Plowed through road ruts. Only negative was center of the defrost on the front window does not clear as fast as the rest of th widow due to the centre speaker. Im looking for an abandoned parking lot to see what i can really do.

glad to hear that, I feared I would be disapointed by the cx-5 in snow, seems not... :)
 
Thanks. I have a Rav4 that really needs to be pushed hard to get the stability and or traction control to kick on, long enough to get an indication on the dash. It does very good in it's basic FWD config. Jmem is this what you were refering to by, "Finally felt the rear wheels push the car under heavy exceleration"?

I think he meant since the awd car uses fwd all the time unless they start to spin then the rears will also get power...so he finally felt the rears give power because the fronts slipped for the first time.
 
I think he meant since the awd car uses fwd all the time unless they start to spin then the rears will also get power...so he finally felt the rears give power because the fronts slipped for the first time.

That's what I was refering to as well. The Rav does very good in snow with out the rear wheels powered (FWD) and you really need to try to break traction to get the electronics to kick in and drive the rears or have the stability control feature activate. At least in the conditions I've driven it in the last 5 yrs. I'm just toying with the idea of saving the cash and going with a FWD instead of the AWD.
 
Both Mazda CX-7 and CX-5 have "preloaded" rear torque distribution (eg, some small portion of torque is ALWAYS sent to rear wheels, it doesn't start from "Off"). I haven't experienced "rear wheels kick-in" not with CX-7 nor with CX-5. To me, it feels pretty much seamless transition, and we do have quite a snow in Austria these days.

If I compare CX-7 vs CX-5 on snow, CX-7 definitely feels "heavier' and like almost impossible to dis-balance the car ( I had CX-7 2.2 diesel, 6-speed manual, 1.8 tons weight), no mater the road conditions or amount of snow under your wheels. CX-5 is lighter (I think about 1.5x tons) and you feel that. Same goes during high-speed (170-180 km/h) highway drive with heavy wind, CX-7 feels like a tank, while in CX-5 you do notice "wind shake"... However during summer-time, curvy roads, mountain roads.... CX-5 is just brilliant, and its "lightness" comes to full shine. Plus don't forget excellent automatic comparing to quite heavy clutch on CX-7.


And no, I have never had any second thoughts replacing CX-7 with CX-5... :)

Cheers,
Miki
 
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what's the recommendation for snow handling for a trip up the ski resort? i have a awd grand touring, i think the dealer mentioned something about no chain, but belt okay? I've never bought or put any thing like that on before, do i need to buy 4 of them, and what kind? or just skip it since the car is awd already? going up to tahoe next week.
 
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