I will be giving up my Accord Sedan V6 w/nav in December. I am considering either another Accord, an Acura, or the Genesis sedan(with the same equipment).
I live in New Jersey and we have a lot of snow and ice in the winter, which is about the only thing about the Genesis that I am unsure of. I have been driving either an Accord or Acura since the 90's and they both have front
wheel drive. Can anyone tell me how the Genesis, with rear
wheel drive, does in the winter on ice and snow?
To date, I have NEVER seen one on the road in either NJ, NY, or PA. I find it peculiar that, to date, the only one I've ever seen on the road was in FL. I know it's a great car and did lots of reading about it when it won all the major awards, but doesn't anyone in in the tri-state area have one??
Front
wheel drives typically have 70-75% of their weight over their drive and steering wheels. This helps them to go better in snow and slippery conditions. They are naturally more inclined to understeer, when over driven. When you put these together it is harder to get a front
wheel drive into a dangerous oversteer/spin condition than it is a rear
wheel drive and that makes it safer for people with less driving expertise.
On top of that, higher performance cars generally come with tires that are less suited for winter driving. The Genesis is no exception. It's stock Dunlops are not good, or even OK, snow tires.
On a positive note, you have traction control, electronic stability control and anti-lock brakes. These all help the car to go where you pointed it, when traction conditions are not ideal.
Having said that, front
wheel drives, four
wheel drives and rear
wheel drives all have the same thing in common when it comes to stopping. They all only have the same 4 wheels on the ground. A colleague used to say, about 4
wheel drive, "Twice the giddy-up, no more woe."
The point is that, while you might have gotten away with all season tires, in a front
wheel drive car, you were just as compromised in it, for stopping in bad winter conditions, as you would be with any car...4
wheel drive or rear
wheel drive.
TireRack's test of winter vs. all seasons.
http://www.tirerack.com/videos/index.jsp?video=26&tab=winter
I learned this lesson the hard way (though it could have been worse) when my son put our front
wheel drive Volvo (with all the electronic traction control goodies) into a concrete barrier in the winter. He was driving to fast for the tires and the car couldn't negotiate a sweeping turn.
Since then, I was educated on the difference between all seasons and true winter tires and switched to putting winter tires on, during the months of December through March. The difference is dramatic. We had to drive my son back to college in a snow storm and on that trip I counted over 20 cars off the road, many of them 4wd SUV's. However, our car, with it's Blizzak winter tires tracked straight and true.
The bottom line is though you may be able to get away with one set of tires with a front
wheel drive car, and you are going to be less likely to get in trouble with it than a rear
wheel drive, tire type is far more important that which wheels are pulling or pushing the car.
If you absolutely can't put up with swapping tires, then you need to get all seasons that do the best in winter conditions. The ones that have performed the best, in TireRack tests, were the Continental, ExtremeContact DWS.
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/testDisplay.jsp?ttid=124
