Winter Driving

[Linas.P]

It is all down to the skill and winter tires. The reason I have traded my original IS250 F-sport to BMW 328xi, was exactly the harsh winter we have where I came from... meter of snow and temperatures often going to -30C, several month of at least -15C. However, very soon I realised there were very little advantage and mostly it was the question of having right tires. In summary, you need practice to know how the car handles on snow, anticipate that behavior and don't expect to go faster then 30MPH if you don't have proper winter tires. Driving on summer tires even in mildest winter going to be challenging - mostly you need to predict and anticipate everything and if something going to get in your way unexpectedly.. almost no skill going to help - you will slide until you hit something solid. Obviously, British winters are a bit of the joke and just and nice opportunity to go a little bit sideways on barely wet road. I am not trying to say British drivers are in any way worse, but it would be naive to expect to develop winter driving skills when you have on average 1 day of snow per year.

Talking about Lexus IS250, it is very compliant RWD car.. in no way different from any other car. What makes Lexus a little bit safer is very intrusive stability control, which doesn't really turn-off and prevents you from having any fun or eventually crashing. As such I never had any issues in winter, or at leat no more issue then with any other car. Again if you have right tires for the task and little bit experience, it is possible to go very fast even in winter condition.

[is250darren]

Thanks for the comments, Linas .  It would be nice to practice my snow-driving, but as you said ... snow is quite rare in the UK!