Better grip on snow with rear wheel traction cars

I happen to like rear wheel drive cars. But when the roads are covered with snow, they quickly loose all traction, causing you to get stuck. Luckily, there is a simple solution.

After 3 days of winter driving I got fed up of asking people to push my car. The first thing you do on a slippery surface in a BMW, Lexus or Mercedes with RWD is of course turn of the ESP. By disabling the electronic stability controls you regain a direct link between your gas pedal and your engine, so you can give the car enough wheelspin to get it moving in the snow.

But this will often not be enough. What you really need to do is get more weight over the rear axle. I did this by buying 200kg of sand and putting that in the trunk, all the way to the rear. At the same time, I lowered my tire pressure from 3.1kg to 2.5kg. Mind you: this is for a wide and low profile sports tire. For a normal tire the recommended pressure will be much lower. Lowering the pressure means having more surface area in contact with the snow.

The difference is enormous! I haven't gotten stuck anymore since loading the sand in the trunk. Even in deep snow where some front wheel drive vehicles are suffering I can easily break away. Sometimes I need to rock back and forth a little to gain momentum, but I always manage to get moving. The only disadvantage is less grip on the front wheels, so be careful when cornering whilst accelerating.

Of course you can achieve an even more dramatic improvement by fitting winter tyres. On my BMW 5 series with 17inch rims I fitted winter tyres and those are simply awesome. But for my Lexus IS220 winter tyres were not available due to a shortage in the already rare combination of wide 18inch rear wheels with narrower front wheels.

But 200kg of sand for a total cost of €11,28 keep me happy for now!