The braking performance that was so bad it nullified the all-wheel drive forward traction advantage coming out of corners that would other-wise have given the all-wheel drive car far better lap times. That it has far better forward traction was aptly demonstrated. The braking performance that was so bad they were too ashamed to give us any data in the summary, like 60 mph (or pick another speed if you like) to 0 mph stopping distance. Braking is pretty important, especially when going down hill.
The point of that test, in my view, is to show that a simple AWD system plus all weather tire crushes a FWD with a winter tire for forward traction, and that a good driver can’t drive a FWD with a winter tire any faster than a AWD with an all weather tire. This means, in easy terms and to the point of this thread, that winter tires are becoming less and less relevant for most drivers.
I took my daughter’s turbo 2015 Forrester out last night for some testing of the Wildpeak AT Trail, which is 3PMSF rated. It was cold, 18F degrees, which is never super low traction, but it had gotten icy in spots early in the day to the extent her high school was warning drivers to be careful and she called me to ask. This was the first time she has ever driven in snow by herself and she just drove home through steep neighborhoods with zero issues. We’ll see lower traction days that this for sure here, and I’ll keep testing, but so far that tire is just flat out planted on our two Subarus and it’s an outstanding road tire.
And good grief that car is fun with this kind of tire. I stopped on a steep downhill around 10% grade, gunned it so the turbo would spool up, slammed on the brakes, zero drama of any kind, insane traction. Also did a hard start stop on an icy corner patch with not much snow on it, stopped on a very steep uphill with snow and ice, just zero issues unless I was gunning it. I did take video, but I haven’t uploaded it yet.
You could rally that car on those tires, what a blast. I also spend a lot of time having oversteer fun with an AWD drivetrain, although the traction control shuts that down entirely here. Most people don’t have any experience cornering with oversteer, and that’s why FWD is generally safer and traction control won’t allow it, but using the turbo to break out the rear, oh boy that would be fun.
The AT Trail has stupid good traction on a car like this, which is what it was designed for. Again, if we are talking about safety for driving purposefully in winter, no issue I can find yet. Would be fun to test the limits racing. That’s why I drive trucks for the last 20 years and not fast cars.
Also driving Loveland Pass with 38” off-road tires. There was a Crosstrek sitting up top who then followed me down - easy to follow brake lights. That’s really tough conditions to be sitting down low. Temps -2F, I had zero traction issues and we went down pretty fast once we could see.
To be fair, Montreal has some geography that we don't. Toronto is fairly flat..with a few exceptions. Montreal has a bit more topographical challenges. Aussi Ville de Quebec..
