Well I've had my X for two weeks tomorrow and its been a blast, just about to hit 600 miles . Now I just wanted to bring something up to anyone else who is using the stock wheels for winter driving in heavy snow.

It seems that snow gets in the wheels and sticks to them very easily and they get unbalanced to the point where it was shaking the whole car above 35mph. Anyone else run into this problem?

Just a heads up to anyone planning on driving in thick snow with the stock wheels. I just took it to a self wash car wash and used the power washer to get all the snow off of it, but it seems im going to have to do it very often to stop the vibrating/shaking from happening.

-By the way this isn't just a couple inches of light fluffy snow, its thick heavy snow; we got about foot and a half with more on the way now if anyone else has seen the weather up in the northeast

 

First time driving a car in heavy snow? lol

 

Hah, well where it shakes my car like I think a wheel is gonna fall off? Yes first time experiencing that.

 

can't you just do a quick donut to fling the snow off?

 

i haven't driven in the snow with the X stock tires. but regardless I thought they were still summer tires. I'm surprised you got much traction out of them to be able to drive your car around. My VIII stock tires kept me slipping and sliding all over the place, until i changed all weathers onto there. Though what you're mentioning i've never noticed it. I already changed my X tires to all weather and didn't notice anything wrong when i drove it around the snow this past weekend. The only thing i can think of, is getting your alignment checked.

 

Do not drive in the snow with the OE tires - they are summer ONLY.

Get at least a set of all season or winter tires.

 

No I do have all seasons. I was talking about the stock wheels/rims. And it drives perfect when the snow is off of it, I'm pretty sure its melting snow from the warm brakes then solidifying into ice on the rim making it out of balance.

 

Unbalanced wheels in snow is not unique to the EVO wheels. My Legacy GT was shaking badly over 60 this morning.

 

Where I'm at we just got dumped with 8-10 inches of snow, which is unusual to get any snow in the valley, and my car started shaking like this also.......while in snow mode of course. But I only noticed it shaking when it was starting to lose traction and my rear wheels were starting to slide just a little bit, but once it caught traction it stopped shaking and hooked. So I just thought it was part of the ACD system adjusting to the different conditions, not a problem.

 

not just stock evo wheels, happens on my 07 f150 also

 

I actually haven't had this problem and I'm still on stock tires also

I've never noticed it on my other car either.

 

To the OP, the OEM Enkei wheels have a lot (~15?) of "spokes" in them. Snow and ice can easily get in between these spokes thereby creating an imballance in tire rotation which will definitely cause a shimmy/vibration at specific speeds. Doing sideways stuff will increase the likelyhood of getting more snow and ice in the spokes. IMHO a five spoke designed rim is less prone to picking up same and, therefore, is expected to be a better rim for winter.

Later, Ken

 

Well, the obvious thing would be to keep it at or below 35mph in heavy snow.

Depending on the tires, if the cars been sitting for a while (e.g. overnight) in freezing temps you can get flat spots where the tire was on the pavement. This happened to me the other day (I'm on A/S tires); and the vibration wasn't "bad" until I was going about 30mph. Just throwing it out there.

 

Hmm good to know others have had similar issues. And I meant when the roads are clear driving over 35.

 

you see how small the whell balancing weight are they put on the whels? The snow can accumulate many times that mass in a wheel at high speed. rumble rumble rumble