Quote Originally Posted by leanit View Post
I have never had a car 'snap' around on me the way the VX did.
Ahh yesss... you've never driven a Fiat X1/9 in the snow then... The only mid-engine car I've ever driven in the snow and the only one that would swap ends quicker than a VX. With a low polar moment of inertia and a short wheelbase things happen fast - the start of a spin requires some quick correcting - but the good part of low inertia is it will snap back the other way just as easily so you can you can recover from some seriously out of kilter yaw angles.

The VX is one of the best I've ever driven as far as forward acceleration on snow/ice - but one of the worst as far as lateral grip. It's fairly heavy for its size and there's no overcoming the laws of physics - a lot of momentum/centripetal force there for the tires to deal with when you bend the VX into a slippery turn. It's also not the best as far as braking is concerned. Definitely not the worst but not the best either. Snow is not very slick so you won't notice it so much in snow but try to brake on ice and you'll see it's kind of difficult to modulate the brakes at the point of incipient slide. The line between not braking at all and ABS kicking in is very fine indeed... So be careful! You won't get stuck on a hill - but you can easily wrap your baby around a tree if you enter a turn too hot. You may go off on a tangent no matter how good your tires are!

That said - if you're serious about wanting a good snow tire - which for the VX means the tire that provides as much lateral grip as possible since it really doesn't need much help in the forward grip arena - check out the Nokian Hakkapeliitta. Disclaimer: I haven't tried these tires (or any other snow tires for that matter) on my VX - no way would I buy snow tires when 90% of my driving is in NC - but I spent some time in Norway where they know a thing or two about snow - and Nokian Hakkapeliittas seemed to be the hot ticket.