I ran into a great deal yesterday on a 1990 Tbird SC, with 58000 miles on it. Just wondering if these are ok in snow, or would I expect to be stuck and fishtailing all the time?

Les

 

Les, I don't own one, but haven't heard any bad reports on them as far as weather is concerned ,Unlike my wifes mustang G/T LOL
that thing will slide if the dog goes on the tires.
John

 

I had a '87 turbo coupe (automatic) that handled reasonably well on slick roads. The '87-'88's Birds are bigger than the '89-90's but if you follow basic safe driving habits on slick roads I don't think you'll have any regrets. I currently have a '89 Mark VII LSC (automatic) that the wife drives and a trick that works pretty good is to manually shift it. That way you will know when it's going to shift and can back off the throttle a little to avoid wheel spin. I agree with Fatforty about the GT's, they are terrible in the snow

alanscott

[link:ford-trucks.com/users/alanscott/|http://www.ford-trucks.net/users/alanscott/clubftesml.jpg]...Click!

 

Hello... My boyfriend Owns a 90 Thunderbird SC. They are the 35th ANniversary edition. They are very nice and do good in snow and everything so far that we have had in Illinois... They are very nice cars and run beautifully.. If you do end up getting it good luck with it and have fun driving it. Their steering is incredible... Good Luck

 

I've got a 1993 Mercury Cougar.
Every winter i put snow tires on back and weight in the trunk and it seems to do pretty good. it's only a V6 so there isn't too much of a problem with being overpowered.

 

My wife drove a 1990 SC for about ummm 6 years I guess. I stuck on 4 studded Goodyear winter tires....really knobby ones, and 2 sandbags in the trunk. The thing was great in the snow. It really surprised me as I wasn't expecting much. A lot of times she made it around in the snow when I figured she would be calling for a ride in my 4X4. The combination of lots of torque (allowing you to idle off from a start), limited slip, knobby tires and ABS really works well. The ABS on these works a lot better than a lot of ABS systems. She got used to looking in her mirror before coming up to a stop sign to make sure no one was close behind....she could stop fast and they might not be able to.

 

Interesting... I have a co-worker who's married to a Ford Man like myself. She had (still does but it's not being used) an 87 or 88 T-bird Turbo Coupe that she felt handled poorly in the snow. She currently drives a 2002 Mustang with the V6 and says it handles great (it does have traction control).

 

I own a 1995 Thunderbird SC with a 5 speed manual transmission. I purchased it new and it has 75,000 miles on it. I like the car, but I have always referred to it as a "fair weather" car. My experience has been the SC is absolutely terrible in snow to the point of being dangerous. However, since I own an F350 4x4 truck, I have never put studded snow tires on my SC. One year I did put some sandbags in the trunk and that seemed to help........at least it took it out of the "dangerous" category. I try not to drive my SC when it has snowed or when I think it's going to snow.

With an SC you really need to be careful when it rains, especially when pulling out of parking lots. The SC has a lot of torque and it you get on the throttle thinking you can make it out into that small space in traffic it is really easy for the back tires to break loose when it's wet.

I have really enjoyed my SC, but I don't think it's an "all weather car"..........Just my 2 cents worth.

 

With all-seasons on the SC it sucked in the snow. The studded winters made a huge difference.

 

 

The TC and SC are totally different catagories- the TC is a peaky turbo 4, and the SC is a smooth blown v6. Like everybody says, be easy on it, and it's fine.

Jared

 

Nice cars. I test drove a new '89 SC with five speed. What a breath of fresh air compared to the wheezemobiles being sold during that period. The biggest obstruction to using this car in winter will be the low ground clearance, but no more so than any other coupe.

Is this car a five-speed? If it is and is in good shape, I would keep it away from road salt. Definitely a future collectable, more so than their turbo four predecessors.

 

I was told by a professional race car driver in my class never to put sand/weight in the back trunk of a car. You do not want it behind the axle because it will hurt more than help. I don't remember the exact reason, he didn't go into detail because most of the people there probably wouldn't have understood him. I believe its something about how it is much easier to recover from fish tailing than when you turn the front tires and you still go straight. Putting the weight in the trunk, takes weight off the front tires and onto the rear tires. Putting it in the back-seat, doesn't take much of any weight off the front but puts more on the back tires. If you're going to put weight in a car, put it in the back seat. My sister had a 92 thunderbird with the V-6. That engine was great, had 150k miles on it and it sounded excellent, no lifter noise or signs of wear. The 5.0L engine they had was great too. My mom's 4.6L V-8 cougar used more oil than the T-bird with 80k vs 150k miles. I would HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY suggest snow tires! Also, not two snow tires, 4 snow tires. You never want just two that's even worse than none. It will increase understeer or oversteer because the wheels with regular tires will have less grip. You want to have 50%/50% traction front and rear to optimize grip. I use them and the benefits are excellent over regular tires, all seasons do nothing in the snow. You need a dedicated snow tire and you'll be amazed. They do make a big difference vs a regular tire. I have 4 studded snow tires. There was an excellent article written in the motor trend magazine a few months ago about the blizzack snow driving school. They mentioned this: on the same track/course, the students drove an SUV around the slippery snowy track and navigated the course successfully. Then they drove another vehicle that was exactly the same SUV, same year, same tires, engine, drivetrain, everything. The students could barely keep the car on the road (the guy who wrote the article for motor trend was a student). After the test, they were in shock of what the difference could be that made them drive so much more difficulty. You know what the ONLY difference was between the two vehicles were? The shock absorbers. The SUV that was difficult to handle, had old/worn shocks on it and the easy to handle SUV had new shocks on it. Interesting huh? Just goes to show how important it is to keep the maintenance on a vehicle top notch. Please take my advice seriously, knowledge is power and can save your life, or someone else's. Weird, comin' from an 18 year old huh?



Primary rig is Green Thunder:
95' F-150 XLT 4x4, 302, 5 spd, MSD 6A, Flowmaster Exhaust, Sunroof, Clear corners w/ Diamond headlights, CD player with 2 10" subs and some 32" BFG Muds .

Check out my Gallery for a look-see.


Justin - One Happy FTE Member

 

>My wife drove a 1990 SC for about ummm 6 years I guess. I
>stuck on 4 studded Goodyear winter tires....really knobby
>ones, and 2 sandbags in the trunk. The thing was great in
>the snow. It really surprised me as I wasn't expecting much.
>A lot of times she made it around in the snow when I figured
>she would be calling for a ride in my 4X4. The combination
>of lots of torque (allowing you to idle off from a start),
>limited slip, knobby tires and ABS really works well. The
>ABS on these works a lot better than a lot of ABS systems.
>She got used to looking in her mirror before coming up to a
>stop sign to make sure no one was close behind....she could
>stop fast and they might not be able to.


You are actually better off having tires with small ***** and cuts/sipes for winter traction. Snow tires are a softer compound and are "sticky" on ice. Ice itself is not slippery, it's water ontop of the ice that makes it slippery and snow tires tent to "absorb" water and are more grippy on ice. That is a major difference in snow tires vs all season tires. Big knobby tires used to be used years ago, because they do a good job in deep snow. But they do very poorly in ice/packed snow which is probably the most important on a car. If you look at any new snow tires, they all have very small treads and many many cuts/sipes in them.


Primary rig is Green Thunder:
95' F-150 XLT 4x4, 302, 5 spd, MSD 6A, Flowmaster Exhaust, Sunroof, Clear corners w/ Diamond headlights, CD player with 2 10" subs and some 32" BFG Muds .

Check out my Gallery for a look-see.


Justin - One Happy FTE Member

 

It makes a difference what sort of snow you're driving on. Blizzak type tires work great on ice but not great in the snow that we get around here. We get quite a bit of snow (the Canadian record for snowfall in a 24 hour period was here) and lots of slush. Most ice type tires dont clean themselves very well and tend to hydroplane in the slush where the open, knobby type tires seem to work better. Add studs to them and they are good on ice too. We see a lot of Nokian Hakkepellita tires here. They are a quite aggresive tread pattern with lots of small sipes. I guess that would be the best of both worlds. One thing with ice type tires is that they wear out majorly quickly which makes them expensive. People argue about skinny vs wider tires in winter too. Again that depends on what you're driving on. In slush skinny tires are definately better but wider ones work better in deep snow. Being a tech at a dealership I get to drive different vehicles with different tires all the time.....some are good and some are scary! Lots of people try to make it through winter around here with all-seasons and I think that is just plain stupid. Just my$.02 again