I'll put in another vote saying "it's all about the tires". Tire technology has come a very long ways, and the difference between even good name brand "all season" tires, and proper winter tires, is like night and day.

I have an '04 BMW that when I bought it, was disgusted to find that it couldn't get to the end of my perfectly flat neighborhood street in only 2" of snow. Lots of spinning and sliding, but literally could not reach the end of my flat neighborhood street. Embarrassingly bad in the snow.

The following winter, I put a set of Michelin X-ice3 tires on the BMW, and holy moly what a difference it made! The car is now a beast in the snow. I'm not telling fish stories when I say I've driven it from Washington DC to the top of Wintergreen mountain during a snow storm. I saw dozens of cars off the road in the ditch, but the BMW performed brilliantly on the unplowed winding country roads and climbed the steep mountain with ease. This is a front engine RWD car with open diff.

I'm now a believer in owning two sets of wheels/tires. One high performance summer set, and one winter ice & snow set.

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1998 E300 turbodiesel

America's Rights and Freedoms Are Not The Enemy!

X2 on dedicated snows on the W210. Absolute must. Good all season tires won't cut it.

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14 E250 Bluetec "Sinclair", Palladium Silver on Black, 153k miles
06 E320 CDI "Rutherford", Black on Tan, 171k mi, Stage 1 tune, tuned TCU
91 300D "Otis", Smoke Silver, 142k mi, wastegate conversion

19 Honda CR-V EX 61k mi
Fourteen other MB's owned and sold
1961 Very Tolerant Wife

It's interesting that nobody has mentioned the summer winter switch right next to the shifter. I use my E300 all year round and have driven in one to three inches of snow twice this year without issue. I do have new as of November all season tires and a hundred pounds of sand in the trunk along with my work supplies. The car drove great except for an occasional fishtail while accelerating from a stop into a turn. 6 inches of snow No Way, I'd wait until they plowed and then go.

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Treetops
06 E320 CDI 127K Miles
87 300TD 231K Miles

99 E300 269K Miles-Sold

The 300SDL is HORRIBLE in the snow.

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1998 Ford Escort ZX2 5 speed - 279,000 miles My Daily

1992 Mercedes 300D 2.5 202,000 - Pure junk
2000 Mercedes E320 Black - 136,000 miles - Needs repair

Don't forget to grease the screw and threads on the spring compressor.

I guess i'm talking worst case scenario. I live in a neighborhood that always gets plowed last. So when i get up in the morning after a heavy snow I have to get down a few streets to the main road which is clear. Then usually some of the surface streets i drive down by my work will also be unplowed in the city. If with snow tires it can go pretty good i should be fine. But this winter we have had a few thaw/freeze days which left a few areas straight up ice. I can't really predict those days, so i would have to be part of them. Even with snow tires and FWD i was spinning the entire way and sliding past the stop signs.

When I was a kid all the cars had RWD and bias tires. Back then it was not uncommon to use tire chains. I used to carry two sets...a regular set of chains, which had to be dressed around the entire wheel (PITA), and a set of emergency strap chains that tied through the vents in the wheels. If you can get a set of vintage radial chains or a Spikes-Spider, RWD will get you through deep snow. And if you have a taste for adventure, doing donuts is fun. You would think that "modern tires" or radial snows would fix everything, but no. Skinny bias ply tires actually gave significantly better starting traction than fat radials.

But let's get real. Like you, I live at the end of the track, in a semi rural area. In NY, we get less snow than Michigan, but it's not by much. When it's bad I drive a Subaru with snow tires at every corner. Foul weather doesn't respect high style.

My Subaru, w/ OKish all seasons(not even GOOD all seasons), did great in the 6" of snow we got last year, and the ice which followed. Zero issues at all. Have cable chains for it but if it but never needed to even consider them. If it's that bad I'd really prefer being in my truck. Have chains for that too, but if it needs chains we're talking multiple feet of snow and I'd rather just stay home.

I hesitate to comment on what may be a sensitive subject, but if you're spinning tires and sliding past stop signs in a FWD car with genuine snow tires, even on ice, I would suggest that the equipment isn't the issue here.

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617 swapped Toyota Pickup, 22-24 MPG, 50k miles on swap

Ha, fair enough. I work at an auto motive testing facility in an old part of Detroit. Streets around the industrial complex never get plowed or salted. Two weeks ago, had a deep freeze on a Friday before I left. I take the side streets to get to the highway easier. Entire 4 to 5 blocks was just ice. Was just spinning the tires at 20 to move 5mph. Was pretty funny, at every stop sign I probably slowly hit the breaks around 100ft before. Car has no abs , so I let it slowly slide to a stop. Then restart again on take off.

6" of snow. What an ordeal!!!

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Dang, Tom, you predate the Cord L-29???

Weren’t they made in your neck of the woods?

RWD can be made to perform decently in snow but why bother when AWD is so common?

Sixto
98 E320s sedan and wagon

The cords were built in the twenties and thirties. I was born in 48. None were on the roads until the rabbit IIRC. ....well, the first that got attention was the toro in 66.

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

Oh I know 6" of snow is nothing. I had a girlfriend from Michigan who thought it was hilarious when school was cancelled for 2" of snow.

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617 swapped Toyota Pickup, 22-24 MPG, 50k miles on swap

99E300s with OEM tires are horrible in the snow. Rear snow tires would help, somewhat. It was a royal challenge getting out of my parents' posh neighborhood in Omaha a few years ago in 6" to 9" of fresh snow. The traction control helped.

I used it when necessary on my 99E300.

I used it just 10 days ago in Tennessee in my 06E320, CDI. C/S. The 06 E320 CDI, does horribly in the snow too.

Mercedes' infinite wisdom has the right rear wheel as the drive wheel, instead of equipping their RWD, cars with posi-traction. Nuts.

All my Corvettes have had posi-traction, and have no trouble in the snow, as long as you're not snow plowing over the body clearance. My new 77 C3, was awesome in the snow.

Newer cars have wide tires and not much weight. The wider tires want to ride up over snow and lose traction. Its a problem with pretty much all cars now.

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.