I took mine skiing today. For the most part it is covered in dirt all winter. O'well, it is too fun not to drive it.

 

Nick,

6 months is a really long "off driving season", I can see where you may have to approach it differently - fortunately, our winter in the NE is more like 3 1/2 months of no driving, it goes by pretty quickly and the anticipation of getting the car back out is exciting. It makes the car feel really special every spring!

 

Hi John,

I just love the sound against those snow banks! Although this year has been painful in the snow quantity compared to last year.

OT - just got a 3.8 rebuild on the 964. I should be picking it up next week!

 

Yea, it must have been great sounding last year - kind of like going through a tunnel all the time with 10' banks everywhere!

Congrats on the new motor - sounds like you have a lot of fun driving around the lake!

 

+1

Enjoy in good health!

 

Mine is in my garage until april 1st. This is the date I always take/took my summer car out of storage every year. Here we get between 300cm and 400cm of white **** every year.

However, if I had the kind of money you have, I'd drive the Turbo in the snow for sure.

Every time I see a Porsche here in the winter, it's either:
A: Some poor dude that's rich enough to buy a Porsche, but too poor to have a second car or;

B: A very rich guy that uses a Porsche as winter beater because he wouldn't settle for anything else and has a lot of other summer cars.

You definately sound like the B guy.

A good friend of mine is looking for a 997tt as a winter beater and keeps his Gallardo garaged.

 

I am neither really. I have a lot of fun cars but its because either 1) it started out as my company lease car that I bought out the lease for next to nothing or 2) it was a winter project that I fixed over the winter. The Ferrari 360 and 996TT were leases, the Mas, Viper, Z06, and Ferrari were projects. The first three were actually salvage titles that I rebuilt, the 456 was a "barnyard find". But I don't plan to get rid of any of them, so I don't want to trash any of them. I just was curious how bad salt really was if you washed it regularly. I dont mind a little extra maintenance, I do mind the frame rusting through.

Colby

 

HI,I do have another vehicle,,A Toyota Tacoma Sport pick-up truck..I still drive the Turbo when I can in the winter.....Or is it I just want to save my truck???...LOL....

 

Well there is maybe an option C, coan afford (or already has) other cars, but just love the TT too much to let it sit in a garage for the winter!

For the OP, we were four friends at some that all had modded Miata for track days. One of us decided to drive it one winter. His car had small spot of rust pretty much everywhere. All the nuts and bolts had corrosion to some point. After he had a look at his engine bay in the spring compared to our cars, he swore to never drive his fun car in the snow ever again.

He also was the only one of us who had coolant hoses fail on him, Happened on a track day! Luckily for him, it gave up in the pits and not on the track. It could have been real dangerous had it happened on the track...

 

....agreed....

 

Considering this winter has been ridiculously warm, yes I do drive in the winter.

 

I am also Option C. I have other cars. I can afford a winter beater, just don't choose to have one. I'm certainly not rich.

I just like driving the 996TT. So I drive it.

Seems like an OK answer to me.

 

We've had two of the worst back to back winters in 10' and 11' that i can remember ever in philly and I drive mine all the time. It's been exposed to plenty of salt and it still looks fine underneath. The cars are built with quality materials, your frame isn't going to fall apart b/c it get's some salt exposure. The car is built like a tank if you ask me. I've got a jeep wrangler unlimited rubi with 33's and almost always pick the turbo when it's snowing. i've got the roof bars and ski rack on it as well. Like the other guys said it's too much fun not to drive it.

chris

 

This has been a very mild winter with mainly dry snow free roads so I'll drive the Turbo maybe 1 day a week to work. My car's from Vegas and now still has under 20k miles so it still looks brand new underneath. I'd like to keep it that way. Several cars I looked at had some minor corrosion and looked like an every day beater on the underside. If that was the case, I wouldn't mind driving on wet or semi wet roads with salt residue. If I did, to be safe I'd wash the underside every few days to keep it from corroding. My DD is a lifted Jeep Cherokee and is a tank in the snow. It is also a lot of fun to drive so I don't miss the Porsche when the weather is iffy.

 

These cars, or really any modern car, isn't going to rust out. That's not the problem with salt. The problem with salt is that it's going to get into everything and make it really difficult to work on the car. Just about every bolt will fight you because the salt will corrode and seize everything. The salt will also dry out and crack rubber and plastic parts. And if you have aluminum touching steel (like 2 piece rotors) it will basically weld the two parts together.

So if you work on your own car, garaging it for the winter will save you a lot of stress.