The first and only upgrade I have made so far to my IS350 F-Sport is the installation of Michelin Alpin winter tires and I have to say they are fantastic. Coming from two Subarus as my previous daily drivers, I had gotten used to one of the best full time 4WD systems and easy handling and fun in the snow but I always knew if I bought a RWD car I would throw winters on it as soon as things started to get cold.

I live in DC and we had a particularly nasty storm that surprised the local area DOTs and poor road conditions combined with no government and school delays or closings resulted in fairly dangerous road conditions but the car and the tires handled them very well. The traction control does a great job of working with the tires to keep the car straight and I stayed in Sport+ and floppy paddle shift mode so I could downshift around turns or when stopping to gain traction. And then I completely shut off the traction and stability control and had an awesome time with some controlled drifting. Unfortunately the parking lots at RFK Stadium were already plowed by the time I made it home after work or I would have had some GoPro videos of some awesome snow drifting to share with you all. But hopefully there should be plenty of other opportunities this winter for more snow and driving fun!

For anybody considering winter tires for their IS, I can't recommend the Alpin PA4 tires enough. I was driving circles around SUVs and full time 4WD vehicles with all season or summer tires and it makes me feel much safer on the road knowing that I am able to drive safely and get out of the way of others who don't know what they are doing.

 

I have the RWD on Blizzak WS80's and the car is a tank in the snow. I'm so happy I didn't give in to that AWD temptation The added gizmos on the RWD are worth it!

 

Agreed! The Blizzaks were the second on my list although they seem to be better suited for snow and ice while the Alpins are geared more towards dry/wet performance in cold weather (we get more cold weather than snow and ice here down in DC). In my opinion, unless the car was originally designed to have full time 4WD (ie Subaru or Audi Quattro), it is better to forego the extra weight, complexity, and decrease in fuel economy and buy the RWD version. And with our cars, we get the added bonus of the 8-Speed auto and Sport+ features.

Here in DC, most of the IS cars are ordered with AWD (as are most BMWs and Mercs) despite the fact that we get maybe 2 or 3 real snow days per year. Go figure.

 

BTW I am totally jealous that you guys up North can order the F-Sport in ultrasonic blue mica! Down here in the states you can only get that color with non-F-Sport models.

 

The snow is typically very deep where I live after a storm, so I never take the IS out in winter. My old MR2 used to be a snowplow and the IS clearance doesn't seem much higher.

 

FYI, those of us with AWD, also have Sport plus

 

I think he means, variable gear ratio steering, which is exclusive to RWD in sport+.

 

ahoy mate! that was the same logic i had.. loosing that 8speed, etc., no way! also, i think most awd f sports come with a dark interior with ultra white on the outside. i have yet to see or hear anyone having a UW/RR awd, and i wasn't gonna wait several months for it, so i pulled the trigger on the rwd with that color combo.
wasn't the recent snow fun though? i took out my altima the first day it snowed since it had all seasons on it, and used the 3IS the second day (still has summers lol). like you, i'm thinking about getting a set of the 20 spoke mesh 3IS wheels (on the non-f sport) and put some winter tires on there to use as my winter set. gotta save up some money for it first.

 

I have a 2IS with michelin Ice-x tires and i will say there was alot of SUV's and 4x4's that was jealous that I could get up areas that those trucks couldnt. Snow tires makes a hell of a difference

 

I have the same setup on my AWD with the PA4 and have nothing but good things to say. The past few days we have freezing rain and roads were very slick but it was confident driving and limited traction control intervention the whole time. Never did I have ABS to kick in. There is actually less tire noise on dry pavement compared to the stock Turanzas.

 

AWD means little if you dont have appropriate tires

 

Yeah I am worried that the attractive deep chin spoiler will become a snow plow or get smashed up by a rogue chunk of ice on the street if the snow is deeper than a few inches.

 

Yeah I had an awesome time in the snow this week! I even turned off the traction control and had a few great snowdrifts. Definitely looking forward to some more winter weather this season so I can head out to a large parking lot and drive a ghetto snow auto x course! And the tires definitely were not cheap - $950 for the set.