FF handling in weather

We can attest to the superb handling of the FF with the Sottozero tires in all kinds of weather and inclement road conditions, including sheet ice, snow, slush, in everything form snow storms, to high winds and sun, and torrential downpours.

We just picked up our new FF last Friday and drove it from Seattle to Santa Fe. We encountered lots of heavy rain and then lots of slushy rain, for a day. Then just snowy slush and ice over the Siskyou Pass in Oregon, followed by snow and ice over Donner summit in CA, a day of high mountain country roads on Highway 50 in Nevada that included high winds and snow and ice over many of the passes, and finally a beastly 50 miles on i40 from Gallup NM to Albuquerque in the heart of that beast of a storm that has hammered the whole midwest. For three hours we had heavy side winds, glare ice on the road and snow off and on with temps in the low teens.

Through it all the car was stunningly composed and easy to drive. And i grew up in CA, where we never had to drive in snow, so I'm a total neohpyte when it comes to driving in snow. But the FF, with the Sottozero tires makes a hero out of simple people. We saw plenty of 4x4s, jeeps, and other heros slide off the road all around us, and got plenty of curious looks from folks as the big red Ferrari just cruised on by them as they spun merrily around in circles.
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Awesome! Some of the best usage pictures I've ever seen.

 

Brilliant. Beautiful car, color, wheels....congratulations! Kudos to you for driving it as intended.

 

Thanks, Guys. This car is just so wonderful, and the answer to all our wishes should Ferrari ever have asked us how they should improve their cars.

Here's one of my fave pics so far. The car looked like this most of the five day trip, and this is after I had washed the windows.
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Fantastic post - thanks for sharing. A quick follow up question. What settings did you use for each section of the trip?

 

I left the car in Auto mode almost the whole trip. Even when driving in a 'spirited" manner, the transmission reacts so quickly, and as I would wish, so the paddles become almost superfluous.

I used every mode of the mannetino except to turn off traction control.

Sport for any dry road: it shifts so quickly and aggressively and to a lower gear than in other modes when you want to pass. For rougher road, hit the bumpy road button to slightly soften the ride.

Comfort when in cities so the throttle response is more mild mannered. makes less aggressive starts and stops a lot smoother.

Wet for when the roads are wet and or raining, and in slightly slushy road conditions. Throttle response is feathered even more, giving much better control over acceleration and braking.

Ice mode when snow or ice started to appear in the roadway. Often we'd be cruising along at a fairly fast clip (65-90mph) when we'd see ice and snow appear on the road, so i''d switch it over to ice mode immediately on spotting snow in the road ahead. Once you realize that the snow is really slick, or icy, use paddle to drop down to fourth gear to give you all wheel drive. Tranny will shift no higher than fourth in this mode on its own, and will only shift down at really low speeds, like 20mph or so. But when you feel like its just slushy, maybe not too icy, and tire of hearing the engine rev at 3500 rpm at 60 mph (hard to hear some classical music when the engine is whining at you ), use the paddle to shift up a gear or three and it'll allow you to do that. Just gotta remember it now is only two wheel drive. Next sighting of ice, or feeling of slightly slippery driving, hit downshift paddle and it smoothly drops down to fourth and hold it. Deceleration and acceleration in ice mode are very smooth, but you still gotta really feather the throttle: there's still a ton of torque available.

But the tires are the real heros here. I only ever really felt like the awd was working once in a really icy and slushy corner when I went to accelerate at about 45mph and the throttle felt really heavy and the traction control light came on. Apparently i had not spotted some glare ice but the car had sensed it and wouldn't let me nail the throttle and just kept going at a more reasonable rate of acceleration until it noted better conditions, the traction control went off and we accelerated more rapidly as I had originally told it to do. And once when I deliberately tried to break the rear end loose on a deserted icy street at low speeds. Tried to make the car spin out on acceleration from a start into a corner and the front just pulled it out like they said it would, and then took off like a scalded rabbit. Amazing how quickly the car can accelerate even on ice.

 

Ain't it a kick, owning a Ferrari that you wish for bad weather to drive in?

 

You nailed it. The car is terrific but the tires are where its at. Literally.

 

The 3rd picture down in your set, (the long straight open road heading straight into the mountain) looks so inviting.

Thanks for sharing.

 

Yeah, that whole road is simply stunning. From just east of Fallon NV to Ely, it's about 150 miles of several of these long inviting straights with 5-15 mile sight lines connected by nice bits of twisty mountain passes. We did get a chance to stretch our legs, so to speak, once. The invitation is so hard to resist...

 

Eric

Really enjoyed that read of what sounds like an epic journey. I guess you pretty much had the pleasure of all road conditions on the route home. How many miles did you end up covering?

Is the car all you expected it to be?

 

We're only half way there at 2300 miles. We'll be here vacationing in Santa Fe for another 12 days, then put at least another 2500 miles on it getting home to Seattle.

This car is everything we've wanted in a Ferrari, and more. Too many things to cover here in a thread about the handling of the car in inclement weather (sorry to hijack the thread, Rick). I'll write up a more detailed trip report and post it in another couple weeks after we've put another few thousand miles on it and are back home in Seatle.

 

Thank you for sharing your experience. You've posted valuable information about the FF and will help many forum readers recognize what a wonderful automobile it is.
You need to drive the FF to appreciate it. I was fortunate to drive one and was blown away.

 

Drove mine 300 miles this weekend in horrendous rain and partially flooded roads, shod in Sottozero's fitted last week. It didn't miss a beat, no crisis of confidence when driving quickly.

 

Eric pm me. I am at our house in Santa Fe for 10 days from December 27, sadly without our FF

 

The people who says they dont get the FF should take a look of this thread.

 

Well enjoy the holiday and the car. Look forward to reading more about the car when you get a chance.

 

Awsome! Great to see someone really using their Fcar. Mine has never been out in the rain.....

 

r there any other wheel options...OEM wheels are like 10K right?

i dont like having tires mounted and balanced every winter so thats not an option for me.

 

Awesome thread.

What do you guys do about salted roads? Just wash underneath more often?

I am not in a financial position to be bothered by it so I drive my truck in the salt and the mondial the rest of the time, but it is fun to think about "practical" Ferraris versus weekend Ferraris when $ is not as much of a consideration.

It's interesting that the magazines (even Evo) want it both ways... they decry more practicality, which lends to actually being caught up in the romance of the badge, but they swear they aren't caught up in the romance of the badge and judge cars regardless of mark (cough, BS, cough)

It's the "should they be practical or should you have a range rover for those days" issue.

Thank you all for sharing experiences... the pickup and mondial drivers are having fun in the reading.