coilovers or seperate suspensions for summer/winter. i use megan ez street coilovers on my daily it will only take 10min tops to adjust the height of the car

Idahoan here.

I'd still get snow tires. We got a good 6" snow one night and it took me a bit to get out and I live in town! I'm AWD, stock suspension, and had all seasons I'd purchased that fall. I had decent control and take off other than that. Just the deep stuff that presents a problem.

I had a Scion XB and that f***er wouldn't budge in deep snow. I think they're lower than average? Driven lots of cars in winter without many problems. HAD to have snow tires on the XB or it would get stuck easily. The box factor probably had some to do with it too.

Hth

W. Idaho here, but originally from "the Falls", making we don't get the snow over here as does the Eastern part of the state, but we can get the winters from time to time.

Why not simply buy, with the money to spend for mods to raise the vehicle up, just to find a vehicle for the same amount that is all winter ready and just to kick around, and store the Spyder in the garage for the winter?

I am a little further north than you. But I don't even think about driving my DSM's in the winter. Let alone a lowered fwd car sux in the snow. The snow tears up the side skirts & worse yet the tons of road salt rot them out.
I just have winter beaters take the insurance off the cars when not driven. I just leave comprehensive coverage on & store them for the winter.
But winters up here are a lot worse than Indy, but the winters seem to be getting worse every year. I'd rather tear up a junk car by winter driving.

That's a really good point . You can be the best winter driver in the world it's everybody else you have to worry about. What a pisser it'd be if somebody got in a hurry, slid and hit your baby!

Get an AWD astrovan , Bronco, or Jimmy or something like that. Makes a great snowboard caravan! That and if you get in an accident who cares?

What make the little Honda Civic such a great car in the snow was the use of skinny tires. Car was light, good ground clearance, tires were narrow-like 145x80r13's, so they would actually get down to the hardpan of the road instead of floating on top of the snow if one had wide 55's or a lower number on their vehicle.

The bad thing with AWD in the snow is that the front end and back end argue back and forth on who's in control since no two wheels are spinning at the same revolution, which kicks in the viscous coupler on both ends of the drive axle.

Thus, one axle will want to pull, but the rear wants to push, and this can easily create control issues. Sure, having AWD on hard pan is great since all four wheels are going to move the vehicle at once and in one piece.

Thx, but I'll stay with FWD, or even RWD for better vehicle and road control during the winter.

I do put on four, 185x70Rx14 studded snows so I don't get the dreaded rear end escape on slick roads which is doom for FWD vehicles when the front end is pulling and the rear end will break away and put you in a 360 spin if not careful.

-DSM