Surprise, our long-term Subaru WRX is a blast in snow

It’s a little late, but winter’s finally here in Michigan (and seemingly everywhere), which makes it a perfect time to see how our long-term WRX handles the snow, ice and salt that coats our roads this time of year. 

The first task was swapping out the standard summer Dunlop rubber on our WRX Limited for a set of Bridgestone Blizzak WS90 tires. We stuck with the original size of 245/45 R18 tires to slip onto the factory 18-inch wheels. Outside of Nokian tires, there’s probably no better-known name in winter rubber than “Blizzak,” and it’s well-earned – we were especially big fans of the Blizzak LM005 tires on our departed long-term Kia EV6, but these WS90s skew more toward snow performance than the high-speed stability priorities of the LM005.

The tradeoff in steering feel and handling sharpness was noticeable as soon as we started driving after the tire swap. On dry streets, steering effort is reduced, and there’s no hiding the softness and flexibility of the tread blocks when you fling it around corners. Ride comfort is largely the same as before, but road noise at highway speeds is increased versus the summer tires and can verge on annoying when driving on certain surfaces.

All is forgiven as soon as the snow hits, though. Michigan just got smacked with a good 4-5 inches of heavy, wet, slippery snow, the kind that will have FWD cars on all-seasons spinning their wheels and getting stuck. How do we know? Well, we took the WRX out in the worst of it to see how it fared and saw the beached cars for ourselves.

As you’d expect from a car with the WRX’s reputation for making a joke of winter conditions, it performed splendidly in the deep stuff. If you’re just trying to plod along on the straight-and-narrow, there’s no need to fuss with the traction control switch conveniently located in the bank of buttons left of the steering wheel. The light would briefly blink at us should we get a little aggressive on the throttle, but the WRX didn’t really seem to care that there was snow on the ground and churned along unbothered and unstopping. Turn TCS off, and the real fun starts.

Subaru’s AWD system in the WRX uses a viscous coupling locking center differential that distributes the torque via a 50:50 split front to rear. It aims to distribute torque to whichever wheels have the best traction, and in practice, that leads to snow-slinging slides and shockingly good acceleration in terrible conditions. You can floor it from a stop, get real acceleration out of first, slam it into second, and just go. It’s genuinely more accelerative power than you’d likely want for the conditions if you’re dealing with the kind of slippery snow we were in the other night.

Finding an empty, snowy parking lot is the best way to experiment with and learn how power sliding in the WRX works, and while there’s a physical lever for the handbrake, it’s not necessary to get things going sideways. Turn off the nannies, and the WRX will drift around in circles with very little effort. There’s a reason folks love these cars so much in the snow; it’s because they’re constantly making you smile from just a little right-foot provocation. Braking with the Blizzaks feels just as sure-footed as accelerating and turning. You can trust these tires to help you avoid a possible collision by steering away, because while many others around us tiptoe from lane to lane, these Blizzaks let our WRX change direction confidently.

Beyond the AWD system and winter tires, this WRX is set up to deal with snowy conditions practically. Windshield wipers are often tucked under a cowl these days in the name of aerodynamics or aesthetics, but the WRX’s wipers are fully exposed on the windshield to make lifting them up a cinch. That means easy de-icing of the windshield, easy de-icing of the wipers themselves and also gives you the ability to prop them up out of the way prior to a snowstorm even happening. Wiper placement might not sound like much on paper, but this same storm left another one of our car’s wipers encased in a couple inches of ice hidden under the cowl. Now that’s an unenjoyable conundrum to walk out to on a cold morning after a night-long snowstorm.

The heated mirrors and defrosters all did excellent work of keeping the windows clean, and the all-season mats we picked up as an accessory for the WRX were ideal for keeping the carpets tidy. Opting for the mudflaps may have been a wise decision to reduce the amount of salt and road dirt from being flung up to the WRX’s sides, but snow and salt covering every inch of paint after a heavy storm is a badge of honor in a way. And now that we’ve confirmed the WRX is truly all that after one big storm, we’re pumped to see how it handles the rest of winter.

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