I've got about 100# in the trunk and pretty worn rear stock Conti's.

During this winter of the second greatest snowfall on record for the Akron/Canton Ohio area, I've gotten caught out twice in the Xfire and I wish I hadn't.

I was greatly surprised by how well the traction control can keep me in a straight line while accelerating in snow, though stopping ability was horrible.

The first outing was a few weeks ago. After waiting over an hour in a parking lot for rush hour traffic to curtail, I was heading towards a pretty busy intersection (crawling like a snail) and noticed a couple of vehicles stopped in the middle of the road. What I thought was the outline of a Mercedes turned out to be another Xfire spun around in the middle of the intersection. Two drivers were at the curb and must have been waiting for help. It must have been just a fender bender. I couldn't see any obvious damage to either vehicle.

I would love to see what 18'' all around snow tires can do on this car. It got me home both times but it was a very harrowing experience. I'll either have all around snow tires next year or it will be parked until spring.