I just want to share my experience of driving my xf supercharged through a montreal winter. I have downsized my wheels to 18 inch, 255 all round, with Blizzak winter tires. I weighted down the trunk (boot) with a few bags of sand and salt, added a shovel and a scraper back in November.
The first big test was December 27th. We had about 2 feet of snow in a day. The wind made drifts big enough to swallow a fiat 500 never to be seen again.... After turning on the snow control, and engaging the trac dsc it performed perfectly. I had to get round side roads, highway and an unplowed parking lot. I was amazed at how well it did.... It was the worst single day snow fall in living memory in Montreal.... It handles ice beautifully, sometimes a little lazily, just when you think the rear end is going to overtake the front end, the electronics kick in and straighten up the car perfectly. It moves about an inch, but as it goes for that inch you do wonder lol. So do you need an AWD jag here? No. Would it help? Probably but not much, it really has been amazing even in the mountains. I will stick to my supercharged model I am addicted to the power in the summer....

 

Any more members experiences of winter driving the xf?

 

Interesting experience. What 18 inch wheels do you get to fit on your SC? I could not find any 19's to fit. My driving experience in upstate NY this winter was fine expect for steep hills. I am running the OEM staggered 20 inch Selena's with Nokian Hakk R winter tires. Car slips and slides. I think adding the weight like you did would probably help. I did engage the snow control. I think the AWD would have helped on the hills.My biggest concern was highway driving in freezing or near freezing temperatures in the fingerlakes hills. I just took it easy and didn't have problems, but I could see being in more severe conditions and having some concerns. I need to drive more in adverse conditions to test the limits of the car in non-dangerous situations to gaiin greater comfort. Love the power of the SC as well.

 

My base XF is a superb winter driver on four snow tires.

I think the poster must have a 2009 4.2 SC to be able to fit 18 inch wheels.

Driving skill is very a important factor. There's not much you can teach a Montrealer about winter driving.

Gilles Villeneuve was a Québécois, you learn how to drive sideways from the time to get your license in Quebec. First Province to mandate use of snow tires also. Technique is at least half the requirement for safe winter driving and correct tires are most of the rest. The Jaguar has an excellent and well balanced chassis which makes it all easier.

My new awd XF will be unbelievably sure footed on wet snow, based on my test drive in 6 inches of Springlike snow.

 

... winter driving topic again hey ...

I have said my peace. The car is WAYY better than expected. NOT a "winter car" however handles the snow fine.

On a related note. If you want to do some light (I use the term loosely) reading. Snowfall

This is the city I live in...we just set a city record this year with just over 6' 6" (194.6 cm) of snow this year. That is STRICTLY snowfall...NOT drifts. With the prairie winds you can only imagine the types of drifts we are getting. We are expecting another 10 cm's too! Needless to say I am about ready for winter to be over! The snow isn't the worst part...nothing like March 19th and being -25 C.

Oh and I have been running 20" Selena's with all-seasons this whole winter...just sayin.

 

Yes it is a 2009. I purchased rims and tires which had been pre- used from a thread off the blog. They had one season of use, brand is Konig. The tires are Bridgestone blizzaks. I checked compatibility on tire rack. Called the guy there and had a chat. Winter tires are compulsory in Quebec for winter. I tried without the weight in the trunk, and it was a bit "skittish", when the snow is more than 6 inches in depth on the road it would slip a little from pull off but the weight did the trick. I lost about 1-2 mpg but driving in snow the economy drops badly anyway because of all the resistance. During the snow storms they will often say on the radio, don't drive too slow, keep it moving, that way you stay in a straight line. You rarely see accidents in the snow here, or people getting stuck... But Quebeccers are not so hot at driving on black ice.... That confuses them somewhat as driving at 60 mph in fresh snow is normal, on ice... It's not so good! Anyway I was worried about how it would do this winter, having driven an AWD Honda in the snow the last few winters. I was delighted. Technique is important, and relaxing at the wheel helps enormously. Let the car and the road determine progress and don't be pressured by folk behind you. I saw they took a pack of journalists out in QC with the new AWD XFs ... I think they should just take a look at the RWD cars too... They are not too shabby!

 

Thanks to AaronW for the snowfall link... I enjoyed reading it... Bet your roads are better than ours in Montreal though! Greetings from the French East!

 

i had all seasons on my XF and had a horrible experience with it in the snow.

with that being said I had all seasons on all my XJ's and never had an issue. I recently took my XJ to montreal in Jan and it plowed through snow and ice like no ones business

 

Yes, and unlike Calgary, all 6 ft of it will still be there until April.....

 

Just fit winter tires. All seasons are hardly better than summer tires in the cold and slippery stuff. Check out tire rack's video comparo in a hockey rink or google YouTube snow tires v all seasons and see for yourself.

There ain't no substitute for winter tires in winter.

 

I've chimed in on this one enough too, but, here's a pic of the first trip I did in the car.



Was quite a trip, we set out on the first tour with the car after buying. Heading across the prairies on the tail end of a blizzard isn't for everyone but, with the Pirelli Sottozero's I thought there was no better way to find out what the car was made of in Winter.

A couple things about the car are absolutely superior to anything else I've ever driven. First, the stability control is much much faster at catching yaw than the Ford/VW/Mazda products I've previously owned and better than my friends BMW's and Audi's that I've driven. Most cars have a margin that the rear/front will release before the stability does something about it, the rear in this car simply doesn't move more than the 'inch' previously mentioned. If you pull into a snow covered parking lot and try to get the rear to kick out in winter mode you are sorely disappointed.

I'm left wondering if Jag's F1 exposure at the time this car was being designed has something to do with it.

Second, while not always appropriate, the car can put an immense amount of power down. Much of the road had 3 to 4 inches of snow between the tracks and 6 or 8 down the centre of a two way highway. First, the car is stable crossing into and out of the tracks at highway speeds and second, when needed it put down great passing power in the terrible conditions. I can only credit the rear diff for this, I don't know how it works, but its apparent that it does.

Overall, I am truly amazed with the car, I've driven it all winter and think it's the best winter rwd vehicle I've ever driven (many trucks included).

The bad news, two things:

1. My hood release cable froze up, when I arrived on the trip I popped the hood to fill with washer fluid in the -28 weather. Hood wouldn't close...my sensible father in law keenly offered to borrow me a cargo strap to fasten the hood across the fenders. We elected to put the car in a heated garage instead...no problems since.

2. On one occasion, and one I've only seen twice in my driving life, the road was incredibly slippery, the last time I saw this was the thinnest sheet of frozen rain. This time it was just under zero and the road surface had frosted/thawed and frozen up. Insanely slippery, the added a touch of power after cruising fine for an hour and the rear stepped out enough to require 1/2 a lane to correct it. I can't stress how exceptionally slippery it was and I don't fault the car, it just snuck up on you out of nowhere. I can justify this by the dozen or so cars that were in the ditch over the next few miles. Certainly, a fwd car would have been much better in this situation, and AWD would have ranged from no better to much better depending on the bias of the system.

 

There's no tricky diff until the XFR. It's purely an electronic limited slip effect controlled and implemented entirely by application of the rear wheel brakes using the ABS accumultsor pressure, wheel speed sensor data and throttle pedal angle

 

Maybe the snow clearing here is better than there but I assure you the roads are not. Regina is actually built on a swamp and has major issues with the roads here. I actually hit a pot hole the other day and now I have an issue with my wheel alignment. The roads are so bad here that the city has been held responsible for any damage done to your vehicle from the roads. Not only because our city is built on a swamp but our weather fluctuates SO much. We will get -40 in the winter and +40 in the summer. End of Feb was +10 and today it is -23.

If you enjoyed the last post then you may enjoy this one as well City of Regina plans for annual pothole patrol

Either way the roads here suck but the jag still has a smooth ride

 

Other than the swamp part, you've pretty much described just about every city in Canada and the northern US. No shortage of pot holes here.

 

Haha you are probably right I suppose but travelling to BC and Alberta often I know their roads are much better than ours. None the less everyone has problems that's for sure.

 

Spring is on the way.. I am opting for all season tires when I take off the winter blizzaks.... to ease the impact from Quebec pot holes, get more kms out of my tires and allow me to run longer in the fall before switching back to winter tires... I am interested in knowing if anyone else has done this? I am looking at Continental ExtremeContact DWS on the 20 inch rims. Thoughts?

 

Haha just saw this picture posted by a local radio station...

Left is March 15, 2012 right is March 15, 2013

(Hopefully picture works first time loading from iPad)

 

Those are fantastic tires. My daughter loves the 17 inch size she runs on her Mazda 3. My tire supplier thinks they are the most versatile all season tire available.

I too have decided to run all seasons on all my cars for summer after decades of using dedicated summer tires. For two reasons: the latest all season tires are really getting good and the most up to date summer tires require that you really work some temperature into them before they deliver what you've paid for.

So, high performance all seasons for June to October and winter tires for October to May. I've fitted three of my cars with Continental Extremewinter Contracts and think very highly of them. Continentl summers are getting good ratings. Frankly, the stock Continental ProContact Jaguar fits as standard to Canadian XF are pretty good all round performers.

 

lol
I want to know what the envioromentalist are going to call it now. Global Cooling?

 

Ha, could be my town. 15C today (about 60 F) and down to minus 9C (about 7F) and snow tomorrow.

Bring on my supercharged awd XF.