I love this car. I wash it every week. It took me 12 hours of Youtube videos to learn how to wash it properly. It has a clear bra, a ceramic coating, it's waxed underneath. Whenever I park, I look back at it... twice. It's a love spell.

I bought this car because it's beautiful. The sound of it makes me think playing music while driving is blasphemy, and it's AWD. I wanted to drive it all winter. I couldn't accept getting such an expensive work of art and not drive half the year. Since I work from home, I don't have to go out when it's too bad. So I slapped some Pirelli Sottozero on this baby and was looking forward to driving it.

But now that I see it under the snow, it makes me worried! I don't have a garage, so I have to let it sit outside at all times. I don't mind removing the snow and shoveling around it everyday... But even then, am I being too mean to this poor cat? What do you think?

 

Looked all fine to me up until the point you said you didn't have a garage. All the protections you put on it should protect the paint, so the remaining worry is water melting and refreezing in various seams and and cracks. You are likely to beat up the wheels too, but that's easy enough to refinish/replace if need be.

The remaining thing I always worry about in the winter is stuff flying off other cars/trucks, since that can do serious damage. Given that it sounds like you can avoid going out in the worst of it, you can likely avoid most of that, not to mention when the snow gets so high that you just don't have enough ground clearance.

 

I feel for you. I left just before the snow.

 

Possible at all to put it under one of those "portable garages"?? Other than that, keeping as much snow off or finding a water and weather proof cover. If you drive on roads with salt or other chemicals, a regular visit to touchless car wash would help. Though I love snow, I know my cars prefer to be inside.

 

Frankly, snow isn't a problem really, provided you sweep it off now and again, but you don't want any ice or hail falling on it. Here in the damp and cool UK we don't get too much snow so most people leave their cars outside. In fact most garages here are too small anyway, and tend to get filled with junk. Nobody told the house builders that todays cars are wider !
The main thing is to not drive it much or at all when there's loads of salt on the roads; use something cheap for that. Our workhorse is my wife's 2009 VW New Beetle, cheap to buy and run. Let's face it, the car is too nice for winter use !!!

 

Appears winter in Las Vegas is over as temp tomorrow is in mid 70's unlike today in mid 60's!

 

TABERNAC!!!


Just kidding Rosath, snow won't hurt the car and if you have to take it out on a salty road give the undercarriage a bath as soon as the opportunity arises. The Amazon link below is an inexpensive undercarriage pressure washer with good reviews.

 

I would be worried about damage to the paint from using brushes or scrapers to remove any fresh snowfall from the car. Even if well waxed, I can't think of any methods that aren't going to be abrasive when you need to clean it off enough for a drive.

 

somehow I got recommended a YouTube video about cleaning snow off cars even though I live in GA. Anyway, best was to use a leaf blower if it’s just the fluffy stuff. I always just used a brush when I used to live in the north east but that’s when I was in high school and didn’t care about cars.

 

Get that car in a garage!
Sure, you're caring for it now, but the drudgery will wear on you. Before long, you'll skip a day of snow removal, then 2. And before you know it, you have a neglected, unsightly car.
Parking outside is a terrible thing to do to a car!
My .02...

 

This always amazes me where people's priorities lie. I drive around suburban neighborhoods and when a garage door is open, I will see that its almost always full of junk, stuff that if they had a garage sale, they could not get two hundred dollars for all of it. Old furniture they aren't using anymore, tacky nick-nacks they brought home from the white elephant gift exchange at an office Christmas party, broken dishwasher, Christmas lights they haven't put up since the kids were little, scraps of lumber left over from the backyard gazebo they built ten years ago, etc. Meanwhile they have two new cars that cost them a hundred thousand dollars parked outside in the weather (and paying hundreds of dollars a year on insurance for damage other than collision).

And as to garages not getting any wider, I know what you mean. Even here in the US. My house was built in 1954, the attached garage has a standard eight foot wide door, but inside is not much wider than the door. My old XJ8 fit just fine (its stored in another building since it was retired from daily duties), but just this morning as I was backing out, I realized the passenger side mirror on the XF wasn't aimed right. I had bumped it yesterday while squeezing by to wipe some bird **** off the right front fender. I never bumped the mirrors on the old XJ8. As big as American cars were in the 1950s, I wonder what did the original owner of this house drive and did they actually park in the garage? They probably never did. It was probably filled with junk.

But I like the OP's photo. Here in Texas, we get a little nostalgic about snow since we don't get to see it very often.

 

Thanks for all the feedback guys. Concerning the paint, I want to stress it has a clear bra (a transparent wrap) and a ceramic coating on top of it. Unless I hit something hard enough to actually push a dent in, I think the paint is safe. I was more concerned about ground clearance VS chunks of snow falling from other cars and the undercarriage. Any brushes (I found a weird one that is soft on the paint anyways) can't touch the paint at all. I would never use that car in winter otherwise 😰

Esti, that is a good idea! However being so cold outside I am guessing I would need to let it dry in a garage so it won't freeze over? I can harass some friends do to it, just not that often. I'll get one of those.

Trust me, I dream about putting this baby in a proper garage. It deserves as much. I just can't right now. I either need to store it for the entire winter or leave it there like I do during the summer. Hopefully I can find a nice house in 2022.

I finally got the car out today. The roads seemed fine. If anything the salt rubs under it, I'll need to give it a good detox clean on top of my regular washes in spring. If I wait a day after snow falls I think most cars don't lose chunks in the road. I don't plan to take it out during storms to avoid collissions.

It wasn't that cold out so I didn't notice the car having issues running.

However... The ice! Yikes! Lots of you were right, it really is the big issue. It prevented the windows from coming down properly to open the doors. The cracks it made made me cringe. I was thinking of letting it run with the remote for 5-10 minutes at high temps but I'm not sure if that's good for the engine to run at idle for so long? I melted everything away but it will happen again.

In the end if most of you think it will cause damage I will store it and buy a truck. It saddens me but I'd rather protect the car.

 

​​​​​​I could definitely get a car cover and put it an hour after my runs. I get out once or twice a week with that car at most so it's not a huge deal. Potentially good idea? I'm just not sure of where I could put a car cover with ice and snow on it while I'm away.

Not possible for the portable garages unfortunately 😮‍💨

 

The best thing that you can do for your cat is to ship it to me for the winter. I'll keep it in the garage when snow is likely and exercise it when the weather is nice enough.

 

Unfortunately you are in a position with little choices. You have no garage and you get a lot of snow.

If protecting the paint is your main goal, I would recommend PPF over the entire car. It's expensive but it's the only way to truly protect your paint. If this isn't an option, you need to protect your paint with a sealant of some sort (preferably after a paint correction is done.)
Avoid actually physically touching your paint as much as possible at any time. Doing so creates swirl marks and scratches. Car covers are one of the biggest contributors to swirls and rids (random isolated deep scratches), so I would not use them ever.
Snow itself won't hurt your car, but salt and road grime will if:
1. Rubbed or wiped off
2. Left on for long periods of time

Do they best you can during the winter, but prepare your car in the fall with sealants and waxes to give a layer of protection against the elements. Other than that, just enjoy your car. Minor things can always be corrected in the spring.

 

One suggestion, a good outdoor car cover for when you aren't driving it.

I used to have a 3rd Gen RX7 way back in the day. I purchased an outdoor car cover and it just sat outside during the winter as I lived in a loft. The snow and ice won't damage your paint, but when the sun is out, it will beat on your interior. If you aren't daily driving due to working at home, a good cover is a good investment.

 

I learned the hard way about outdoor covers in the winter. We don't get snow here, but we do get ice. Pre-internet, no forums like this that I could ask for advice, I used to have to leave my new pickup truck outside so I thought, hey, I'll get a cover for it. The first ice storm with my new truck cover, I had to get to work, no choice, no time to research, no one to call and ask. I ripped up that frozen cover pretty bad while trying to get it off and had to throw it away. Snow may be one thing, but if you're going to get ice, it'd probably be better not to cover it. I don't remember what kind of fabric it was, but it was an outdoor cover, not custom fit by model rather made for specific truck bed and cab lengths and probably the mid-priced one as I recall it was under $100 at the time, maybe $79 or $89. I don't know if today's $400 cover would not tear under the same conditions, but I'm not about to test it to find out.

Now, I keep a truck under a carport and still keep it covered. Now its only used for truck purposes and otherwise I try to drive it every other week. Its so dusty here that if I didn't cover it, then I wouldn't get much mileage out of each car wash. If it were my daily driver, then no, I wouldn't cover it because then the downsides to a car cover begin to add up. Like Firez says, it does contribute to swirls the more you use it. What I do is I cover my truck immediately after washing and maybe the truck sits for a week or two before I need to get something from Home Depot. But if I drive much further than that or its a windy day, the truck gets too dusty to put the cover back on. You can only put a cover on if your car is absolutely clean. I didn't realize that when I was young but I do now. Plus its quite a lot of material and kind of a bear to handle. I wouldn't want to mess with it on a daily driver even if it did not contribute to swirls. Indoors, I keep lightweight covers on my classic cars, but again, the covers don't get touched but once a month and the cars are always clean.

In your situation, potential ice, daily driving or at least often enough to get groceries, can't go beyond the end of the driveway before it gets too dirty, a car cover may be more trouble than its worth.

 

Car cover materials have changed over the last 20-25 years. They won't protect from hail, but a good cover will take care of the rest.

 

Just to remind you all, the Jaguar is a Great Britain's company and the winter, salt, cold, sea, dirt, bud are everywhere lol. It is suppose to be driven and used. I would ceramic coat the car anyways and call it a day.