Apparently, the xA does wonderfully on slick, muddy mountain trails. I am currently up in New Mexico in the Ruidoso area, and have been taking my car out to see things. I came across a nice little jaunt out of Lincoln National Park. I took the car on some pretty hardcore stuff, with all of my luggage and another passenger. I am also on TRD springs. I can't really say anything good about the stock tires except that I could get up some pretty loose stuff in the car. Never bottomed out, and never got stuck once. I took it all really slow, but quickly found that the short wheelbase, and the fact that mine is a stickshift made for easy going on the trails. There wasnt any real rock-crawling, nor did I ever get over say 15mph on less harsh stuff, but I am very impressed with the way this car handled everything.


Not really sure anyone cares, but I had been afraid to take the car lowered out to my friends ranch and drive down his entry road, and this proved just how multi-purpose the vehicle really is. I will probably have some pictures up later on of some of the cool stuff I went up.

 

The xA is also a phenomenal road rally car. Being so small and light, it excels in maintaining rally speeds through 15 mph curves. And the gauge cluster in the center is actually beneficial because the co-driver/navigator can see the odometer and speedometer.

I added an Injen short ram and TRD exhaust for a little more push, and I've got H&R race springs and a progressive tech rear sway. I'm also running 17" Toyo's. The combination has been perfect...we're running 2nd out of approx. 27 teams in the NWRC Novice Championship Series.

Man, I love my car

 

Does anyone want to talk about how the xA performs in the snow? I'm waiting on my 2006 xA to be delivered. It replaces my 1993 Tercel which was, believe it or not, phenomenal in the winter. I live in Central New York State and our winters can be somewhat challenging.

 

I would think the low weight and FWD will be good for snow. The xA is a pretty close vehicle to a Tercel.

 

I drove my xA RS 1.0 in the snow last year. Even with the 17" rims, low profile tires and TRD springs it handled very well. The RS comes with VSC which helps a bit but actually hurts the fun factor when it comes to rally style turns. Even with the VSC turned off and using the e brake, the xA was reluctant to drive with the tail out.