[Biturbos4] snow tire review

[Brandon Rogers]

Guys-
we had some nice snow here in Denver and its been cold enough to stick
around for a few days.  This is the fist time I've had a chance to drive
this car in the snow (other than a few weeks back when I still had the
Dunlop SP 9000s on - that was interesting!).  Anyway I purchased some
Hankook W300 for $123/tire at Discount.  Great tire for the money.  On
both my urquattro 20V and former A4 I have/had Nokian WR tires.  Here in
Denver we unfortunately only have a few (say 5-10) days a year where
there is actually snow on the roads.  So I don't get a full-on snow like
the Nokian RSi - not worth the decrease in dry pavement performance.  If
I skied or made frequent trips to the mountains in the winter that would
be a different story.  It's hard to do a direct comparison because I
have not driven the S4 with Nokians, but it hooks up in the snow with
the Hankooks (with ESP both on and off - I prefer "off" if I have time
for fun) almost as good as the A4 does with the Nokians - and frankly I
attribute most of the difference to the greater power being applied
(both A4 and S4 are chip and exhaust only).  I'm not shy with the
throttle in the snow.  And the Hankook is V-rated - where most snows are
H rated.  The Nokian WR in H rating was about $204/tire and it was about
$220/tire in V rating.  Again Hankook was only $123/tire V rated.  Good
deal.
 
HTH
 
Brandon
'84 urquattro 20Vt
'01.5 S4
'98 A4 1.8Tq sold