driving in the snow

[Sean Ford]

--- "Roger M. Woodbury" <rmwoodbury at downeast.net> wrote:
> I found your post about driving the Quattro in the snow for the first time.
> I had several quick reactions.
>
> First of all, Quattro does not repeal the laws of physics, and if you are
> plowing into a corner uncontrolled, the car is out of control, and you are
> simply going too fast for the condition of the road surface.  On most road
> surfaces, you will not correct that slide before you hit something.

Ok, I guess I may have misled folks with my earlier statements. Since this was
my first real snow test with quattro, I wanted to see what it could do for me.
I purpose came in to corners hot to try and find the limits of adhesion in the
snow.

Your point is valid, though. If my slides weren't provoked, I was simply
driving above my abilities, the car's abilities, or both.

>
> Now, having said that, I have some other comments from my personal
> experience driving Quattros in coastal Maine's capricious winter weather.
> You didn't say which car you were driviing, so I will make some comments
> based on surmises.
>
> The first question I would ask has to do with the tires and brakes.  If you
> were in the 99 Audi with Tiptronic, and plowed, then I would hazard a guess
> that the tires on the car might be original.  If they are, they need to be
> replaced right now.  My experience with Audi Quattros in the winter is that
> once the tires are past half worn, they lead to what I call "Quattro
> Confusion"....because they have insufficient grip, the Quattro system tries
> to find a way to make the car go in whatever direction the tires want to go,
> and that can mean that it tries to make the car in all directions...makes
> for an entertaining drive in heavy slush.  From my experience, Quattro's
> generally will get around 25,000 miles to a set of tires when winter driving
> is an issue.

The '99 A6q is wearing a set of Cooper touring tires which came with the car
when I bought it in October. I do have a set of Vredestein Wintracs that are
going on the car within the next week or so, and I'm *positive* that my snow
traction will increase. The Wintracs have about 14k miles on them.

Thank you for the thoughtful response.

=====
Sean Ford
1999 A6q tiptronic | 1992 100CS 5-spd
http://community.webshots.com/user/seanmford

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