quattro digest, Vol 1 #3990 - Snow tire size 4KQ/quaiffe on front of a Q

[Larry C Leung]

Brady,

If you tend to end up with a fair amount of  dry/simply wet driving, then
the 185/65-14's are ideal. Icy
performance will be fine and snow is really quite good. Don't even need
to lock diffys nearly any time.
If you have A LOT of snow, try the 175/70's, BUT, you'll have to search
high and wide to find a 5.5 inch
rim width that will take them. 6 inch (i.e. Audi alloys) are too wide to
safely mount the bead of the
narrower snow. The Audi steel rims (such as off of the old type 43 ones)
are 5.5 inches. No BTDT on
the narrower tire, but I'd bet the dry performance (and rain) would
suffer.

As for the quaiffe, if it's anything like a Quaife equipped VW, the
handling becomes, well, interesting.
It's like torque steer, but but different. Wherever the wheels are
pointed when you hammer
the throttle, the car goes, whether or not you are turned or straight.
You must manually straighten the wheels.
Okay, that's the Like Torque steer part. The difference is, the car GOES
where the wheels are pointed
instead of plowing out in terminal understeer. It's great for
racing/auto-xing, but a little dicey on public
roads until you become accustomed to it. It's not something you'd just
lend the car to just ANYONE, they
could crash if they're not up to straightening the car out. BTW, at least
in racing, in the wet, you really
need to brake in a straight line, the lack of diff action means the front
tends to plow out if you try to trail
brake in sharper turns. Bear in mind, this is FWD experience, although
IMHO

LL - NY



> From: "Brady Moffatt" <bradym at sympatico.ca>
> To: "quattro" <quattro at audifans.com>
> Subject: What size Hakka 1s on 4kq?
> Date: Mon, 23 Sep 2002 10:51:06 -0400
>
> Hi All,
>
> This year I'm banking on a real winter, or at least one with snow
> unlike
> last year. So I'm getting set to buy some real snow tires (Nokian
> Hakka 1
> studded).
>
> I will go and find snow if it's not nearby!
>
> I know narrower is better for pure snow conditions, but I think that
> with
> studded Nokians, snow will not be a problem anyways, especially
> with
> quattro!
>
> There will be some significant highway driving this winter, so I'm
> wondering
> if a bit more dry stability is worth going a bit wider.
>
> My two choices are 185/65-14 or 175/70-14, or I suppose I could even
> stick
> with 195/60-14.
>
> Does anyone have experience with these setups on Hakka 1s,
> preferably
> studded?
>
> Cheers,
> Brady Moffatt
> eal, Quebec, Canada
> 86 4ksq, 296,000km
> 86 4ksq, 208,000km parts car
> 72 Datsun 240Z, 180,000 miles
> In early stages of quattrosis accumulatus
>