Re: Descending Icy Hills

[steve powers <spowers@spdg.COM>]

Ray say:
> 
> My experience in driving in snow for the past 25 years, is that you get much 
> better traction goiing DOWNHILL if the car is in a low gear and you let the
> engine do the braking - this has been in either FWD or Quattro.  Under these
> conditions (hopefully) your foot is off the gas and MAYBE slightly on the
> brake.

be _very_ careful not to use too low a gear! how low is too low? if it
begins
to slide under compression braking, it's time to go to the next higher
gear.

take it from a former greenskeeper who narrowly escaped from a runaway
tractor.
going downhill in an _EXTREMELY_ low gear when the wheels began to slip.
that
is the tractor was accelerating whilst the wheels were slowly turning.

brakes!?! you say??? not if you've ever driven a tractor!!! they've got
the large, separate brakes for left rear and right rear which are
coupled
via a mechanical lever (or decoupled). can you say ABS??? (awfully bad
system)

anyway, it was straight downhill in (rather on) a vehicle in bad
maintenance
which even in good repair wasn't something you could do any sort of real
driving with. 16 years old, yada yada yada... I saved it by pushing in
the
clutch, and riding it out. I dumped the clutch when I hit the bottom,
leaving
large ruts in an otherwise perfect fairway... (always remember to repair
your divots!)

same scenario would work with a car - gentle inputs both with speed and
directional changes. there is little or no traction and gravity isn't
your friend here, although momentum can be interesting...

steve powers
spowers@spdg.com