Re: Hooray for blizzards!

[ikessel@worldnet.att.net]

Dave Ohlemacher wrote:

>The 200 seems to handle the tough weather much better than my 90 80q, maybe it
>was just the tires . . . whatever . . . but the 200 rules the snow/ice covered
>roads!!

And much better than my A4. Both cars are quattros and are on Hakkas, so
it's a clean apples-to-apples comparo.
I get the A4 to spin a wheel at a traffic light in only 5mm of snow. The
200 OTOH goes like it sits on sandpaper.

Oh, one more thing about the A4. In the summer in rainy weather while
cornering I observed the phenomena which could be best described as
Tor$en hunting under abrupt transitions from accel to deccel and back. I
did not post it then, remembering that old quarrel from hell over a year
ago.
Well, now I am totally convinced: the diff (quattro IV - ?) does indeed
hunt. My A4 is _much_less_ sure-footed on snow than my is 200. That's
why I gave the 200 to my wife till spring. Perhaps weight has something
to do with it. Back in Russia we used to drive the tinny RWD, 4-sp Ladas
in show (well, in _real_ snow that is :-). The trick was to drop in the
trunk a couple of cast iron radiator sections in early October, all the
way through late April. And to have four 6-row carbide studded snow
tires of course.

Don't get me wrong folks, in the summer I will take my A4TQ w/sport
suspension and on 225/50/16 SP8000 over that heavy, wallowing barge
200TQ any day. On asphalt the A4 corners _absolutely_ flat, goes like an
iron on the ironing board, it's a totally awesome sensation. 
I recently followed my wife from a X-mas party (we had to arrive
separately) and had a pleasure of watching her A4 in front of me corner
90œ @60mph absolutely flat while accelerating on-ramp on the I-95
Interstate. This was one bizarre view: the car went like a stone out of
a slingshot, approached the corner without slowing down and _just_ swung
90œ without the brake lights ever coming on. I pity any mucho moron who
would try to replicate this in a FWD automatic jelly bean (let alone a
RWD one), being confused into thinking that if a lady in front of him
could do that.... :-)

Chad Clark wrote:
 
> Dave, isn't it fun! I always tell people that I'd sometimes rather drive in 
>the snow and ice than on dry pavement just for the looks and stares
>you get from people that don't have the first clue on how to drive 
>safely in the white stuff. I think Igor and I would have too much fun
>at stoplights next to the white nuckled SUV driver if we lived in the 
>same city- right Igor?

Ain't that right, Chad! :-)

Every winter I pull the same joke on the "sport" utility vehicles
(Pathlosers, Land Bruisers and such):
They usually occupy the centre lane (the only one with a rut), coz they
are scared to go where the real snow is. I pull up alongside, in
half-a-metre of virgin snow in a big and awkward red sedan (every layman
in the States knows that Audis are heavy, unreliable and slow cars :-). 
The guy in the "boot-on-wheels" looks down at me with utter despise, his
looks tell you -"you're an idiot, you have no clue with whom you are
messing here, I am driving a big bad a$$ 4x4!"
The light changes, off goes the clutch, the tach @ 5k, 4 Hakkas _claw_
the snow, the car leaps forward in an astoundingly straight line.
The SUV? You see it in the mirror, sideways, and then those eyes of the
other driver... Like they used to say back in Russia, "7 kopecks dia
each" :-)

--
Igor Kessel
Two turbo quattros