RE: SUVs in Chicago's Snow

[Luis Marques <marques@ti.com>]

Easy answer:  when in neutral, quattro behaves almost like any other car
in neutral - no advantage.  When in gear, the engine braking force is
split and each wheel only gets 1/4 of this force to apply on its
respective contact patch.  On a 2wd car, the same scenario results on
each of the drive wheels getting 1/2 of the engine braking force - twice
what you get with quattro and much easier to loose traction.  Of course,
this is much more effective in a manual transmission car since the
torque converter of the slushboxes results in almost no engine braking
at lower speeds.

On my own (very limited) experience driving on icy conditions, I always
stop _much_ faster/better/more controlled on my 4kq if I let the engine
do the braking.  It is just too easy to lock the brakes on these very
low traction conditions.  Heel and toe to the next lower gear and let
the engine slow the car down.  Need to go down an icy hill?  Put it in
first gear and let it creep down the hill without touching the brakes. 
Only use the brakes with _very light_ pressure when you are going very
slow  <5mph to slowly come to a halt on mostly flat areas.  Otherwise
you will just go thru the intersection with wheels locked at 5 mph and
end up stopping 50 ft. later (or you run into whoever is stopped in
front of you).  The later examples were not from personal experience in
case anybody is wondering ;) - but i did witness them. 

Luis Marques
'87 4kcsq


Bresof_Craig <Bresof_Craig@videojet.com> wrote:
>
> I have noticed that the quattro does a great job of slowing the car 
> down when downshifting.  I have heard conflicting responses of HOW 
> quattro works when the car is downshifted / vs. how it works (if at 
> all) under neutral, at least in a manual tranny.  The braking on snow 
> pack and even fresh drift is pretty poor with mt 8000s ( new A4, 
> latest quattro system ).  In fact, I actually smacked someone over the 
> weekend, up in Wisconsin. I had the brakes locked and simply 
> panicked!! I didnt do too much damage to either car, but foolish just 
> the same.  Anyway, the car is much more predictable with downshifting 
> and I can notice ALOT mor grip when downshifting vs, applying the 
> brakes at all.  My suggestion to all with sport type tires, with large 
> blocks....let the quattro do the work until alternate tires go on, and 
> then, try it anyway, and see what happens.  I don't know if you should 
> try this in the Suburban, but if that thing loses traction, I dont 
> wanna be anywhere near its path!!!  
>      
>      CAB