I meant to post this here about a week ago but did didn't quite get round to it... I recently went up to Glenshee skiing and so read up on all the tips I could find on here about driving in the snow... and thought I'd share my own experience. (It too me over 5 hours to drive from Glasgow - Braemar, going via Aberdeen as (a) Perth road was closed and (b) even if it wasn't no way would I have attempted it late at night in this sort of weather; and almost certainly one of the scariest drives of my life as it was almost total white out by the time I reached Braemar)
The next moning I had to take this car (-6 degrees in this photo, and had been colder overnight):
Up this hill (hardest part of the whole journey, never mind the road from Braemar - Glenshee!):
To ultimately get here:
Was curious about the differing opinions on the effectiveness of ESP and Quattro... I can say for certain that in this sort of condition ESP is most certainly best left off... the car went nowhere with it on... and also that summer tires or no, the s3 was overtaking stranded lesser cars left right and centre on the Glenshee road! It was also solid as a rock on normal icy with light covering of snow type roads... didn't slide once... kept ESP firmly on here tho. Go quattro! Anyone who thinks it doesn't make a difference in these sort of conditions is quite simply wrong!
The next moning I had to take this car (-6 degrees in this photo, and had been colder overnight):
Up this hill (hardest part of the whole journey, never mind the road from Braemar - Glenshee!):
To ultimately get here:
Was curious about the differing opinions on the effectiveness of ESP and Quattro... I can say for certain that in this sort of condition ESP is most certainly best left off... the car went nowhere with it on... and also that summer tires or no, the s3 was overtaking stranded lesser cars left right and centre on the Glenshee road! It was also solid as a rock on normal icy with light covering of snow type roads... didn't slide once... kept ESP firmly on here tho. Go quattro! Anyone who thinks it doesn't make a difference in these sort of conditions is quite simply wrong!