Winter Prep

[CMD]

Summer has gone and winter is only few months away. Preping the car for winter.

What I will be doing over the few months.

Winter Service.
Remove Wax layers and apply Gtec sealant (sealents will last longer)
Remove summer wheel's and Tyre's
Run Winter wheel's(cleaned and sealed ready)
Apply Carlack Glass sealant
Winter Matts (rubber)
Re-fit old Top and Lower Grills
Standard Number plates
Re-grease coilovers using waxoyl (loads)
OCD lower the bonnet a little (it's just me )

 

[quattrojames]

I'm going to move my scraper from the shed to the boot.

 

[white.akita]

for the last 3 year the way i have prepared for winter is buy a 4wd car, last 2 years i bought a subaru impreza non turbo, they are brilliant in the snow.
this year ive just bought the quattro so i will see how it compares to the subaru's in the snow, probably not very well with these 18" rs4 alloys on and cheap tyres but will still be alot better at pulling away than front wheel drive cars.
once the snow has gone i usually sell the 4wd cars but im keeping this quattro and i will buy a summer car when the time comes as a second car.

 

[CMD]

My car will get very little use over the winter but it's just an OCD Thing.

 

[white.akita]

just been on a website and it is predicting a very bad winter again this year starting in october !

 

[white.akita]

UK weather: Snow forecast for parts of Britain as early as October | Mail Online

 

[CMD]

Flinking Weather here in the UK is Craaazzyy

 

[gavsman]

Car insurance to double again next year then!!!!!!

 

[mememe]

I'm going to move my scraper from the shed to the boot.

Superb!!!!

 

[RobMorris]

Im gonna have the car polished and waxed in time for the winter.
Plus perhaps put some of that de-mist stuff on the inside of the windows to stop condensation build up?

 

[white.akita]

i have tried rain x anti fog before and it didnt work in winter.

 

[Mike B]

Im gonna have the car polished and waxed in time for the winter.
Plus perhaps put some of that de-mist stuff on the inside of the windows to stop condensation build up?

Just use the aircon.Our Bora V5 has one button that switches the air con full onto the screen and demists in secs wish the A4 had one

 

[CMD]

You should have it . The 2 lower Buttons Front & Rear screen demist

 

[deanski]

time to crack the tin of collinite open after a mild machine polish. not putting winter rims on just yet though. i couldnt get on with the carlack window sealant it just kept steaming up. once the collinite has cured i'll top with a layer of zaino cs for a bit more protection.

 

[AudiLeon]

The coat might come out!

 

[matttrs]

i found the Quattro was excellent in the 5 days of snow last year, ok its no land rover but it got me home past endless wheel spinning Bmw's on the M1. then a fun after noon drifting in the freshly powered lanes near my house.
As for prep, i'm considering getting winter wheels, just something less precious and fragile than my split rims which took a hammering last year, even though I cleaned and polished them every other day!
I'll give it a thorough wash and wax for once, but I dont have the time to do it all the time.
Oh and new brakes

 

[Grangey.]

iv made the appropriate adjustments already...

my aircon has gone from 18oc to 18.5oc.

 

[Cabbyfan]

Heated leather seats

 

[white.akita]

Heated leather seats

i wish

 

[Cabbyfan]

Just use the aircon.Our Bora V5 has one button that switches the air con full onto the screen and demists in secs wish the A4 had one

A4 defo has the fast clear mega fan button, it's one of the two at the bottom of the climate panel as cmd pointed out...

 

[Cabbyfan]

i wish

Last car had them so I decided not to buy a cab without them to, defo worth it, roof down and seats and heater on .....look a bit of a t1t in winter but who cares !

 

[quattrojames]

Heated leather seats

A metal roof.

 

[Cabbyfan]

A metal roof.



Lol .... I prefer my cab thanks ,can't beat driving home from work on a sunny day with the roof down... Awsome

 

[a3tdi2001]

You mean on "the" sunny day.

 

[white.akita]

I think we may of had 2 sunny days this year and even then most cabby drivers i saw didnt bother dropping the roof!

 

[Tarmons]

You mean on "the" sunny day.

Ah summer, my favorite day of the year!

Snow, ice, fair enough but not sure how you prepare properly for driving in snow fall itself. Last year I had to drive during the worst snow fall, thankfully it was mostly motorway but we were down to 10Km/h for much of it. The snow would hit the windscreen and melt, run down to the wipers and freeze again, eventually building up and lifting the wiper off the windscreen making them completely ineffective.

Hard to pull over to clean them as I was about 5 cars from the front of a cue that was a couple of miles long, motorway was down to 1 lane. This was not the quattro, although that probably would not help with the situation above but that drive was much of the reason I purchased one.

 

[Mike B]

A4 defo has the fast clear mega fan button, it's one of the two at the bottom of the climate panel as cmd pointed out...

On mine that blows hot not cold

 

[Cabbyfan]

On mine that blows hot not cold

Mine defo is warm, just seems to direct the full force of the air up to the windscreen. Drove home from work with the roof down today, lovely

 

[Mike B]

Mine defo is warm, just seems to direct the full force of the air up to the windscreen. Drove home from work with the roof down today, lovely

Sounds nice wish I had one on my Spitfire not even a heater worth the bother! but the Bora cuts in the aircon which is almost instant in clearing the screen cos it gives afull blast from the fan.On the A4 you would have to switch on the aircon direct to the screen and wind up the fan by that time the screen button would have begun to work.

 

[white.akita]

On my a4 i press the windscreen button and the fan automatically goes to full, press 1 button and the screen clears in seconds, maybe yours was broken.

 

[Mike B]

On my a4 i press the windscreen button and the fan automatically goes to full, press 1 button and the screen clears in seconds, maybe yours was broken.

Thats what mine does but its warm air and good enough for me until the Bora arrived and it does the same but with the aircon and is almost instant.The Bora aircon is also really freezing better than any A4 I have had

 

[BahnStormer77]

I kept my A4 "Sport Trapeze" 16's that the car came with (yes, early sports had 16's!!), when I got my 18" S4 Avus wheels... so those have a set of Vredestein Wintrac's for November to March.

Winter check-up is just swapping those over and making sure I've got a spare bottle of concentrated screen wash in the boot and the lock de-icer in my study (i.e. NOT in the boot, which is a bit ofa sore point!).

I also have a canvas "shoe" box of emergency stuff that includes an old ski jacket (compressed), wind-up torch, space blankets, sleeping bag, small shovel.

 

[jutlis 3.0]

before the first quattro i would usually be loading the boot of various bmw's up ready this time of year!

 

[quattrojames]

before the first quattro i would usually be loading the boot of various bmw's up ready this time of year!

With 25kg bags of sand?

 

[jutlis 3.0]

sand, bricks, large relatives what ever came to hand! they were mostly older models (the bm's) but by a long shot the most useless of all was my e46 coupe it was even more pant wettingly frightening than driving my artic with an empty flat trailer!

 

[Cabbyfan]

On the way to our works XMas bash last year, the road out of town was gridlocked and was wetting myself cos on one very slight incline there were about 4 BMWs all stuck and one was spun 90 degrees !

 

[jutlis 3.0]

the last bad winter we had it the other half didnt go to work and it sat in the drive for a week whlist i used my lowered 88 325i auto cab instead which was hardly the ideal vehicle but still considerably better than that poxy e46!

 

[BahnStormer77]

quattro gets moving forwards just fine in the snow, even on summer tyres.... it's the stopping, cornering, reversing away from SUV's sliding around on the road that I need the winter tyres for!

 

[Tarmons]

Other have more experience of quattro and their performance in winter/snow/ice conditions but I am a little confused over the criticism of its cornering abilities, mentioned in this thread and another winter thread. Is it better or worse than a 2 wheel drive car in slippery conditions? I would expect it to be better but I do know that 4wd vehicles with a short wheelbase can be shocking for cornering in slippy conditions.

Anyway, in snow and ice, once you are moving the single biggest factor in safely getting from A to B, is driving style.