Quattro vs 2wd snow tyres

Quattro with summer tyres will accelerate quicker than fwd with winter tyres on however the fwd with winters will stop and make steady progress unlike the quattro which will raise your hairs on bends ...

Well, I have first hand experience of what will do what in the snow and with the very tyres you have just fitted.
Until last week, (and slightly further North of your Aberdeenshire location), we had frozen slush and ice. My 3.2, I thought, coped pretty well with the conditions on Eagle F1's. One week later when we got some snow to play on, I found things a lot different and the car and conditions had to be treated with total respect. As long as I remembered this we all got along fine. I'm not a huge advocate of winter tyres, good tyres, yes, combined with a little restraint are perfectly fine.
The difference between winter and normal tyres is not the same as the difference between F1 slicks and wets, you still have to treat the road conditions with respect. If better braking is one of the main advantages of having winter tyres, then why not just compensate with a few less mph...?
Surely, much cheaper and safer all round...?
The eye opener for me was my wife's Pug making my Audi look stupid on a 5 mph corner that I thought would be easy in the quattro.
It nearly cost me a new wheel but did teach me to wind my neck in...!

I have just completed a 4000 miles round trip trough europe for xmas holidays, drove a b5 v6 tdi quattro fitted with Sunny Snowmaster winter tyres, had absolutely no trouble driving at -25 celsius or trough 2 feets of snow... Choice of car makes a big impact as well, proper Torsen all wheel drive will get you out of most situations good tyres or not ! I have been driving cheap b5 quattros for a few years, last winter i had a 1.8TQS, popped the ABS fuse out, fitted 15" steel wheels with Nokian winter tyres and never got stuck once...

adamss24 said:

Quattro with summer tyres will accelerate quicker than fwd with winter tyres on however the fwd with winters will stop and make steady progress unlike the quattro which will raise your hairs on bends ...

Click to expand...

Hmmmm Here's a demonstration and it is very interesting:



My own Audi RS3 and Audi TT both run Vredestein Wintrac Xtreams (typically late November to late March depending of ambient temperatures (+ or - 7 deg C) and I'm very happy with that.

Bluey would never have made it here on her 'summer fit' Pilot Super Sports:

Not entirely correct, torsen quattro will have 4 drive wheels and 4 wheels braking, the yeti in the clip is haldex 4 wheel drive which means it's FWD till the wheels slip so the power is sent to the rear axle...very, very different from the torsen quattro which provides 50-50% power split between the axles and up to 80-20% split in slippery condition... 4 wheel drive Torsen diff is better than FWD/haldex in ANY condition, it's just grippier, handles better and coupled with the right tyres will make it hard to stop in it's tracks ! Quattro is not just for snow...

Got to say my a8 is the first quattro iv driven and the things just grips, had a play in the snow and apart from being extremely controllable with the back end out when forced it'd just grip and put power down with TC off in a straight line, being such a big barge it handles unbelievably well with the quattro system.

I've got winter wheels/tyres on both my S8 (proper quattro) and my little CityGo (FWD)

with a few inches of snow so far, which as usual, embarrassingly cripples the UK, the citoGO has had no issues where cars on 'normal tyres' have been spinning about.

I've obviously had the S8 out for some fun, and I'll be using that this week to do my usual drive down to Swindon and back.

for me, having the best set up in winter (not just snow, but cold conditions) is having decent winter specific tyres and driving a bit more sensibly - but I do spend a lot of time in Sweden where they are mandatory in winter.

having said that, a few years ago when I also had my S4, in the snow, and part worn 'summer' tyres, I did almost as well as the S8..... getting moving.... but couldn't stop or turn even half as well...

May I also add that I too have a separate set of winter wheels with tyres, and it does make a difference.

I've just had to go & pick my Son up from a pub on the NY moors, he was on his way back from York in his rwd MX5 & couldn't get up a bank out of Castleton ( 2" of snow up there ) First experience of Quattro in the snow having swapped from an X5 in November & I would say the A4 didn't feel to offer as much traction as the X5, this did have all season tyres on but with 275 on the front & 315 section on the rear they were hardly ideal for snow but it never felt out of it's depth even in 6 or 8" of snow whereas the A4 has summer tyres on ( almost new continentals ) It got us up the bank ok but seemed to scramble around more than the X5 would have, but as people have said the problem isn't traction but the ability to corner & stop so driving at an appropriate speed helps ! the hill decent system on the X5 would also have got us down the steep bank a lot safer. I also have winter tyres for my fwd van & they feel much safer in snow & ice. I did pass quite a few fwd cars stuck on sections of road where I would have said a fwd car should have got through so experience driving in snow helps too.
Going forward I would look at buying a spare set of alloys with winter tyres for the A4 but the trouble with our weather is that it is so unpredictable. I know they say winter tyres are better when temperatures are below 5 degrees but some years it barely drops to these temperatures or if it does it will be over night when I'm tucked up in bed & in my experience winter tyres wear quite quickly in warmer ambient temperatures. With a decent set of winter tyres & spare wheels around £1K it's a lot to shell out if we end up with mild winters where they aren't needed.
I did read a report a few years ago that if you couldn't afford to run two sets then winter tyres all year round were a better compromise than summer tyres all year round but having experienced winter tyres in the summer I'm not so sure, it could just be the tyres I have used but in warmer weather the winter tyres were awful with little feedback, lots of flexing & understeer in wet conditions.

A spot of cold weather delivering today in the van..... No problems going over to Huddersfield via Uppermill, it was practically a white out after I stopped to take this........ Michelin Alpin winters on the van.

I have run my A3 quattro on Goodyear Eagle F1's for the last three winters without a hitch. (I'm not paying that for them either, £79.00 a corner).
I wouldn't knock winter tyres though, had them on my Skoda Fabia for two years and they never missed a beat.
Gislaveds, dunno what type, round and black.

I sort of convinced my daughter to get all season tyres on her late 2009 Ibiza 1.4 SC as it needed new tyres, as it has 215/40 X 17 tyres, the choice was not too good so I opted for Kleber Quadraxer 2 so if things get nastier than in previous recent years she should be okay. Both my wife and I have Michelin Alpin or Pilot Alpin to keep us moving and hopefully stopping and steering in winter.