guys, guys...there seems to be a frenzy getting carried away to chuck more money away on your cars....unneccessarily in my opinion. Unless your planning on driving it hard are you really going to notice on your every day travels ? I certainly would not be falsely attracted to an S3 with an uprated controller on it, but I'm also another who wouldn't by one fully blown only to hear the selling owners say never driven hard....yeh, right .
unless you hit the tracks occasionally then hey - go for it.
Oh and if you like to drive like a maniac on normal roads then hey, go for it.
The occasional spirited driver....this item is not for (wise old Yoda speak). Even at £500 money better spent on a better brake setup, alloys or possibly suspension overhaul (note I said overhaul & not lowered or hardened) - money much better spent.
^^THIS^^
Speaking from someone who has one fitted, you don't even know it's there to be honest, and it's most effective on a tuned up car with stage1 remap at the very least and sorted suspension!
In the snow, yes, you notice it's there, it can go into drift mode the moment you plant the throttle, but how often is that, and you really have to be committed and hold the throttle on 50% or more for it to be locked 50/50.
Out on the open road again, how often do you use the throttle mid bend to make use of the traction? The S3's chassis is so biased towards understeer, you rarely have the bottle to trust the throttle on 50-100% mid bend, but you can do this out on the track!
Now I'm not saying it's not worth the money, but unless you have the added power/torque of a remap and a sorted front end on your S3 - think lowered and uprated shocks - then there's very little benefit of this device on your car in my opinion.
And finally, yes, I would have though it would put some added strain onto you transmission, in particular, the transfer box on the gearbox, as the S3 doesn't have a central diff to allow for varying rotational speeds between the front axle and rear when going into corners.(Unless you are drifting through the corner, then it wouldn't matter!
)