First day driving quattro in snow

[ukgroucho]

allroad driving mode. Seems to work a treat in auto with winter tyres

[Splash]

+1 Also minimizes the risk if you have to take to the verge for whatever reason. The sills might stay a bit cleaner too (I know you've got mudguards ukg) but it's always good to see the slush spray coming off the tyres when you can feel it being cleared. Hopefully the woman out for a run by "Stella's" today (it wasn't Stella herself) will realise she'd be safer and drier if she ran on the side facing the traffic - especially on an awkward downhill bend.

[ukgroucho]

The sills might stay a bit cleaner too (I know you've got mudguards ukg)

Yeah apart from the a-hole yahoo in an old Landrover defender who went out of his way to accelerate and drive into the slush in the middle so he could cover my car with muddy slush.

Besides that I had a great day wandering around with my niece and her college friend (visiting from California) in tow. Drove over to Broadway by the Cotswolds. Roads were pretty deserted and parking was a breeze

[NewAudi]

Came back to north Essex yesterday very late (more snow than in Cologne!). Smaller roads, car parks etc non treated. Great fun in the S6 and not even once did it loose grip or even spin its wheels! You've gotta love the Quattro system!

[Splash]

Hmm. -10 degC this morning and thought I'd try the new car because I'd put some old winter tyres on it from a previous car. Embarrassing, as the fat 235s couldn't get traction uphill having reversed to turn. The 2WD system with ASR didn't want to help, and I eventually found the ASR-off option in the menu system (no button). Once on the tarmac it was OK and the tyres cleaned themselves.

quattro is just so much easier but also more precious to risk. Sometimes you want to find the limitations of something cheap and cheerful for the fun of it. Both the fun and the limitations came sooner than expected, but thankfully no incidents other than partly frozen coffee on the doorstep.

[A6S]

I found in my old golf the only way to drive in ice and snow was to keep the traction control off. You need a small degree of slip to get traction and the traction control was just too quick to react.

[Splash]

You're right. That's what I tried later. Burying the option 3 or 4 layers into the menu system didn't help with frozen wet fingers and insufficient caffeine. My RS2 had a lovely button called "Diff" just by the handbrake - but it was reassuringly right there on the one occasion I remember needing it in snow.

[hshah]

I have a thread on here somewhere from when I first got my car a couple of years ago. I wanted to test out the quattro so during the night I took it up (uphill) a quiet side road. Powering up the hill was absolutely fine, when my previous FWD A6 really struggled. Coming downhill was scary though because the car just started sliding, the ABS kicked in and the car actually kept the brake pedal pressed down by itself. I had to hit the accelerator to force it to disengage. Lets just say that I'm very glad that there was only one other car around at ~3am.