old96A4

Yesterday my daughter was driving the A4 when she hit some slush in the road and turn to compensant the other way and lost it to a ditch. When I bought this car a long time ago it use to be great in the snow and on slippery roads. two years ago my daughter was driving it on a slippery slush covered high way and as soon as she got to around 30 MPH the back end wanted to come around. I tested it and felt the problem I always thought it was the tires. but seeing what happened yesterday and having my daughter tell em about how the car was acting I think there might be something wrong with the all wheel drive. I know 60% of the power is on the back wheels but it shouldn't want to flip the car around on slippery snow covered road. Could the alignment be off that much to flip the car like that. On dry road you don't notice anything car drives good with no odd tire wear that I can see. the alignment is not perfect but I don't see anything that might be off. the tires are pretty good , about 5/8 of the tread left. Just wondering what it could be. would the all wheel detect something and change the way the power is to the rear wheels flip the car around?? The car use to be a tank but I'm getting afraid for my daughters to drive it on snow covered road when its slippery. any thoughts??? could some of the bushings be that bad in the back to screw up the tracking?? should I check the tow in ??

4Driver4

Time to buy some tires or sign the girls up for a WDS or teen clinic.
Maybe buy tires and the clinics.

joloya

It's one of the rear CV axles that is faulty. Likely, the inner CV joint. Also, check your rear bushings and linkages for play.

It took me a while to figure out mine 2 yrs ago. Back end was out of control during snowy days.

old96A4

So what did you have to replace to fix it?? your car drove good on dry road and flipped out in the snow. A bad CV joint will do that??? Hmmm. I've replaced all the upper bushing already a few years ago but I'll check again. maybe I'll just replace the rear axles, I think there pretty cheap. I'll check it out when the weather breaks a bit...Thanks for the info. car feels like its all over the place on a snowy road.

jschick

their have been several similar posts like this over the past few months, I will put my money on tires. the A4 can do funny things with bad or Cheap tires in wet conditions.
Last spring I actually pulled over and stopped in the middle of the road during a pretty good rain just to make sure my rear wheels were not falling off! the rear end was very unpredictable and all over. my tires were due for replacement and never had a problem again once replaced.

old96A4

You could be right about the tires but I thing my tires are pretty good still. I'll try to check things out. the car is 15 years old and I've never replace an axle. which surprises me. the A6 I've done both front at 50K miles. I never worry about the axles until the boot rips , maybe I should take a better look.