I was running down I-90 in the left lane. Four lane highway in Wisconsin... two lanes in each directin. Sixty miles per hour... it's lightly snowing. Ha, I don't have those Dunlops everyone complains about in the Wheel and Tire Forum... I have Pirelli's... Pirelli's are great tires and I have trust in the company... I have trust in Quattro... I have trust in my driving skills. Other people are going faster than I am. But then I turn the wheel. I don't turn. Zero steering feel. No brake feel. Into neutral, handbrake, the tail turns out, handbrake down. I'm off the road down the grass embankment by the side of the road, into gear, floor it. I pull back up onto the road and smile at the patrol car at the top of the road. I give the cop a wave and he runs up to me, "Are you okay? How the hell did your car get back up here?"<p>"Fine. Recaros. Quattro. ..."<p>I looked over the car and it appears to be fine. Absolutely fine. Not a scratch on the System S front air dam, Rich Quinlan's skidpad helper piece worked though it's scraped up. The embankment was probably -20 or -25 degrees relative to the roadway. No punctured tires, my 17 inch rims look undamaged, the car is covered in mud and grass (hood looks like I'm guilty of a hit-and-run with Swamp Thing)... oil pan checks out... what else do I need to check out? Acceleration is good... braking is good... all of it feels normal. The System S bumper is 5 inches off the ground, and the overall ground clearance is that bumper cover minus some given amount of space. Is it possible that I clean off the car when I get back to Chicago and everything's okay...<p>Help me out here... what's going on? Am I missing something?<p>The good news is that it works. You're in deep trouble, put Quattro in gear and floor it. It'll get you out of even the dumbest situation in the middle of the night -- and amaze the local police.<p>Cameron

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When you say skidpad helper, you mean the little metal that hangs down under the lower control arm, just aft of the front tires?<p>I'm glad you're ok.... I had thought when I get my system S spoiler to take a big 'ol 3/8" sheet of aluminum and cutting it to fit the bottom of the spoiler, for just such an event.. the Carbon-fiber on my Abt unit has saved me several times!<p>Question, though: why did you pull the e-brake?<p>Rich Quinlan

I have Q myself, by the way. Lots of people with 4WD and AWD get the impression that they have lots more traction than they really do. The ability to climb hills, not get stuck, and get out of bad situations like Cameron did can give you the impression that you can also stay out of all kinds of trouble with superior braking and cornering. (With cornering including slalom-type maneuvers to avoid collisions). These types of activities are dependent on TIRES, not your drive system. That's why lots of people recommend real snow tires, even with Quattro, especially with Quattro, even. <p>This isn't a bash Cameron post. I would hope that he even agrees with the above. You really can't drive significantly faster, safely, in a Q-equipped car than non-Q, because of the stopping and turning problem.

I'd rather have the rear hit stuff if worse comes to worse... more metal in the "me and the tree equation" as Road & Track once put it.<p>Second, I was worried I wouldn't be able to pull around the corner at the base of the embankment if I had been facing downhill. As it was, I had a pretty straight climb for Quattro to deal with. Quattro doesn't guarantee that you can corner on icy slants at radical angles, but does a good job letting you go up hills in fairly straight lines. Seemed like facing back toward the road would be the right place to be, and wheel hard left with the handbrake pulled was a good way to do it.<p>In retrospect, I could have cornered to face back up and made it.<p>Cameron<br>

Ironically, this accident happened shortly before I was going to put on the 15-inchers with Blizzaks.<p>By the way, for a long time, I thought Blizzaks were Blizzerks. Between "blizzard" and "beserk"... if anyone out there is designing a snow tire, I thought that was a cool name until a couple years ago when I figured out it was "Blizzak".<p>Cameron<br>

I spun out a couple years ago in a freak April storm, jumped a curb, and quickly extricated myself. A few weeks later I had to replace the tires after failing to notice just how misaligned the front end had become.

The car doesn't pull. 40 miles per hour, let go of the steering wheel, zero pull to either side, it just sits in the middle of the lane. Tire pressures check out.<p>Where I left the road, the angle between the shoulder and the grassy embankment was sharp, but the shoulder was paved and in good shape, and the grassy embankment started no more than a centimeter off from the highway... no curb or anything to contact.<p>I'll get the alignment checked... but the car appears to be in perfect shape.<p>Cameron

I've slid STRAIGHT OFF the road with a Quattro due to overconfidence/carelessness in slippery conditions. All anyone has to do to feel the difference between FWD and Q in the dry is try your favorite bumpy/dippy sweeper in both back-to-back: the Q DEFINITELY STICKS longer than the FWD. The FWD runs out of balls before you, you run out of balls before the Q.

nt<br>

late braking on icy pavement, using brake pads that weren't really the right temperature range for the conditions (Mintex C-Tech Race), unfortunate choice of acceleration that later was tapered by grass instead of braking and never should have occured in the first place, no snow tires...<p>One too many bad choices on my part, car performed great.<p>Cameron

:)

>>then I turn the wheel. I don't turn. Zero steering feel. No brake feel. Into neutral, handbrake, the tail turns out, handbrake down.<<<p>The handbrake almost certainly locked up the rear tires causing the car to have virtually no traction in the rear and thus swing out. Remember...Smoooothness works.<br>

Or maybe I am too smart :-)<p>- Stan<br>

Here's what I'm saying on cornering. Take a FWD A4 and a Q A4, same tires. Drive each one on the snow or ice at 10 mph. Now have someone strong and fast run along side each car and give it a sideways push. The Q will have no advantage (ignoring the minor benefit of more weight in the back end) in how much force it takes to push it off course. Quattro affects forward and back directions, not sideways. A quattro MIGHT have a better chance of recovery from a skid, though.<p>Another example. With the same tires, the Q doesn't have any particular skidpad advantage over the FWD. Maybe a couple of hundreths of a "g" due to better balance, but maybe not also. Yes, the Quattro will power out of a turn better, and might even feel more neutral, or whatever. I'd rather have a Quattro in a racing situation, and personally, I'd rather have one on the street too.

Both should be BANNED.

!

The problem seems to have been your tires. You have 17-inch rims so I'm assuming that you have Z rated Pirellis. Just because the tires are made by Pirelli doesn't mean that they qualify as Snow Tires. I had a set of Pirelli P7000Zs on my previous car. The Pirellis were horrible in the snow, comparable to the Dunlop SP8000. If your tires Don't Have "Winter" or "M+S" written on them, They are not good enough to be driven safely in the Snow. Pirelli does make winter tires, but for some strange reason I don't think that those are the tires you have. The Problem with Quattro is that the car will be able accelerate(plow) through snow on almost any set of tires, making the owner think that the car will stop and corner just as good. Unless you have the proper (winter) tires the car will corner and stop just like any other car, If you have summer tires the car will corner and stop a lot worse.

Yes, Quattro does not affect the amount of force req'd to push a car sideways because it does not increase lateral friction. But, unless I am in an accident or being hammered by a tornado, I can't imagine how this is of relevance. The fact is, if I am sliding in any direction for any reason, I am going to point the nose in the direction that I'd rather be going and hit the gas, and I'd rather have torque going to 4 wheels instead of 2.

Especially not so hot when you have worn them down a bit (like on one of mine....damn track events! :-) )<p>Steve S.<br>97 2.8QM<p>P.S. Erik...its not snowing in Montana is it?<br>

Seems to me the quattro caused the problem to begin with...created overconfidence in the driver's seat. How is it that Cameron put himself in the ditch, but the SUVs and two wheel drive cars stayed on the road? Quattro is nice, but no substitute for common sense and experience in winter conditions.<p>As for the parking brake...save it for the parking lot.

The quattro makes it all a big joke. The heated seats are absolutely decadent.

bt

Your posts are going everywhere!!! Pagan God of Forums sae us all!!!<p>It's bad enough that you're posting everywhere on your own, now we're getting you doubled. It's too much! :-))))))))<p>I hereby sacrifice my long-tailed cubicle rodent in pagan ritual and perform clik-clack dance to rid us of demons.<p>Todd W<br>Low Priest of www.nolife.bored

If it is still in good shape when it thaws out next spring, happy motoring. :0<p>Seriously, good recovery. Learn what went wrong, but you reacted well. I had a similar event a couple of years ago. I doubt that there is anything wrong with the car besides a few small scratches down low. If you're really paranoid, make sure that you didn't pierce a CV boot with a stick.<p>Don't count on keeping the car ten years, we all make mistakes and they often catch up with us. We make more when we're younger (I'm 26 and not out of it yet, if I'll ever be), and they're only picking on you because they know how they were at your age. You're probably a heckuva lot better than they were at your age, so there! :-)<p>Good Luck,<p>Todd W

<br>The snow/ice made this much less of a risk, but going off the road sideways into soft dirt/grass usually results in a rollover. A friend of mine learned this the hard way at a track event this fall. He didn't try to go off sideways, but that's what happened. The wheels dug in and caught. That said, depending on conditions I might take the risk of a rollover rather than take a tree head-on.<p>Todd W

He said he was overconfident about his tires, but that quattro let him recover his mistake. He said he was going slower, and I don't think the cop would have been sitting there if he had been the only one to go off the road there. Your comments are valid in general, but do not address what happened to Cameron.<p>Todd W

Down shift or something, but never leave it out of gear. I think if you got on the gas sooner you probably wouldn't have left the road. By pulling it out a gear was almost like disabling the quattro. Just how you drove your way out of the grass, you could have drove your way from even going in...<p>If that makes sense...

I know the stretch of highway well. I doubt the police presence had anything to do with road conditions...probably just the usual radar traps.<p>My point was this. To suggest that it is prudent to drop your car into neutral, pull the hand brake and slide sideways in order to set the car up for recovery is crazy. That is a stunt not well suited to heavily trafficked interstate highways. I merely suggested that the overconfidence in four wheel drive can lead to driving habits (perhaps a quick lane change?) that end up putting people into dangerous situations.<p>Spieks (1.8TQ with hand brake reserved for parking)

Somebody get me a hot cider, A stop at Williams Sonoma this eveing for Tea Kettle and free hot spiced cider. <p>Two birds one stone.

Rolled a Saab 900 going 60 by hitting some black ice and sliding into the center island sideways. Amazingly, no injuries, and car still drivable afterwards... But probably would have been cheaper to convert it to a convertable instead of repairing the roof...

Driving north on I35 just before Austin,TX at 5:00 AM. Downhill, black ice, bridge at the bottom of the hill with ice, several cars and trucks already in the ditches, three lanes wide northbound. Better half driving a rented Taurus SE. Car in front of us in left lane (Buick), hits brakes on the bridge, very STUPID. (We used to live in WI 9 years ago so we are familiar with icy roads). Anyhow, car spins, several rotations, into the ditch sideways, ROLLOVER. We saw several cars and trucks that morning do the same thing, some were lucky and didn't roll but busted tire beads from the rim giving them two flat tires on one side of the car. I wanted my quattro, but I also didn't want anyone to slide into it either.