When it snowed here in DC area last time, had lot of fun driving my quattro. Amazed by<br>my car's performance on snow while others were skidding. I was almost shouting<br>"Guys..go get A4q". :-) I drove 60+ miles that day while office is just 4 miles away from home.<p>But this time I have a little different story. Today morning one of my friend woke me up<br>and asked me if I am going to office. Promised him a ride to office obviously with a<br>feeling that *Quattro rules*. Just after I took my car onto road had a miserable skid and<br>went out of control. I was not overconfident with quattro. i was actually very careful.<br>wasn't on gas pedal when hydroplaning started. I was perpendicular to 2 lane road and<br>doing all sorts of feats. Finally decided to hit the curb to stop it. rest of the ride to office<br>was good. I was only worried if I made any scratches to my baby. <p>Here is my question finally. Is there any possibility that there is a problem with my car?<br>My car does fine on dry roads. no alignment problem after hitting to curb. the reason I<br>am doubting is, any car with an ABS may have taken the same turn. <p>Regards <br>pp 98 a4 1.8tq

No matter how good quattro is, when you loose traction on all 4 wheels it's out of controll time.<br>Hope you didn't ding it up too much - good luck.

If you are braking, or in neutral, quattro is totally useless. 100%. Does nothing. After all, how could it?<p>The benefit of all wheel drive (or 4 wheel drive, same for both) is that all 4 wheels can pull you out of trouble. But in order to get this to happen, you have to step on the gas (or maybe at least be in gear, but definitely to a lesser extent). Many people have commented, and I have found (albeit only when skidding due to autocrossing rather than snow/ice/rain) that the best way to get out of skid in quattro is to hit the gas. The car will pull straight ahead and get you back in control faster than you'd imagine. Even more so than normal, fear is your enemy in a quattro.

Should i hit gas to come out of trouble?? Man my whole formula self acquired thru web is wrong!!. when i was skidding i was telling my self only one thing no gas and no brake, try to get it straight onto road. <p>I made three 180 degree turns perpendicular to driveway. whole bunch of cars were watching me from behind. thanks to all of em for stopping.<p>i was really scared and driving very slow after that. one hr back had a honk from a pick-up truck guy (do i have to say 4x4) while going slow in a slow lane.:-))<p>got to go out for dinner...<p>Prat

i was in second gear around 15mph.

How does this technically help?? why does quattro needs us accelarating while hydroplaning?<p>Is there any driving school that u guys aware of that I can attend to know more about snow driving??<p>- prat<br>98 1.8tq

If there is even the slightest tugging on your steering wheel, get it checked now, before you destroy your rubber. Incidentally, one of the all-time quattro experts (Swede whose name begins with K) says you "declutch" when losing traction through a curve. I read it at Quattro Club or Quattro List, I think. Remember torque is the M3's enemy on a snowy day, and 4 driven wheels of torque ain't necessarily the solution.

Tonight I took my A4q to the snow covered (about 4 inches) parking lot of the local high school and "played" for about 30 minutes.<p>Accelerating definitely pulls the car out of slides and skids. A couple of times I would come off of the accelerator in the midst of a deep turning manuever and the tires (205/55-16 Nokian Hak 1s) would just break fre and the car would spin out. Whereas if I stayed on the gas, the car kept "pulling" through the turn. Obviously if the g's got too high, not even the quattro could keep traction but I was amazed at how well the car could pull through turns.<p>To answer your question, accelerating helps the quatro system "bite" for traction it situations where the tires might otherwise just go into a slide. Not very technical but just my $.02.<p>Chris

Please get SNOW tires and GO TO A WINTER DRIVING SCHOOL before you hurt someone!

I definitely agree about using power to pull the car through turns...and about the need to practice the maneuver. There is a point at which you can get all four wheels spinning. Back off just a bit from this point and the Q pulls you back into line.<br>

Thanks for the suggestion. i don't think i want to spend any money on snow tires for a 4 mile commuting. it snows once or twice in a year here.<br>I think i did my part by buying a 4 wheel drive car. I am sure this is safer compared to fwd/rwd car with/with out an ABS. I am not being threat to anybody's life here. Can you guarantee me that a car with snow tires will not skid???<p>I have been trying to attend a winter driving school since long time. I would really appreciate if you can suggest me any such school around D.C.<p><br>regards<br>Prat - 98 a4 1.8TQ

Bridgestone conducts one in the winter at Steamboat Springs Colorado...north west of Denver about 2 hours. I have had friends go there.<p>Audi has one themselves, in Austria. Kinda far to go though. Probably REAL good. I<br>have friends that have gone to this one as well.<p>Steve S<br>97 2.8QM

Went to the Bridgestone class last year - OUTSTANDING. They use all Ford products (to my knowledge) where they used to use BMW's. But I digress. Excellent school which teaches the dynamics of winter driving with and without ABS, with and without 4 wheel drive, etc.<p>I fooled around in rented Ford Explorer before the class, but ended up with two wheels in the snow and had to be pulled out.<p>-josh

Prat,<br>You might want to check out quattroclubusa.org<br>they might be able to steer you in the right direction, hahaha! Don't forget snow tires have a special compound designed for cold weather and if you only drive 8 miles a day the tires would last about 10 years! I don't think a $400 investment is alot of money! You just spent about $25000+ on your car, afterall thats less than 2%! Good luck.<p>Mika<br>

Hi Mika,<p>Thanks again for ur reply. I am already a member of quattroclub. got to check out why i haven't received my latest Quattro mag.<p>$400 is not a huge investment on a 29k car esp. when it is a necessity. it's only a matter of priorities. i wasn't sure if i wanted to spend $xxx first where I may not use it for the whole year. but now i decided to buy winter tires, so that i can commute more than 8 miles even if it snows and can have weekend trips to NJ. :-)) Alreday did lot of research (rather searching - my neck pains looking at this pc) and bent towards buying Pirelli 210 Assymetric. <p>only problem is, i read somewhere that 195/65R15 is the correct size for 1.8T, but i don't find this anywhere. the available sizes are 195/50R15 and 195/55R15. anyway i will figure this out and hopefully buy them in a week.<p>thanks to all those who replied to my post.<p>Prat - 98 A4 1.8TQ

with a Garrett chip and swap ECUs. They're very easy to take out(well except for that screw in the back). Then you can try before buy.

aren't exactly compatible, so he might not be able to switch out those two chips. As fo the chips, I think it stands to reason he would surely feel the difference between an .8 bar chip (anybody's) and a 1.5 bar chip. It's a question of does he want to mess with a good thing, spend the money for Garret's new chip, deal with the pinging risk (especially on California gas) and take on more wear and tear on his car's mechanicals from the higher boost chip.

BDW '99 1.8Tqms (Wett 1.0 bar, K&N)

It is affectionately called Stage 1.5, as it is a hybrid of the old Stage 1 and 2. Still 1.0 bar and no problems with California gas.
We have a specific socket that will work with the Wett pins. Simply unplug the Wett socket and plug in the Garrett socket. We did not have a Wett type socket when Andy was in for service.
We also have a money back guarantee on the Garrett chip.

Todd
Air & Water
www.awe-tuning.com