RE: Winter driving
 

Well, his wife is wrong and right. If you are going into a turn at 60mph and you just downshift the car hard and try to flat foot it through a curve that is snow and ice covered, you are asking for trouble.

The key to winter driving is being aware and taking it easy. Driving in Tip is a great way to maintain control as the car won't make any unexpected shifts that could cause you to lose control...

For instance, my friend was driving his automatic Camaro in cold and wet conditions. He wasn't doing anything crazy, he just accelerated normally to avoid a merging car. The trans kicked down a gear and the sudden shock on the tires kicked them loose and put him in a spin.

Using Tip to prevent that and using engine braking as you are approaching a turn or stop is far better than simply using your brakes to slow the car down in the snow. The Audi basically has three safety systems to keep you on the road that all work through the ABS and throttle.

1. Traction Control - This keeps your car going straight under acceleration and will use the ABS and throttle to keep everything in order.

2. ABS - Keeps your brakes from locking up under hard braking. However, if you bury the brakes in the snow/ice it will still take a long time to stop and your car will slide towards the end of the stop as the ABS is ineffective at very low speeds.

3. ESP (stability control) - This keeps your car from spinning out. When your blasting through a corner and the car begins to oversteer, this system will use the brakes to keep your car from spinning out. The problem is that it will also push your car to understeer, which may not be the best thing, for example on a tight off-ramp.

However, as most everyone has said, the key to everything is good tires. The better your tires grip, the less you will need any of the above safety nets to keep you on the road.

RE: Winter driving
 

That's all I'm saying. We live in northern Vermont and are regularly in this situation where the slightest interruption between wheel and snow means you're off the road.

With a standard.. at least you can ease yourself into alower gearbuy having your rpm up before letting out on the clutch. These are the first automatics I've owned in a long time.

Now my point regarding the traction control, abs, esp...
I'll try another example. (I know I should quit..) Say you're driving at 130mph across a frozen lake. (Been itching to try that) You downshift into 2nd. What happens? All four tires have lost their grip and you're spinning like a top across a lake going 125mph for a very long distance. This is the one situation where the Audi does not have a control over your traction. They've got traction under acceleration covered with the traction control... and traction during braking covered with ABS... but for someoneaggresively 'braking' via downshifting, the traction is not monitored or assisted.

Sorry.. really just an observation more than anything else. Wife and I were driving along on a snowy road, already pushing it around a corner that leaned to the outside and she decided to drop the Tip one gear and I almost crapped myself. It got me thinking.

RE: Winter driving
 

Well, first off, the Tip won't let you drop it into second gear at 130mph, the over revving of the motor in that situation would pretty much grenade the engine and may take out some drivetrain while it's at it.

However, let's say you could do that. That is where the ESP (stability control) would step in. The shock of downshifting would break the tires loose. The car would begin to spin out. The ESP system would intervene and use the ABS to control the slide and right the car and keep it going straight.

The problem is that the system can be overwhelmed. Meaning, the force of what you are doingmay beso violent, the system cannot compensate fast enough. You would only get into that predicament under very unique conditions.

RE: Winter driving
 

1+^^^HAHAHA If anyone is planning on shifting to from 120 to second gear:
1. Has NO common sense or knowledge on how the drivetrain functions. TIPs have trouble dropping 30 into 1st!
2. Has a car that tops out at 350mph.
3. Shouldn't be allowed to turn the ignition.

My 2¢ ;)

RE: Winter driving
 

No car defies the laws of physics. Hypothetically, your car allowed to down shift to 2nd on 130 mph. Then what happens? Traction control? Nah... you just slide as your ESP light blinks to the high heavens until you hit a patch of rock, blow up an die. There is no electronics that would accomodate that kind of situation.

Also ESP is a funny animal. I spoke to a few Audi and BMW factory reps before. These are not your average sales person. They design these electronic stability systems. Anyways, some systems have built-in winter mode. Such as MB and Volvo and etc. Some don't. And do you know what they say? Contrary to the popular belief, if the condition gets really bad, they recommand that you actually turn off your ESP unless you have a spefic winter mode. Also if you have chains on, (sometimes even for a quattro, chains are required) they recommand that you turn off your ESP. Why? Because the system can't not deal with the wheels constantly spinning at different speed, and thinks that there is something wrong with your car.

ESP definitely helps, but it is not magic. Don't think that it will spin your car straight in all cases. It only helps to mitigate traction, and once you loose control of the car, ESP won't do jack.

RE: Winter driving
 

Ok now we're way off my initial intent... but how is the ESP going to use the brakes to keep my car straight when the tires are still only spinning 40 mph (because they're in 2nd gear)and my car is still travelling 125 mph? See? (let's say it's a standard)

And we're talking purely hypethetical guys...I know enough about cars.. and plenty about snow driving. I'm just trying to illustrate the real world stuff I drive in all the time... 55 mph on snow.. in a slight bend.. I'd rather use the brakes than tap the Tip down a gear. I can control the brakes much better.

RE: Winter driving
 

I completely disagree. you should not rely or even use downshifting to slow you down on ice because when using this it will slow you down with all 4 tires evenly at the same time which is not acceptable on icy road because your rear tires will lose traction before your front tires possibly causing you to lose control. This is the reason truckers do not use their JAKE brake on icy roads. While driving on icy roads it is far safer to threshold brake because60-90 percent of your stopping power is in your front wheels and your car is set up this way. Another thing....TC is only useful in accelerating, all it does is cause a rev limiter effect so yourwheels will not spin faster than you are traveling.I promise you it does nothing foryou in breaking situations, that is what ABSwas designedfor. So to answer your question your wifeis not right and willbe far safer not downshifting on icy roads. She should brake normally. Anybody that tells you different is wrong and should do a little more research themselves

RE: Winter driving
 

ungawa, to make it simple, if you are on a giant sheet of ice spinning at 125....your Fooked...with a capital F. No system is going to be able to compensate for that situation. In normal driving, the system generally applies the brakes to one wheel to pull the car out of the spin. It would do the same thing on the hypothetical ice sheet, but with no traction on any tire, it would pretty much just sit there and blink at you.

The system saved my bacon big time in my JettaGLIwhen I was going about 120 down the highway racing with my friend (this was when I was a little dumber than I am now) and I went through an old construction zone with dirt and pebbles all over the highway. The rear of the car kicked out and the ESP systemlit up like a Christmas treeand with the rear of the car wagging back and forth like a fish, the ESP finally got it to settle down. Normally there would've been no way for me to react fast enough and I would've rolled the car.

Also, as someone mentioned ESP is not necessarily the best thing to have on in the snow. My old A4 didn't have it and it was a peach to drive and let Quattro do its job especially in deep snow and ice. Sometimes you end up fighting the system as it tries to "correct" what is otherwise the right move at the time.

RE: Winter driving
 

You are confusing braking with accelerating or RACING. Of course it helped you out in that situation you werentDOWNSHIFTING through a corner on icy roads. It wouldnt have done a thing for youif your were on an icy corner, had recently downshifted and lost control

RE: Winter driving
 

I think you are confusing what ESP is. Just because Audi tied the TRACTION CONTROL and STABILITY CONTROL into the same button, does not mean that they don't both do different things. The traction control keeps my tires from spinning when I accelerate. Stability control keeps the car from spinning out. They are both turned on/off with the ESP button.

Stability control would help me on the icy road even if I am downshifting and braking. I was trying to illustrate how the system works outside of the context of our icy road/lake scenrio. I am not confusing braking with acceleration. ESP uses a gyro to sense the cars side to side motion. When it picks up that the car is going into oversteer or about to spin out, it applies the ABS system to regain control of the car. The system works regardless of which pedal you are pushing.

You could be accelerating hard and throw the car into a turn and it would try to right the car.

You could be braking hard into a turn and it would try to right the car.

You could just be coasting into a turn and it would try to right the car.

In the icy corner, it would try to keep the car from spinning out, how succesful it would be would depend on how much grip the tires have at that moment.