Wet snow

Had the same problem with my OBW AT on the same surface. I was taking a 90 degree left turn a bit too fast, plus the road sloped to the outside of the curve, so the rear end slid to the right. I just powered up slowly and it pulled out. I believe that VDC is made for this circumstance, but you lose out on straightaways due to the lack of the viscous limited slip diff.

AWD is tricky on turns. FWD is probably a little better in that the rear will just follow the front - eventually. In AWD the front is pulling, but the rear wants some say in the matter as well. I reasoned that the front had more say in the matter and adding a bit of power would fix the situation, and it did- but it took a few seconds. Worked out okay as no one else was to the right of me.

You know this reminds me heavily of RWD behaviour actually. These sort of oversteering dramatics were commonplace on RWD vehicles. So it looks like the RWD subpersonality of AWD asserting itself in these cases.

For me instead of applying power, what fixed it was to reduce power. Of course, I got the OBW MT, which behaves a bit differently to the OBW AT, since it has a different AWD system.

Yousuf Khan

With AWD you get both the behaviours of FWD and RWD at the same time (and to a smaller degree). In wet snow, turning a corner too hard under power will produce both understeer at the front wheels and oversteer at the rear. It will understeer less than FWD in the same situation, and the back will oversteer less than RWD in the same situation.

It IS a very different feeling having both ends of the car loose at the same time, but once you get used to it, really quite fun. Having the back rotate actually helps correct the front from understeer, and having the front understeer helps keep the back from getting too far out of line.

If I'm only mildly sliding, I find that simply holding the throttle steady offers the best recovery, as the car tends to recover itself nicely. The best thing to do though is to find a big empty parking lot and try different things so you're not surprised in real life.

Just don't eat yellow snow!

Empty parking lot practice is a good idea. All I need now is snow (Bucks County, PA)

Find a safe place to practice and slowly apply power in different slides. Perhaps accelerating slowly will transfer enough weight to the rear wheels to buy you some additional traction.

Provided you've got nice snow tires on there !

:^]

jw milwaukee

And don't go where the huskies go.......

news:2pnEb.13502$ snipped-for-privacy@news04.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com...

Hi, Whether there is snow or you have snow tires, rule #1 is adjust your driving to weather/road condition. Every year, on first snow fall, see this morons getting into dumb fender benders because they did not follow rule #1. Even an army tank can slide and get stuck on the road if driver does dumb thing. Tony

Alan wrote:

I set my cruise control to 140 during the first snow and passed everything on the road. new snow tires and a Subaru is the way to go . no slip no spin acceleration is almost like a dry road goodbye front wheel drive crap

:)))))

"al gu" wrote in news:jZuFb.3104$cW5.15434 @newscontent-01.sprint.ca:

You're just lucky. There seems to be confusion about what AWD/4WD can do for you. It certainly great for acceleration and traction in less than ideal conditions but it's not going to help you when you hit a patch of ice and need to stop in a hurry.

The braking is the worst part of it all. You better hope your anti-locks don't kick in some cases, otherwise, you might as well not even bother to brake. In snow, you really want the wheels to lock up so that a wedge of snow builds up under your tires.

Yousuf Khan