I have a FWD, its fine for me, in fact i'm really digging it, but im also concerned about the environment in general and my leaders creating wars for our christmas lights, SUV's and driving habits, so i wanted a FWD. Plus, i didn't get what a AWD could do for me accept in the snow/ice/rain. But i would defer to an experienced performance enthusiast to get a real answer to your question about the real difference between the two.

 

And the quattro's weigh more w/ the AWD systems, but its worth it. I'd give up a little speed any day for the handling you pick up w/ quattro, especially when you lower it and get some wide-*** tires.

 

A friend of mine put it nicely once.

When I was shopping for cars, he said he'd come take a look at an A4 that seemed like a good deal. All I had to do was call the guy to double check everything. It turned out to be FWD, so I declined. It was a good thing I called, because he lived an hour away.

After I told this to the friend that was coming along, he said to me, "I think we should go anyway, just to kick his *** for driving a FWD Audi."

I laughed.

 

^^^ Good ****..lol...

 

The grip advantage of AWD is very, very simple. When accelerating, especially out of a turn or hard launches, all of the burden of gripping the road falls upon your tires. If you have 2WD, then two tires have to split the engine torque and try to get it to the ground. If you have four powered wheels, the load is split four ways, you have half as much power going to each wheel. That's the advantage of AWD. I refrained from saying "Handling" because since the A4s are front heavy, they'll understeer anyway. Common misconception is that RWD cars inherently oversteer at the limit. Not true. The difference is that you can, with throttle application, make them oversteer to correct/cancel out understeer, which is losing grip at the front before the rear-- generally boring and safe for novice drivers, but also uncorrectable for experienced ones. In snow, if you understeer before you oversteer, a good driver can't correct the understeer slide with countersteer or throttle modulation. An oversteering slide is correctable in more than one way.

Don't buy a FWD Audi. You might as well buy an electric guitar without an amp.

 

well i live in arkansas so im not too worried about harsh weather. i have a fwd audi, so what, im very happy with it. sure they awds handle better than the fwd, my mine handles very very well for a fwd car. on the twisty roads, its excellent. if u take a stock fwd manual a4 and a stock awd manual a4, i would smoke the awd off the line. but i dont agree with the whole part about "Don't buy a FWD Audi. You might as well buy an electric guitar without an amp." but ya there are times when i was like, o, i wish i had awd, but thats rather rare. it nevers bothers me that i dont have a quattro a4, but i plan on exceeding 220 hp so i dont see what the problem is there.

 

i dont understand your electric guitar metephor... ?.... The problem with exceeding 220hp is putting all the power to the ground and keeping traction at certain points throughout the power band.. Its not as much the hp as it is the tq which is gunna restrict you with fwd i think.. Not a HUGE problem, but at that point an awd is going to kill you off the line. Maybe its just my crappy summer tires in this cold weather but i cant give it more than half throtle off the line without losing traction. I forget what the traction is like with my tires in the summer, deffinately better than winter though.

 

are u talking to me about the metaphor or yuikio well what would this do to my car- http://www.supremepowerparts.com/app...T.aspx/0/4879/

 

a while ago someone posted a article from a magazine...they test drove both cars....quattro and 2wd.....almost no difference.... the 2wd was faster on a straight line.....and kept with the quattro on curve...except when they tested on a snow road....the quattro kicks ***...anybody remenber that?? (sorry for my poor english)

 

yes i do infact i was about to say that. all you guys who say the AWD handles better is wrong they were both tested everything matched up exactly the same the only difference was on snow/ice obviously the AWD will handle better. Another thing is that the FWD beat the AWD on the straight line test since it weighs less. So if ur gonna be driving on snow get the AWD but if not then it makes no difference until u get into the higher HP/TQ range which will allow the AWD to stick better from a stop.