Hi all,

I have a question to ask about the quattro system, and why it is so beneficial, so i thought this would be a great place to pose such a question.

I realize that have power routed to all 4 wheels certainly allows quicker accelleration over normal 2 wheel drive vehicles. However, does quattro provide any benefit when cornering? I would think that lateral (cornering) forces are dictated by the sizeof the contact patch with the ground (i.e. your tires), and that a 4 wheel drive system would not increase traction at all. It would also not provide any advantage when braking, since all 4 wheels are being braked at the same time anyway. It seems the only (real) benefit is during accelleration?

Am i missing the boat here? Can someone explain this to me?

 

its all about the traction 4x4 do it better but only useful if you have the need like snow/mud/offroading, front wheel drive drags the car - rear wheel pushes it - 4x4 drags and pushes

 

vnv727 your right but quattro does help with brakeing,kinda, when you let off the gas in a quattro its pretty much the same as hitting the brakes, when it mid turn you can let off the gas, this will in turn be like hitting the brakes and causing a weight shift to the front, when this happens the car will generally understeer, get back on the gas alittle and you can easily and safely exit the turn or gas it completly and possible get the back end loose a bit, this is known as steering with the throttle.

 

Do cars equipped with Quattro have LSD? Any AWD car should have three differentials, correct? (front axle, rear axle, and driveshaft diff. between front and rear axles) Would each differential have LSD? I think this is the way the Evo's AWD is set up.

 

It helps every where, AWD cars are more stable, and help a lot in cornering, you can get on the gas quicker & harder thus making the car faster. With AWD if you lift a tire or loose traction on one wheel, you still have 3 putting the power down. It's also much harder to spin & peal out with AWD.

The downsides are more weight, lower MPG, more complexity.

I would NEVER buy an Audi that is now Quattro!

 

Quattro is one of the reason why Audi is known around the world.

 

quattro is the main reason its known around teh world.

 

Only one potential downside that I can see, and that's the fact that all those differentials, drive axles, etc, all consume power that is generated by the engine. It seems that the typical rule of thumb for comparison purposes is that a 2wd vehicle will consume less flywheel hp than an awd vehicle due to having fewer moving/rotating parts there to be moved/rotated, so in a 2wd car you're likely to have more of that engine power make it to the wheels than in the awd car. Where would that matter? Acceleration from a roll - when racing, the quattro's advantage is that it allows a stronger holeshot with a good driver, and the car has a good chance to jump out in front. On-the-roll racing will be more of a weak point with awd, as its traction advantage is negated, and it's eating more of its flywheel hp than the 2wd car would, and is thus putting less hp to the wheels where it's needed. Other than that, awd to me seems superior, and I've certainly become a believer in it, whether from a performance standpoint or just foul-weather confidence - overall, the disadvantage that I just talked about is more than compensated for by the competence in other areas that awd gives the car.

 

In relation to what UpstateNYA4 said, Quattro (or any AWD for that matter) will also get worse fuel economy than 2WD.

However, I would be more than happy to make that trade off.

 

this is kinda biased coming from me but when set up properly and with a good driver, a 2wd car (more RWD than FWD) will launch just as good as an AWD car. and actually from what ive seen, AWD cars have a harder time at the dragstrip because its so difficult to get the launch right where you want it. seems like they either bog way down or end up breaking stuff, kinda finicky in a way. if you can get it where you want it though ive seen same bad *** launches from some mean AWD cars. helps alot on the street too, where 2wd cars will just spin on the crappy road surface, an awd car just goes. good for stoplight to stoplight

to me, living in minnesota, the quattro AWD systems main attraction for me is the snow we get here, i cant wait to crawl through it with my car