Snow Schmoe. was Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!!

[drew@dyermaker.cs.uoguelph.ca (drew)]

For the two winters that I had occasion to drive my Scirocco I found it to
be second only to my 83 Jetta for sure-footedness in snow, slush and ice.
I even have a shot of the car being buried in snow (24" snowfall, then
heavily drifted) and then I drove it out without doing anything more than
cleaning the windows off. Talk about a snowplow.

My 83 Jetta rocked in the snow though - 165/85 snow tires gave it extra
ground clearance, plus I had raised the back end about 1.5" which helped
keep the car from getting hung up in deep snow.  The 1.6D had enough
torque to pull through deep snow at low rpms so wheel slip was seldom a
problem.  My two previous A1 Jettas (both GLis) also performed veru well
in the snow. 

By comparison my 87 Jetta feels wont to slip and slide far easier than any
A1 I've driven, even with the same tires.

I commute through a notorious snowbelt, and for me the worst thing about
winter is the lack of visibilty.  Whiteout conditions in snowsqualls are
pretty common for us, and it's like having a sheet on your windshield.  It
doesn't matter how well the car handles when you can't see where to point
it.

Drew

On Fri, 6 Dec 2002, Mike Eldred wrote:

> 
> I'm with Ron, snow sucks.  It just means more back-breaking work to me.  (Why do I live in Vermont?)
> But Sciroccos, at least in my limited experience, seem to have pretty independent reactions to snow.  
> The first year I had my '86, I put new studded snowtires on it, thinking that would be good enough to get me back and forth to work.  It was only two or three miles, after all.  Well, I was wrong.  With even the slightest amount of snow on the road, that thing was ready to start sliding sideways out of control.  That year I adjusted my driving habits and times, and managed to get through the winter without crashing.
> The next year, I added a beater '82 Scirocco to the growing stable of VWs.  My wife thought I was an idiot.  My position was that it didn't matter if it slid off the road -it was a beater.  And I'd have some spare parts for the '86 if it did meet with disaster.
> Well, as usual, I was wrong again.  Even with the same tires and rims as I used on the '86 the year before, the '82 was like snow-cat.  I don't even feel the need to slow down in the snow -the '82 is as stable in the snow as any 4-wheel drive I've ever owned.  I find myself passing people driving SUVs (damn flat-landers!) who, judging from their snail-like pace and frantic braking, seem to feel like they're about to shoot off the road at any second. 
> Why are the two cars so different?  Beats me.  I think I've heard it said on this list before, though:  They were all different, right off the dealer's lot.  Apparently they still are, twenty years later.
> 
> -Mike Eldred
> Wilmington, VT
> '86 SummerRocco
> '82 WinterRocco

Drew MacPherson - '84 Wolfsburg Edition Scirocco TurboDiesel