Just wondering about everyone's experience of a fab RS in the snow / ice,

My corolla was terrible last year when it was really bad around durham / newcastle but a friend who has the golf GT TDI aniversarie edition said his is appaulingly bad in the snow. Is this the same with the fab?

The torque will make a diesel bad to drive in slippy conditions. Just be very careful.

the ABS is a pain in the ass.... but the traction control comes in quite useful

I'm going to Austria in January skiing for 2 weeks, so ill let you all know do you think it is a good idea to turn off the traction control when using snowchains, and drive by good old instinct! I find the traction control throws you forward a bit when it comes on and gets a bit confused!

Should be great fun.

Had good fun in mine in January earlier this year when we had the freak snow storms. Didnt struggle in anyway, just took it steady with ASR turned off.

My leon was shocking in the snow :-o Not sure if its also down to the Eagle F1 tyres being bad in snow but I couldnt get onto my drive which is a shallow incline but the neighbours clio did it no worries...

What I need is some 135/90 R17 tyres:D to get the contact area down...

Found mine to be very "planted" in the snow. Drove into work a couple of years back after a goo dfew inches of snow, and it was quite happy to do 50mph along the A30 which wasn't salted, but had two good compacted "tracks" in it to stick in. Also, even crossing tracks to overtake peeps doing 5mph was surprisingly easy - it just seemed to move over, no fuss, no slippage. Just kept it in fifth gear as much as possible and plodded along around 1200rpm. Oh, and it never moaned about the conditions too.

However, when it comes to doing things like cornering it needed as much patience as most other cars - low revs, slow speed, and no sudden turns of the wheel, or tight turning.

Oh, and one compulsory thing to do is when you get to work and find a large expanse of virgin snow, its compulsory to floor it, yank the handbrake on and do a quick 540.

Reading the above posts - turn ASR off in snow - is that correct ?

Coming back from Birmingham on Sunday after noon the conditions were awful - heavy rain , road flooded in parts ( M6/A14 ) I left the ASR on - is that the best option ?

Going slowly in thickish snow in my last tdi was fine with ASR on. I found if I had faith in the ASR and just let it do its job it reins in the power nicely and worked really well on a tricky steep hill.

Doesnt work at all well if you keep coming off the power and trying to compensate for the wheel spin and then going back on the power as the ASR just seems to get confused.

Hopefully will be the same on the RS as have slightly more torque! :(

The torque will make a diesel bad to drive in slippy conditions. Just be very careful.

Can't really comment on the more 'high performance' diesels but when I ran an oil burner I always found it to be excellent in really bad snow. Into first or second and just let the engine pull you along. No need for the gas pedal and no wheel spin. Chug chug!

It's the idiots revving to 6k in first and standing still that generally mess up your travel plans.

Can't wait :eek:

The torque will make a diesel bad to drive in slippy conditions. Just be very careful.

The extra weight of the diesel engine over the front wheels will assist grip but won't be quite so helpful when it comes to cornering....

Like my old Beetles with the engine at the rear. I could get up any hill in Sheffield in the snow but going around a corner was a different matter...

Like my old Beetles with the engine at the rear. I could get up any hill in Sheffield in the snow but going around a corner was a different matter...

Ah the joys of Sheffield in the winter

Diesels are great in the snow. Just let the torque and the extra weight over the front wheels pull you along.

I found that I had better control though with the traction control switched off.

The traction control is crap. Turn it off in all situations IMO, it does nothing but hinder.