Go in the snow - an not connected; ESP
 

Two questions:

1) What are A8's like in the snow? Is there a noticeable advantage with the 4x4 or do the wide tyres make it a handful.

2) What difference does turning off the ESP make and in what situations would you want it off? What does it actually do?

I had no issues getting around last year in the Snow we had in Dorset (in the D2 at the time), the 4x4 helped no end and the car got places easily where others were struggling.

I left ESP on and let it do its thing, as you can just mash the pedal into the carpet to get traction and the 4x4 and ESP will sort it out.

My A8 was brilliant in the snow. You could just sail past other German cars and even most 4x4s while letting the traction control system do its thing.

Turning ESP off may only help in deep fluffy snow, and if you want to have some fun in an empty car park +++

^^ this.

I live/work in the Surrey Hills. My route to work is up a series of narrow, winding, hilly roads - work is a large former farm house in the middle of nowhere. I remember one year (in my old D2) where I was the ONLY member of staff who managed to get in. Driving up the hill near my destination I came across a jumble of BMWs, Mercs and a white van. All of whom were stuck half-way up the hill. I stopped to help a couple of 'em out of the ditch, then got back in the car and continued cruising regally up the hill whilst the rest of 'em struggled back down in barely-controlled slides. I saw the word 'b*st**d on the lips of a guy still struggling with his 7 series.. :ROFL:

Now I have the D3, I just leave ESP on and let the car sort it out. Just stay away from deep floods - you only have the ground clearance of a regular car and floods are bad for your 8 mmmmkay? ;)

I'd recommend some caution and not getting over-confident.

The quattro system is indeed brilliant at finding traction on snow.

However, the brakes are the same useless pile of ABS vibrating rubbish as any other car when you try to stop again, and because you had the grip and traction to getting going faster, you're gonna need even more time to stop!

Having said all that, as long as you take care with your braking and steering, then for sure, the quattro A8 will get to places other cars can't.

I did take all this account when I bought the M3, but decided in the end that in the 2-3 days a year I might need 4wd I'd either stay at home or hire one +++

And to add to all that - get winter tyres, then you won't even notice the snow. +++
Lots of narrow roads and hills round me and they work wonders.

Mind you, back in the days of skinny tyres I never had problems at all.

Sounds good. I only ask we now live on a hill so if/when we get snow I'm looking forward to it.

The question about ESP wasn't connected to the snow question btw. I genuinely want to know what it is/does and what difference does on or off make in regular driving?

I think of ESP as some jiggery pokey where the car will attempt to keep its self out of the scenery.
It has access to stuff you don't, like braking one wheel here to ensure traction elsewhere, in order to maintain direction of travel.
Having said that, on a track it can be dangerous to have the car trying to interpret your intentions, and getting it wrong.

The best place to find out what it does is on snow, with loads of space to slide into

In simple terms.

ASR/Traction Control - Designed to prevent wheelspin

ESP/ Stabiity Control - Designed to keep you travelling in the direction you are steering basically.

Very different, yet overlapping systems.

Turn off ESP if you want to be able to go sideways..... Otherwise, just leave it on +++

So if I want to parallel park into a tight gap I switch the ESP off and the car will move sideways into the gap? That's great - my wife will love that.

The trick seems to be to keep the power on more than you would a 2wd car. In the 2wd, if the driven wheels start to spin when say climbing a hill, you tend to ease off and try and match the wheel speed to the road speed and regain traction, but in the quattro it seems better to actually ease on the throttle a bit more if you detect a loss of traction. It seems you need a certain amount of power - albeit small - to 'lock' the centre diff and lifting off a bit seems to defeat that but your mileage may vary.

Agreed: great for getting you going and keeping you moving: not so good at helping you stop, especially on packed snow/ice where you're changing direction…:(. That's when the laws of physics tend to get the better of technology, and a very heavy '8 will tend to go straight on when you want it to turn!

Overall, I'd say it's great as long as you use common sense and don't assume it makes you invincible.

Also agreed - the combination of quattro and winter tyres makes it more likely that you'll keep the laws of physics at bay!. I lost a (summer) tyre and alloy three years ago to a kerb on a bend in snow, which was what converted me to winters, not had a problem since then :o.

agree with Tintin, changing direction & breaking on dense snow/ice will disappoint you, it will slide around like any car. I came into my road which was packed snow (maybe ice underneath) from the main road which was salted and mostly clear. ESP off, some bad tyres, and instead of slowing really down I went into my road as usual, it held through the turn so I felt confident, but then I tried to straighten out, slid sideways, turned steering wheel the other way, kept sliding, but then as it slowed down to about 5mph it gripped and straightened out. Perhaps it slid a bit less than a front wheel drive car, but it felt a bit hairy, came close to some parked cars.