OhBoyKittens

I have been unable to find, for either the new 2015 or previous marks, what front and rear differentials come on the base TT as stock. I chose to go with the TT vs the TTS because I'd rather have off the line power vs the ever so slight turbo lag. Anywho, my question more specifically is; Does the new 2015+ TT use open or LSD?

superswiss

The Haldex system found in the transverse platform cars such as the TT and all of its variants uses an open diff, no EDL in the rear and an open diff with EDL in the front.

Quattro (four-wheel-drive system) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

OhBoyKittens

so how does that effect the car should a wheel spin?

superswiss

If a front wheel spins, EDL will transfer torque to the other front wheel by applying the brakes to the spinning wheel. In theory, if both front wheels spin and one rear wheel spins, the car won't go anywhere, however, in practice due to limitations of EDL only one front wheel and one rear wheel needs to spin, for the car not to go anywhere.

OhBoyKittens

I guess I'm a little confused. I understand what your saying in regards to the wheel braking. My brother has an Evo X where the torque can go front to back and side to side.

So the TT has four wheel drive with brake actuated torque vectoring? How does that compare in regards to corner traction? I'm coming from a mazda mx5 with the same EDL but I think it's only the rear wheels that have it.

superswiss

No, the TT doesn't have torque vectoring as far as I know. EDL stands for Electronic Differential Lock. If one wheel on an axle looses all of its traction, then EDL kicks in to transfer torque to the other wheel. It doesn't do anything in cornering as long as you have traction.

The new RS3 I believe has torque vectoring along with a much more rear-biased tuning of the Haldex system.

OhBoyKittens

So what does the TT do in regards to front and rear power? is it always 50:50?

superswiss

Under normal conditions it's 97.5% to the front and 2.5% to the rear. That's actually explained in the wiki article I linked above.

The latest generation system in the current TT is more proactive and it shifts torque to the rear axle under acceleration and cornering, but never more than 50%. The previous generation systems were reactive and only shifted torque to the rear axle if the front lost traction.

The Haldex system is often criticized for being essentially a FWD drivetrain until the front axle looses traction and then it calls up help from the rear axle, but as I said this is no longer true in the latest gen system. It makes more use of the rear axle, but it's still very front-biased.

OhBoyKittens

I had an SRT6 crossfire that I traded for the mazda mx5. I wanted better handling than raw power. With the new 2016 TT coming up, how do you think the handling will be compared to the mx5? honestly... I really only care about corner traction, it's a heavier car but with awd will it stay planted during hard cornering or will it squeal like the srt6? The mx5 I can basically throw it into a corner, even a 90 degree turn and it doesn't cry.

superswiss

The MX5 is a RWD car, so it will oversteer at the limit and therefore be much more tossable around a corner and much easier to rotate. The TT being forward-bias will understeer at the limit. The new TT thanks to the proactive system less so than the previous TTs, but it will still understeer. I've driven an A3, which also has the latest gen Haldex system and it did a good job at rotating the car, but the FWD bias still shows when you start pushing it hard. As always, best is to give it a good test drive and see if you like it.

If handling is important to you I would look at the TTS as Audi tunes the Haldex system more aggressively in the S and RS versions.