Barrels41

I don't recommend the DWS. I go to VT occasionally. I suggest a performance winter tire. Not an all-season. I put DWS's on my wife's 2007 A4 3.2. OK for her city/suburbs driving. Too soft and squiggly for me. Prone to sidewall blow-out too.

I procrastinated last winter and bought a Goodyear. Ultra grip?? Only because the Performance winter Blizzaks were sold out. I did not want the Blizzak studless ice & snow for 95% dry or wet roads. The Goodyear were excellent anyway.

Look at the S4 forum for better tips. Those guys all have the 18" or 19" summer tires as OEM.

The P7 is a great summer tire. Don't blow one they are $350 each.

Someone told be a warm and wet winter is coming. El Nino or whatever.

JD15

I kept all-seasons on my previous car with FWD during winters in VT and Illinois and never had serious issues, so I think the winter performance of the DWS should be sufficient. I'm not a skier and normally don't drive on unplowed roads.

I'm going with a high-performance A/S tire with good winter characteristics due to the highly variable nature of the spring in this area; between March and May, it can be in the 60s one day and snow the next, so I would prefer an A/S tire for the 90% chance that the roads will be clear and relatively warm. Anyway, I have the DWS sitting in my basement, so it's a moot point. Hopefully, I'll have a good experience with them; from what I've read online, it seems like about 2/3 of people love the tires and 1/3 strongly dislike them.

jperryrocks

I'm not sure why AUDI even puts those P7's on there.

They are very difficult to find at times should you have a blowout to match originals.

And even on tire rack - 1 tire is $365. Ouch!

mart242

Once the tires wear down quite a bit, it doesn't really matter anyways because if you blow one tire you'll have to replace all 4 otherwise it's too hard on the differential (with the quattro)

Barrels41

I drove my A4 on a horrible snowy icy night from Brattelboro to Mt. Snow last winter. The performance winter Goodyears were superior to any all season. An studless ice snow tire would be even better. You drive the all seasons during all seasons and soon you don't have enough tread for winter traction. And the tread compound for winter tires is better in the cold.

If you are a skier or snowy climate commuter winter tires are the way to go.

JD15

That actually isn't correct in at least some circumstances. Winter tires are better than summer tires during cold, dry weather, but A/S are better than both. C&D had a winter performance comparison last year and both of the A/S tires outperformed performance and standard winter tires when it was cold and dry.

http://www.caranddriver.com/features...mparison_tests

equ

Silly trying to avoid winter tires in VT (esp. after forking over 40k for transportation). New generation tires such as dunlop wintersport 3d, blizzak lm25/lm60 or the michelin pilot alpin pa3 (and I've owned two of these three so not making stuff up) are close to all-seasons in cold dry & wet and simply incomparable on the white or slushy stuff. In fact, my pa3's feel better than most all-seasons, very summery feeling tire in the dry.