Michael Kwok

Actually, I came back on the 29th....but been too busy.

I drove back from Toronto to Boston (normally a 9 hour drive??) in the middle of the two storms that rocked the east coast. My route took me from Toronto to Kingston, to Syracuse, onto Albany and to Boston. Toronto was also hit by another storm (what is it with me and storms lately,.....I've been in Chicago too long this month.....).

Anyways, the route out of Toronto was not too bad but it was slow....what is normally a two hour trip to Kingston now took hours. The stretch from Syracuse to Albany was the worst. No hero stories here. Visibility was about 15 feet at best with blowing snow at night. I never once got above 30 mph. Got right behind a tractor trailer who seemed to know what he was doing and followed him (big assumption...kept worrying that he would drive off a cliff). The quattro system kept me on the straight and narrow. The car, while it did slip and slide a bit, was always in control. I have always been impressed with Quattro, this trip only endeared the system more to me.

Along the way, I saw more jack-knifed tractor trailers then I can remember..... about 1/2 dozen Mercury Sables (and Fords counterpart) spun off the road, an equal number of rolled Jeep Grand Cherokes (and I do mean rolled....some of them did not look good at all) a wack of SUV's that either spun or rolled of the road.

This only goes onto prove that SUV's when not used proper only gets you deeper before you get into trouble. The false sense of security that many SUV drivers have is insane. Even though we have more traction than two wheel drive cars does not mean that we will always have traction all the time....

Spoke with a cop at one of the McDonalds and he said he had never seen the road so bad before. He was hoping that they would close the roads.....

The lesson, even though you have Quattro, drive safely.

Mike

drhaller

from Rochester, NY to Ottawa, ONT... back then I was in a POS rental car (Grand Am?) and boy did I have fun... lots of donuts, a gallon of coffee and the whole road to myself along with many upturned SUV's...

I followed a big rig for about 200 miles going around Lake Ontario... I think it is the view from 10 feet up, above the drifting snow, that helps. My speed doubled from about 20mph to about 40mph when I followed the big rig from a distance.

/dan

deresky2

What tires were you on - without real winter tires you were probably only saved by speed and lower roll center.

D.

SloopJohnB

Yeah, it's interesting how it's always a 4X4 in the ditch on the road to Aspen from Denver.

In my little POS Mazda Protege rental car (screaming 6200rpm second gear up the Eisenhower Tunnel approach....don'tcha love rental cars?) it was more stable than the 4X4's.

Of course, if there had been a foot of snow, neither the Mazda or the Audi at home would have made it. Both would have rode up on snow and spun whatever wheels/traction they had.

Michael Kwok

Stock...if I lived in an area with more snow...I would most definitely us snow shoes.