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On Sat, 14 Nov 1998, Toby Basiliko wrote: + + Bugs love ditches, tho, while I never ditched the Sube. Think about + it- the weight on the bug was on the non-steering end, so when the light + end loses traction, you lose steering. In other words, you slide into + the ditch! The Sube, tho, could pull out of just about anything that + wasn't ice, since its steering end was also its heavy end. And therein lies the flaw. In cornering, your tires are trying to do two things: drive the car, and turn it. So a fraction of the tire's total traction is used for each function. In a front-wheel drive, you're asking the front wheels to do most of both of these things, whereas in a rear-driver, one pair is driving significantly more than it is turning, and the total force they can exert before reaching 100% of their traction potentials is greater. As for the light end losing traction first, this is quite tunable. My beetle (haven't driven the square in the snow yet) is balanced enough that it will happily four-wheel-drift, or add traction to whichever end I prefer with judicious manipulation of the throttle pedal. Tire choice is also paramount. Look for an open tread with tapered blocks, and as much siping as possible. I have some very serious winter tires, (Nokian's Hakkapeliitta NR09, if you care) and can beat my family's Jeep Grand Cherokee up a forestry road by an impressive margin. For excellent treatises on driving in the seriously slippery stuff, and on the front-versus-rear drive things, read Vic Elford's book, "Porsche High-performance Driving", or hit the Physics Of Racing series at http://reality.sgi.com/employees/rck/PhOR/ -- Geoff Melnychuk -=-=-=- http://www.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~geoffrey _-~-_-~-_-~-\ | gpmelnyc@acs.ucalgary.ca Volkswagen-driving, Beagle-dog-hugging, | | geoffrey@cpsc.ucalgary.ca Bass-playing, Beer-brewing, Lurking nerd. | \._.^`'~*-,._.^`'~*-,._.^`'~*-,._.^`'~*-,._.^`'~*-,._.^`'~*-,._.^`fnord._./ ------------------------------------------------------------------- Search old messages on the Web! Visit http://www.vwtype3.org/list/