Quattro clarification

[Brinyan]

I’m of a certain vintage, where the word Quattro instantly makes me visualise a 1980’s original, better still, a Sport Quattro.
My son’s friend has just got himself a 2004 S3. I pointed out the Quattro badge to him & continued to wax lyrical about the good old days etc etc.
He says his S3 is front wheel drive, with the rear wheels coming into play when the fronts loose grip….
Is this right? I thought/assumed any Audi with a Quattro badge was 4wd. The original was - wasn’t it??

[Dracoro]

Quattro can mean perm 4WD or Haldex AWD.

[Tarmack]

A3 size and below have haldex, bigger audis have the “proper” quattto

[CLK-GTR]

3s and below have the Haldex system which is FWD until the rear wheels are needed. The bigger cars have various types of permanent AWD.

The Haldex system can be defeated by two wheels losing traction whereas the 'real' quattro can still operate with only one wheel.

Edited by CLK-GTR on Tuesday 8th October 13:41

[Brinyan]

Thanks for clarifying.
I need to keep up…!

[seabod91]

You can buy haldex controllers which lets you play with the torque split and I believe lets you choose permanent AWD.

[BlackTails]

The real one is call Torsen IIRC. There are iterations of it (eg 50/50, 33/67 rear bias).

[CLK-GTR]

BlackTails said:

The real one is call Torsen IIRC. There are iterations of it (eg 50/50, 33/67 rear bias).

They've recent replaced Torsen with an in house version.

[budgie smuggler]

More recent versions of Haldex can send power to the back before the front loses traction.

[EC2]

budgie smuggler said:

More recent versions of Haldex can send power to the back before the front loses traction.

Mark II Haldex on the TT was always fun in snow as it reacted so slowly it turned the car into a RWD oversteer monster when it shifted the power.

[EC2]

CLK-GTR said:

BlackTails said:

The real one is call Torsen IIRC. There are iterations of it (eg 50/50, 33/67 rear bias).

They've recent replaced Torsen with an in house version.

Would be interested to know more about that. Back in the day I owned a long run of B5/B6 S4s and the torsen quattro was amazing. I sort of switched off when Audi announced that the B7 or B8 could disengage 4WD and run as FWD a lot of the time which removed the attractiveness of the system to me as it always performed better than the Haldex system on other Audis I have owned.

[CLK-GTR]

EC2 said:

Would be interested to know more about that. Back in the day I owned a long run of B5/B6 S4s and the torsen quattro was amazing. I sort of switched off when Audi announced that the B7 or B8 could disengage 4WD and run as FWD a lot of the time which removed the attractiveness of the system to me as it always performed better than the Haldex system on other Audis I have owned.

Description here:

https://www.audi-technology-portal.de/en/drivetrai...

[Dr G]

CLK-GTR said:

Description here:

https://www.audi-technology-portal.de/en/drivetrai...

That's only used in fast stuff. Quattro Ultra (used in normal A/Q cars) is different:

https://www.audiusa.com/us/web/en/inside-audi/inno...

[Walter Cash]

The original System was call quattro and certainly that continued into the early Haldex cars. Not sure while Audi didn’t use capital letter but was certainly frowned on if you did. Not sure if it’s the same with later models.

[VeeReihenmotor6]

I've regularly driven a Q2 quattro (Haldex, father's car), Q2 FWD (wife's car), A4 quattro (mine, assume it is the ultra version as it's a 2019 B9 A4) and a FWD A4 (B8 and B7 generation, previous cars of mine).

The haldex feels like front wheel drive most of the time and even in for example "booting it" out of wet junction it feels FWD dominant when you set off.

The A4 system, assume ultra for me, feels rear biased in a similar situations i.e. you feel like you're being pushed from the rear as a driver. It also feels rear biased when driving along in corners on, say a B road in a more spirated manner. I prefer the A4s system over the Haldex system in the Q2.