Cautionary tale

[alg]

Went out to the car this morning. Cool night so did not think too much about the 'soft looking' rear tyre. Drove to work 30mins up to 70ish (too much traffic). No problems.
Drove home, up to 90ish and decided to check the tyre pressures. I had remembered that tyre. Two garages and I could not get the tyre to inflate.........very flat.
Drove home slow and pumped it up having jacked the car up..yes that flat.
Took the car to the nearest 'non kwickfit' tyre shop. Checked tyre and air leak appeared to be from rim (need refurb).
Removed the tyre to reseal and to our horror the bead had disintegrated with two handfulls of rubber debris inside. The result of driving at speed with a flat.
Really proves how safe the quattro is IMHO! Given if this had been a RWD 300+ bhp car I would have had major handling issues. I could feel the back end was not right but no major handling issues on a rapid ride home with a flat self destructing rear tyre.
So to the audi quattro again !!

[quattroTurbo]

You can thank negative off-set geometry - pioneered by VAG.

[A1QSHIP]

You can thank negative off-set geometry - pioneered by VAG.

Um... not to take anything away from VAG but I learned about negative offset in a BMW training class on the "new" 7-series introduction. In 1979 mind you .

[mcandmar]

I got a flat tyre on the front left of my car a while back, was doing 80-90mph down twisty backroads and i thought it felt a little odd, i could feel more of the road surface than normal. Thought it was strange but continued on anyway. Half an hour later i started thinking it might be pulling to the left slightly, probobly just the camber on the road and kept going. Only when i got near home and was braking down to 40mph the steering started getting heavy and i knew something was up, pulled over and sure enough completly flat tyre. I was amazed how little it effected the car, to think i drove for the best part of an hour over 80mph with a flat! Tyre was a bin job though as it got very hot.

Mark.

P.S. ....thats also when i discovered my spare wheel is off a Ford mondeo and wont fit over the front brake calipers Everybody check your spare, you never know what surprise is waiting for you.

[Bibby]

What spare?

[Fat Audi 80]

I got a flat tyre on the front left of my car a while back, was doing 80-90mph down twisty backroads and i thought it felt a little odd, i could feel more of the road surface than normal. Thought it was strange but continued on anyway. Half an hour later i started thinking it might be pulling to the left slightly, probobly just the camber on the road and kept going. Only when i got near home and was braking down to 40mph the steering started getting heavy and i knew something was up, pulled over and sure enough completly flat tyre. I was amazed how little it effected the car, to think i drove for the best part of an hour over 80mph with a flat! Tyre was a bin job though as it got very hot.

Mark.

P.S. ....thats also when i discovered my spare wheel is off a Ford mondeo and wont fit over the front brake calipers Everybody check your spare, you never know what surprise is waiting for you.

Its funny you say that! I went to change the wheel on my wife's newly aquired A80 sport and the spare was the same style never used, cause it had 5 holes not four...

[quattroTurbo]

Negative off-set geometry was introduced on production cars with the 1972 Audi 80, then 1973 Audi 50/Polo, 1974 Passat etc...

[A1QSHIP]

Negative off-set geometry was introduced on production cars with the 1972 Audi 80, then 1973 Audi 50/Polo, 1974 Passat etc...

OK Thannks for the history lesson Whenever a manufacture comes up with a new way of doing something it is sometimes presented as if they were the ones to have invented it.