Traction in wet conditions

although I have a feeling I'll have a different AMG by then

IMO, in summer's almost daily late afternoon heavy downpours on FL's highways, AWD's benefits far outweight extra maintenance cost, if any. I put almost 100K miles in 5years almost exclusively on I-75 between Tampa and Ft.Myers in my former A8 - $0 maintenance cost associated with Quattro (do not get me wrong, there were maintenance expenses and quite a bit - timing belt "service", brakes/rotors, etc., but none related to AWD). Quattro was bulletproof by the way - sold car a year ago exactly at this time. New owner put an other 10K trouble free miles since. He loves the car and works in sales for a local Mercedes dealer with a huge choice of pre-owned RWD cars, yet he chose AWD.
AWD with proper tires on a daily driven car is an ideal combination for most of the US (and all Canada), except those in mostly dry places like AZ, NV, So. CA, etc.
Last edited by threeMBs; Dec 21, 2011 at 01:00 PM.









