When I was researching the car I didn't find a ton of info about winter driving so I thought I would add my first impressions. We had our first snowfall of the year yesterday so I had the opportunity to check a few things out.
Tires - The standard all-season low rolling resistance tires are not suited for even a small amount of snow. In comparison to other standard all-season there performance left a lot to be desired. If you live in a winter climate I would say snow tires are required with this car due to the stock tire selection. I had planned to get winter tires but I wanted the opportunity to at least try the all-season tires.
Heat - The heated windshield, heated seats etc all worked great and I enjoyed coming down to a pre-heated car at work before braving the elements. Yes, there was a noticeable decrease in KM's with everything on but since my commute is only 10KM I was not overly concerned. At this point I am not sure when the heat pump is active or not so I can't really comment. Note: all Canadian spec cars come with the heat pump and heated seats standard.
Wipers - The intermittent/rain sensing feature did a good job of speeding up the wipers when sitting at a light and slowing down once moving and snow blowing over the car. One thing I need to read up on is that the wipers sit so low between the windshield and the hood that you cannot lift them up very far to clean the windshield with brush or knock any accumulation off. You really shouldn't try as the wiper arms hits the hood. I had an old Audi A4 that had a menu item in the MMI to raise the wipers from the cowl due to this issue. i haven't tried shutting the car off in mid wipe (old school way) to see if they would stop. My guess is VW has programmed them to return to the base but I will check later.
DAP - I hadn't considered this one at all but it was certainly an annoyance. I have the parking feature set to automatic so anytime you are moving slowly it comes on by itself. There was snow sticking to the front bumper so anytime I was driving slowly (which was most of the time) the sensor kept triggering in the front. I wasn't going to dig through the menus to disable at that point so I just quickly did it using the button by the shifter -- but this is just temporary. Anyways, I hit that button a number of times on the way home! VW might want to think about updating the software so if someone disables it 5 or times in a span of 5 minutes to ask them if they want to disable until the car is turned off.
Braking - I really enjoyed using the D3 regen mode to slow down rather then use the physical brakes which can cause skidding etc. in the snow. With the snow resistance and D3, I almost didn't need to use the brakes at all. I may experiment with the B full regen mode tonight.
Any other questions let me know.
Edit: to include braking info and fix a typo
Tires - The standard all-season low rolling resistance tires are not suited for even a small amount of snow. In comparison to other standard all-season there performance left a lot to be desired. If you live in a winter climate I would say snow tires are required with this car due to the stock tire selection. I had planned to get winter tires but I wanted the opportunity to at least try the all-season tires.
Heat - The heated windshield, heated seats etc all worked great and I enjoyed coming down to a pre-heated car at work before braving the elements. Yes, there was a noticeable decrease in KM's with everything on but since my commute is only 10KM I was not overly concerned. At this point I am not sure when the heat pump is active or not so I can't really comment. Note: all Canadian spec cars come with the heat pump and heated seats standard.
Wipers - The intermittent/rain sensing feature did a good job of speeding up the wipers when sitting at a light and slowing down once moving and snow blowing over the car. One thing I need to read up on is that the wipers sit so low between the windshield and the hood that you cannot lift them up very far to clean the windshield with brush or knock any accumulation off. You really shouldn't try as the wiper arms hits the hood. I had an old Audi A4 that had a menu item in the MMI to raise the wipers from the cowl due to this issue. i haven't tried shutting the car off in mid wipe (old school way) to see if they would stop. My guess is VW has programmed them to return to the base but I will check later.
DAP - I hadn't considered this one at all but it was certainly an annoyance. I have the parking feature set to automatic so anytime you are moving slowly it comes on by itself. There was snow sticking to the front bumper so anytime I was driving slowly (which was most of the time) the sensor kept triggering in the front. I wasn't going to dig through the menus to disable at that point so I just quickly did it using the button by the shifter -- but this is just temporary. Anyways, I hit that button a number of times on the way home! VW might want to think about updating the software so if someone disables it 5 or times in a span of 5 minutes to ask them if they want to disable until the car is turned off.
Braking - I really enjoyed using the D3 regen mode to slow down rather then use the physical brakes which can cause skidding etc. in the snow. With the snow resistance and D3, I almost didn't need to use the brakes at all. I may experiment with the B full regen mode tonight.
Any other questions let me know.
Edit: to include braking info and fix a typo
