ive owned an audi and a subaru, driven a couple other audi's in snow, driven two other subaru's in snow, and drove a friends xc70 probably 10 times over the winter, and an awd v70 a couple times last year, both in snow almost every time. ive got a shit ton of experience with different awd systems.
both volvo's had snow tires, the xc70 had studded nokians, so had absolutely no excuse when it comes to tires.
volvo uses the haldex system, gen II and III depending on the year. gen II is terrible, gen III is an improvement in terms of response to a loss of traction, but still a very front biased system and only good for very "leisure" driving. depending on the haldex system, its fwd until it detects slippage, and even at that point remains heavily FWD biased. the gen II haldex needs something like 1/4 of a wheel turn to detect slippage before it reacts, its a lag that is very easy to feel. its meant to keep you safe, not perform.
subaru uses a viscous coupling, audi uses a torsen system. the torsen system is definitely superior to subaru's viscous coupling system, but subaru's system is still definitely a very capable AWD, its just not audi, nobody touches quattro (though audi does use different awd systems, i believe even a newer haldex gen 4 in some of their cars, but in their worthwhile cars, their real quattro system is superior)
and the haldex system has some BS traction control/stability control system that you CANNOT turn off (i think on some years/models you can disable part of the system, but you are still left with stability or traction control still on) and the system uses braking individual wheels to transfer torque, and keep the car straight. so it just feels very "controlled" this also really hurts the car in conditions where you need to just power through something and need some wheelspin.
every time you try to push the volvo hard, get a little oversteer, or get on the power hard in a corner, you get instant understeer, which makes complete sense when you have even a super basic understanding of the awd system it uses, you get to power, and instantly get a fwd like understeer, until the system reacts, then get the rear wheels working, and if you get a hint of O/S the individual wheel braking kills it and tries to keep you straight, sure you can rip the e-brake or really flick the crap out of the car and get some O/S, but you wont be powering through the corner, the car will limit power until it corrects the slide.
and my best example of the crap system is when i was driving my friends studded snow tire equipped xc70 up a little hill to my property in about 2 feet of snow, but had been driven on a couple times in another car to pack it down. i had driven it with my beater RWD car BUT with a LSD and snows, spun the tires probably the whole time up, but never got stuck, and didnt have to get much of a run at it. it took me 3 tries to get the volvo up, tried with a little bit of a run the first time, but rather than just powering through it, the car tried to brake individual wheels in an attempt to limit wheelspin, and pretty much just slowed down to a stop and got stuck. the thing literally just gave up. i only got up the 3rd try thanks to a massive run at it.
im not gonna argue the driver skill think like every other ken block wannabe on here, ill just say ive got tons of experience with this shit and if i can make it up in a rwd car, i think the driver can be left out of the equation.
im not a huge fan of subaru's awd either, from the subarus ive driven, ive found their balance seems to be pretty far to the understeer side, which is more due to the car itself rather than the awd, and take a lot of "throwing around" to get the things to rotate enough. audi's seem to just grip up at turn in and point where you want. and in terms of pure grip they kill everyone else.
