WINTER WARRIORS; Three all-wheel-drive luxury sedans weather the storms.(NEWS)

Byline: KEVIN A. WILSON

YOU CAN COUNT ON challenging weather during the Detroit auto show. This year didn't disappoint, with deeper snow and longer periods of near-zero temperatures than normal. Our misery was offset by back-to-back-to-back drives in three near-luxury sedans equipped with all-wheel drive.

Prices for the cars we sampleda Mercedes-Benz C300 4Matic, an Acura TL with SH-AWD and a Euro-spec Audi A4 TDI with quattrowere in the $40,000-to-$46,000 range, though we're estimating on the Audi, which is not yet for sale in the United States with the 3.0-liter V6 diesel. Our focus was on how they tackle winter.

First up was the Mercedes. Stuttgart opted for three open differentials working with four-wheel electronic traction control. It's a full-time system that normally directs 60 percent of engine torque to the rear wheels. It's lighter than most AWD approaches, which makes the C-class the lightest car in this trio. Since variations in wheelslip are detected and adjusted for primarily by electronics, the system also can react more quickly than clutches and locking diffs.

In practice, 4Matic is nearly transparent. Even on slick ice or through deep snow, no tugs are felt through the steering wheel, and you get no sense of the mechanical bits at play or of the car's balance shifting. It goes where you point it, enhanced by Sport-model handling features as part of the 4Matic model.

The one element of the Sport model that you can't get is the six-speed manual gearbox. The standard seven-speed automatic lets you choose gears manually at the wheel, and its comfort mode yields second-gear starts and shifts at lower rpm, which is what you want in bad weather.

If you stab the accelerator while turning, the rear wheels drift sideways but not very far before the stability control kicks in. If you grew up driving rear-drive cars in snow, this is predictable, balanced and comforting. We got out of the C-class thinking it might be the best snow car we'd ever driven.