Article: Front vs Rear Wheel Drive
 

http://slate.msn.com/id/2081194

Haasman

What I have been feeling for years, this guy just put into a very convincing article. Growing up with rear wheel drive cars, I always disliked front wheel drive. On top of all the advantages stated, our Benzes, with the proper tires, loose nothing to the front wheel drives in the snow. :)

Guys,

I've concluded long ago that if you want to ENJOY your driving for more than just a quick blast round the block, you must have RWD.

The last thing you need in any car, and a sporty one in particular, is a handling characteristic that forces you to slow down in corners. Bizarrely, this is just what the majority of car manufacturers try to sell us.

Thankfully, the word is getting round.........I hear that even Honda are going RWD in an effort to win customers from C-class and BMW 3-series owners. Now if only they'd cure their addiction to revvy, undergeared, nonexistant torque engines, they could be onto a winner........

not better go in snow
 

I love my rear wheel drive, but face it we are no match for a front wheel drive car in the snow. I don’t care if you use monster mudders at all four wheels, you won’t be able to keep up with my wife’s front wheel drive Honda Accord if it snows. I grew up pitching and crossing my car whenever it snowed and I just love that felling, but for sure-footed go-power in the snow you have to admit that the front wheel drive cars can really do it better than our rear wheel drives. With good snow tires at all four wheels, my car is adequate for the 3 to 5 days of snow covered roads that we have in PA. I certainly wouldn’t advocate buying a front wheel drive or SUV, but I just think you are kidding yourself if you think rear wheel drive can match the front wheel drive in snow.

After growing up with both FWD/RWD and both Drag Racing and Road Racing both types of cars I am still undecided. BUT I do not really feel safe driving a 500 HP FWD over 170 mph! I would rather take the RWD for that job. Also for going faster than 10 sec Quarter Mile, I would rather take the RWD anyday!

For Auto-X I am would lean towards the FWD car. I have pulled off many FTD's in a FWD car that beat the pants off Prepared Porsches, BMWs and Datsun 510s/240z.

some aspects of FWD vs RWD were not covered in the article.

One of them is steering feel. Not talking about torque steer here, which was covered in the article.

with RWD, the front suspension and steering gear can be optimized for providing the best steering geometry and feel, with no drivetrain components to interfere with this. That is why BMWs have better steering feel than Audis.

without any driveline components, the front suspension of a RWD car has less unsprung mass than that of a FWD car, which translates into better frontend roadholding.

the turning circle of a RWD car is typically smaller than that of a FWD car, because the maximum angle that a FWD front wheel can turn is limited by either of 2 factors:
* the max angle of the CV joint
* the width of the engine/engine bay - FWD cars typically have transverse-mounted engines, which leaves less room in the wheel well for the wheel to turn, limiting its steering angle (check out the Volvo S80, with its transverse-mounted inline-6)

it is trickier to tune the suspension of a RWD car:
* to reduce understeer, one would tend to increase the stiffness of the REAR swaybar
* but ... increasing the stiffness of the rear swaybar can lead to loss of rear traction when power is applied in a turn

Maybe I am delusional and kidding myself about the RWD being as good in the snow as FWD, but it definately feels better to me, and I would be interested to see them conpared on a winding uphill road. :eek:

Did anybody miss the last part of the article:eek:...

More relief for the rich: BMW design chief Chris Bangle may have surrendered in his campaign to make BMWs live up to some hothouse avant-garde art text. Autoweek reports that Bangle's team has been desperately restyling the expensive new 7-series sedan, removing forced eccentricities like the weird "eyebrows" molded into the headlights. ... Gee, it seems like only a few months ago that Bangle was boasting in the NYT that this very sedan was "the first car of the century ... miles apart from anything that came before." ... And the 7-series isn't even the ugly one! That would be the disastrously "flame surfaced" Z4 sports car. It's the one that's "as big a jump in terms of aesthetic value systems as there was between an Eve before the fall... and an Eve after the fall," according to Bangle. ... [Wasn't this item also in kausfiles?-ed. Yes. Time-Warner/AOL wishes it had this kind of synergy.] ... 12:57 A.M.

Autoweek article

and let's not forget trailing throttle in a straight line
 

especially on hardpack snow or ice; the front wheel drive will tend to want to pivot/rotate around the front wheels, whereas the rear driver will tend to keep you straight (usually).

So, the owners of the MB 4-matics have the best of both worlds?

With the adoption of AWD by the various marques for their sedans and coupes (Porsche+Audi+VW, BMW, Subaru, Volvo, etc.) will this be the "way to go" for everyone?

I think that more and more cars will be all-wheel drive, but not all of them. With advent of viscus couplings and lighter drive componets, the weight and drag penalities are reduced.

But in my opinion, there is nothing like a rear wheel drive sedan for all out peformance driving..... but a four-wheel drive Porsche Carrera in the hills, in the snow or on a track is amazing!

Haasman

MTI Wrote:

So, the owners of the MB 4-matics have the best of both worlds?

Well, only if there is a constant torque-split of roughly 37:63 biased towards the rear (which there isn't)

Nobody (except FORD) have this system any more, which is why all all-wheel-drive cars handling is so depressingly dull.

On snow, pretty well ANY All-wheel-drive system gives you an advantage, but for rear-wheel-drive handling characteristics, you have to go for that torque split............

Jensen knew what they were doing back in '66......

jensen..wow!
 

PaulG, refresh my memory, did the jensen have a mopar 440 and a torsen drive system in the interceptor?

mithra wrote:

............refresh my memory, did the jensen have a mopar 440 and a torsen drive system in the interceptor?

_____________________reply_____________________

Well, my Interceptor has the mopar 440, but no four-wheel-drive. I decided not to go for the additional complication because it's one more thing to fix, and with decent tyres, it really doesn't need it.

The four-wheel-drive Interceptor was called the "FF" after the Ferguson Formula transfer box used. This thing is a work of art and (as I found out later) is pretty well bulletproof.

The major advantage over lesser 4WD systems is that it has a constant 37:63 torque-split front-to-rear. This, together with good weight distribution, preserves the rear-wheel-drive handling characteristics of the Interceptor. No other system does this which is why 4WD is usually synonymous with dull handling (like every Audi).

The FF used the earlier mopar 383 engine, because Jensen had a pile of them hanging around, the 440 never got attached to the FF unit on Factory cars. Many owners did it though.

The Torsen diff shuffles torque instantaneously to the end of the car which is trying to spin it's wheels, which is fine for off-road, but not if you are in a nice creamy 4-wheel drift around a slippery corner. You need the torque split to be constant in this situation.

The FF (Interceptor), also with ABS, was available from october 1966 and pre-dated the Audi Quattro by 15 years. Even then, the Audi had a crude 50:50 torque-split and no ABS untill several years later.

Jensen were responsible for many world "firsts", but the fact that the Interceptor stays resting in the garage and I drive the 320CE every day, tells you which car I prefer.

Oh, and a small matter of 9MPG :eek:

I have 2 RWD cars. Before this I owned FWD cars for years. The only time I miss the FWD is when I drive home from work after it's been snowing all day, and there's 6" of snow covering my driveway. There is no doubt that the FWD cars climbed my driveway better in the snow (under 5mph). Another advantage area would be starting from a stop on snowy/icey roads.

But that is where the FWD advantage starts and stops! Driving down a snow-covered road at 35 mph, the RWD wins hands down. The latteral handling is more stable, the steering is more reprecise, and the stopping is better.

Another "real-world" advantage to the RWD is that it forces me to get dedicated snow tires -- whereas when I had FWD cars, I always "got by" with all season radials.

I am a RWD convert -- I have seen the error of my wicked ways, and could never go back.

Jeff Pierce