Rear Wheel Drive VS Front
 

I live in a snow state and I have to say that front wheel drives are much safer in the snow than rear wheel drive. So, why aren't all vehicles manufactured with drive in the front instead of the back? Whats the reason? Pull versus push?

All vehicles? A pickup truck would not be so good with FWD if you carry loads. We put 200# of sand in the back during winter and its fine.

For regular sedans and minivans FWD is great. Bigger or more powerful cars need RWD because the front wheels can't handle it all.

space and cost is an issue.

would you like to work on a V8FWD car? no..

The dynamics of a FWD car - regardless of the weather condition - are much different than those of a RWD car. Personally, I can not stand how a FWD car drives.

Have you ever tried to drive a FWD car at the limit on a dry road? They are good in the snow (AWD is much better), but they suck in dry conditions.

I just read about the Fiat X-19, they used a FWD engine and put it in the middle; thought that was a smart solution. Later adopted by different low cost "sport cars" makers.

I prefer RWD cars.

Even in snow I prefer over steer to under steer so it's rear wheel drive for me.

Good video that goes over some of the differences and faults.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shwgNV36xFA


To answer your original question....front wheel drive seems to be for the average motorist and is supposedly easier to control. Rear wheel drive is for DRIVERS.

FWD cars just don't act right when you get to the limit. That's the main reason I won't buy one. I also find having the engine mounted longitudinally with the transmission behind it and the differential in the back makes for a package that's generally easier to work on.

the trouble with fwd is if you are on an icy road and happen to let off the gas a little too abruptly the front ene will lose traction. A good friend of my folks died by hitting a tree on an icy road. She lived in Michigan and was very experienced on ice and snow but this was her first fwd.

I prefer rwd in all circumstances except getting out of a parking space in deep snow.

I think RWD beats FWD in all ways, except 0-5mph in slippery conditions.
from 6-100mph I prefer RWD. Since I do most of my driving above 5 mph i will stick with RWD.

I have had 32 vehicles and only 2 were FWD, an 89 Tauraus and a 93 Saturn.
I didnt really care for either one, although both were reliable, low cost transportation.

Like many poll questions, this simple question can not be answered "yes", or "no".
FWD is better is some situations as mentioned above. The compact packaging makes for a more efficient layout in a smaller car.( Less space to drive line/ more space to passengers).

RWD is better in others--like all-out at the limits type of driving ( how many of us do that?), or for heavy payloads like a PU truck. Even worse would be towing a large trailer w/ FWD.

AWD is good in some circumstances.

All these factors must be balanced with cost and competition in the marketplace.
There is no single answer.

I passed every car on the road near here last Friday on a hill when it was a slippery slush coating on the road. I have snow tires. I was at the light next to a car with FWD, light goes green, I pull away (uphill) easily....they are back behind spinning their wheels.

The dynamics and feel of a RWD car are way better than a FWD. I've never had a single problem in the snow. In fact, the FWD cars I have driven in the snow sucked majorly....

heh, Delorean used an X-19 to test engines in the early stages of development.They shoved a Ford V6 in it and ended up blowing the transmission to pieces

FWD is usualy a bit better in the snow, I know I have a hard time getting up the hill to my house with anything RWD.

AWD is king though.

Personaly I'm willing to live with RWD in the snow because we don't get much snow where I live, and the 3 or 4 days a year it really sucks I can live with. The other 360 days RWD is great.

Pretty well put, although I wouldn't say FWD Sucks. For the average driver it's probably a push under normal conditions.
For people (US) that appreciate the abilities of the automobile, FWD does SUCK except when the snow hits.

I do greatly like the handling of my FWD/AWD Escape over the wifes RWD/4WD yeep. Although only a part of that is due to the FWD/AWD vs. RWD/4WD.
In fact I am still impressed with the Escape's handling at high speed / hard cornering.

BUT I really miss my 4SP (Manual) but I realize today an Automatic is many times better, except under the most unusual circumstances,

FWD's increased traction in the snow is all that would sway me, but it's not significantly better than the RWD and complexity is greatly increased with FWD. Our Honda Civic, great little car, FWD, does no better in the snow than the 240D. I haven't had the pleasure of driving AWD or 4WD in the snow.

I don't see any increase in complexity with FWD. In fact, in most cases FWD is less complex. There's no drive shaft and the attendant u-joints and bearing hangers, and the final drive is a much simpler spur gear rather than a hypoid bevel gear.
FWD in snow is great if the road is straight and flat. Negotiating an uphill corner while trying to maintain speed is very frustrating and the steeper the hill the more frustrating it gets.
FWD does make for more efficient packaging and lower weight and manufacturing costs.

Because the PRV had a whopping 55 more hp then what was in the early X19's: 130 VS 75HP, talking about sports cars,:D.

I believe that is the primary reason most inexpensive cars use FWD.

It's a very good reason too.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hugo90/2952061729/ This car was built to push employees cars stuck in the snow in the Oldsmobile company parking lot.

My grandfather bought a new Toronado when they were introduced. He hated it, sold it after 6 months and went back to driving caddies. I was kind of flaky for a 70s domestic car.

I really like the high HP 66-67s.

Depends on what you want to do,when i lived up north we used to have some really serious small sedan races on frozen lakes and any RWD car was totally useless.Corvairs had enough traction and would accelerate pretty well on ice but when they came to the turn, impossible! AWD is great to get around with but many drivers get in trouble with them in bad conditions because they drive so well but they dont STOP any better than FWD or RWD. Don

I think he had a '66. There was a funny story involving my dad and my uncle borrowing the car and getting it airborne for a significant distance.

I once read a pretty good article on pro-active AWD such as Audi vs a re-active AWD system found in many other cars. I will be damned if I can find the article now.

Our family's first front wheel drive car was a newish 1982 Chevy Celebrity with a 110 hp 2.8 liter V6. Fitted with 185/80-13 studded snow tires, this car could not be stopped in Winter. I could take it up narrow, snow-covered, s-curved residential side streets that would have left a RWD Impala or Bonneville fishtailing in the slush. Since 1991, I've driven FWD or 4WD and have no interest in looking back.

My SDL is my first RWD car. Given the cheepie tires that are on it my TDI easily out handles it. (Hey I bought it with the crappy tires... and annoyingly they still have a lot of tread left) I've gotten to really like how my Jetta drives... it's very predictable, and the understeer is fairly minimal IMHO. It pulls great around, and coming out of a corner. One of the benefits of having good tires ;) (The winter tires I have on it now have more grip in the dry then the all seasons on the SDL :rolleyes: ) I have yet to try and take the SDL around some quick corners, something I mean to correct this coming spring... Hopefully I can convince the guys running the next track day that the badge on the back stands for Sport DeLuxe :eek:

But... do any of our cars really have enough power to have RWD make a difference? :P

-J

My only experience with FWD is in a 92 Olds Cutlass Ciera and an 86 Chevy Citation.
All in non-snowing areas.
Both caused no extra problems due to the FWD with the exception that certain areas were extremely cramped to work in.
The main item I desliked was the larger turning circle when attempting a U-turn. More so with the Olds than the Citation.

Not my own; but, where I worked I changed the extremely hard to get at Water Pump on a Dodge Caravan. It required removing the Motor Mounting plate attached to a front Cover on the Engine and the removal of that Front Cover in order to get at the Water Pump. You also would have had to do the same thing to change the Timing Belt.

So if someone plans to buy a FWD vehicle I suggest you take a good look at the Engine and see how easy it might be to change parts that are common to wear out.

This is an interesting comment, because it shows how thing change with time. In the late 1950's and early 1960's there was a lot of debate about which was best. Two of the chief objections to FWD were complexity and cost. Another was the extra tire wear on the front. ( Remember 10,000 miles for a set of tires was the average life expectancy at that time.)

We take CV joints as pretty normal; back then they were cutting edge. Compared to a std U joint, CV joints are complex.

Cheap cars used front engine and RWD--Ford Falcon, Ply Valiant, Dodge Dart, and later the Chevy II. Chevy tried the novel approach of Rear Engine, RWD, and was blown off the sales charts by the humble, but reliable Falcon. Only some low volume "exotic" foreign cars used FWD, and they were not generally cheap.
Today, with the FWD technology well in hand, FWD has become the cheap solution.

I think whatever kinda car you have, it is good to have a set of winter tires instead of crappy all seasons if you get snow where you live.

Not the old diesels, and their suspension designs are too antiquated and too heavy to outhandle a lighter FWD car. Sure in their day they were good handlers for big sedans especially compared to the American junk, but nowadays, notsomuch.

I hate FWD. I miss the RWD in the 420. My FWD car way outhandles it though. I'll survive it.

Now what's really fun, is when the engine stalls. I had a Ford Tempo that stalled out about 4 times on me, all in the snow. First time was on the hiway. Somehow, I managed to shift into neutral (auto) and restart the engine. Another time, on a country road and I ended up in the ditch. A neighbor drove by and stopped. He couldn't do anything. 'What we really need', enter a Toyata 4X4 comes into sight, 'Yeah, that'. The Toy pulled me out. Another time in the ditch and somehow, I pulled it out. The really interesting time was I was creasting a hill. The engine quit. You have to figure, that basically, the drive train looks up. So in esence you are hard breaking in the snow. I am going down a hill, in the snow, 'breaks locked' and headed towards a bridge. I am turning left, then right, then left, trying to keep it pointed forward. Then the end swaps. I am going backwards across a bridge. On the other side is a drop off. I am basically out of control. Fortunately, I hit the concrete barrier of the side of the bridge. So, that stops me. No real damage done. I restart the car and drive on.
I remeber something simular with an '78 Civic. It was in 4-6 inches of s now. I hit a chunk, and the car got out of control. I am goig 45 degrees down the two lane state road. Furtunately, no traffic is coming. I turn the wheels to the right as far as I can. Then the car just snapped back to going striaght. It was still running. Both of those cars were real beaters, though.
I have had my '75 Bricklin out in the snow a few times. On was Thanksgiving in Tulsa OK, about '88. I have been invited to dinner across town. There was an inch or two on the road. The Brick handled OK in the snow, just couldn't giving it the gas or the tail end would kick out. For a RWD it is balanced almost 50%/50%.
I also have a Jeep Comanche. It is/was 2wd. I think it handles as well as either of my FWD Contours. I am planning to install a Dana 300 Transfer case. That way I will have FWD, RWD and 4WD, plus Hi-Lo in each of those. Ford had a rally car in the late 80's, the SR2000, I think. It was suppose to be an Escort based vehicle or related. I think more for image or sales and possilbe (h)omoligation ( the O in GTO). It too had Fwd, Rwd and Awd. Supossivly, all of them had applications in different terain in Ralley type of racing. The last one I saw for sale was about $125K, a few years back.
Tom

the FWD vs RWD debate will continue.......however, when it comes to snow and ice conditions, I think a Subaru just might be king of the hill. years
ago I lived in the Northeast and had to make an emergency trip in "snow blind" conditions. the Subaru station wagon I was in "floated" on top of the snow which allowed me to navigate roads other cars could not.

I've thrown two or three sand bags from Lowes in the trunk of a 300D and navigated some very iced up roads in the north east.

Husky - I shared your opinion on Subies for winter handling too...until I got my GL. This thing is like a bloody tank. :D I've driven it through some nasty winter blizzards this year and it shrugged it all off. I've got Bridgestone Blizzak DM-V1 snow tires on it. It just tracks through anything and doesn't lose its grip. It is definitely the most confidence-inspiring vehicle I have driven in tough winter conditions.

Ditto Don's remark on stopping! The GL is almost too easy to drive in the winter. I've caught myself going too fast a few times and then you have to remember to leave enough room to stop - at which point FWD, RWD or AWD means squat and it's down to brakes and tires.

For the summer though, it's RWD for me please. ;)

I assume we are talking mercedes GL here? if so, do you have the gas or the diesel? I've checked them out at the dealer and they look very very nice.

Yep, in my sig below, the GL450 (gas). I really like the diesel option, and would have bought it if available at the time. The only drawback to the GL thus far has been gas mileage, which isn't great - although more than acceptable for such a large, heavy vehicle with 300+ hp.

I love this vehicle, it's awesome. Tows our boat with ease. Lots of room for the kids and gear. Great in winter. Has every option you can think of (Bluetooth integation for phones is particularly useful, we have a cellphone ban while driving in Ontario, can only use hands-free, which I support).

So, no real negatives for me thus far.

sounds like a real nice ride. as far as gas mileage, sometimes we put up with that to drive a luxury car or SUV. I wish benz would come out with
a GL with a more powerful diesel than the current offering. but, it looks
like that might be a while.........

Yeah, I would guess you're right on that one. There is always the Audi Q7 V12 diesel...;)

Heavy vehicals tend to do pretty good in the snow. I guess the weight helps to give the tires a better bite.

My truck is great in the snow, compared to say the Golf I was driving last year. The Golf was to light and was thrown around on crap roads, where as the truck just plows right through.

I think part of the problem is emission requirements for diesels in the 50 states. I recently spoke with a diesel shop and they told me some of the new "clean diesel" injectors are utilizing five cycles versus one. this makes for a far more complex injector pump which is more prone to failure. they said they regularly see injector pump failures at the 100,000 to 120,000 mile mark. with more complexity comes more failures. of course that makes a lot more $$$$ for those in the "fix and repair" biz.

Diesels cost to much. Price out a diesel 3 series and a gas one and tell me that the diesel makes sense.

The diesel costs so much more than the gas car that you would probably have to drive 100k miles before you see a payback. More so since modern gas engines require less maintence than a diesel, and get pretty darn good fuel mileage.