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All About Front-, Rear-, Four-Wheel and All-Wheel Drive
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All About Front-, Rear-, Four-Wheel and All-Wheel Drive
Everything you need to know about how all-wheel, four-wheel, front-wheel and rear-wheel drives work, and which is best for you.
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Super Handling AWD is Honda's performance AWD. It uses torque vectoring to eliminate understeer when pushing the car past its limits, and can send full torque to either of the rear wheels (or both), like the VTM-4 system, but SH-AWD does so at higher speeds.
While none of these systems are designed for offroading, the VTM-4 and the SH-AWD are the most capable systems for hill starts and worse than level road bad weather. The RealTime system is useless, as is any car with a similar front wheel drive + viscous clutch to rear setup.
These two sentences have me confused. It seems like FWD would be less complex than RWD because it lacks the driveshaft and rear differential.
Picture a fully loaded front drive minivan going up a snowy fill. It's probably got 60% of the total vehicle weight (incl passengers and cargo) on the REAR wheels at that point, and only about 40% on the front. Factor in acceleration forces (which are low, but still present, on slick surfaces) and you have spinning tires up front. This is also why the front brakes on a bike OR a car are much more effective than the rear (when going forward).. That's the weight transfer effect.
Another variable is topography. AWD is only better than FWD in one thing---acceleration. It doesn't help you brake better or steer better---that's what the driver and tires do for you. So if you're doing any hill climbing or driveway climbing in your commute, an AWD with good snow tires will outperform a FWD in most cases.
So you have to make some assessments here. How good a driver am I in snow? Do I have a lot of confidence? What type of terrain am I going to experience most of the time? Am I okay with running both "normal" and snow tires and switching them out every spring?
Title: "Texas" Original Airdate:July 24, 2011
Feature: Tanner, Rutledge and Adam wrangle, haul and race their way across Texas in a crazy attempt to find an alternative to the pickup with 2 doors. The catch is that they only get $2000 to buy a car. Adam chooses a 1975 Ford Maverick and claims it is related to the Ford Ranchero. Tanner chooses the BMW 325e and says it has more technology than a 2011 pick-up. Rutlege chooses a 1991 Mazda Miata and he claims that it is the perfect replacement for a truck.
Challenge 1: Cattle Drive. All three hosts must lead and protect a large herd of cattle by taking point. They're not allowed to lose any of them. There's no clear winner, but Adam claims victory due to the steers mostly following his Maverick.
Challenge 2: Manure hauling. Each host modifies his car to carry a huge load of fertilizer (cow manure). The biggest load wins. Adam cuts off the roof of his Maverick, turning it into a crude version of the Ranchero. Rutledge puts the top down on his Miata and is nearly buried beneath his load. Tanner puts plastic buckets on the roof, sides and front of his BMW. Despite this, he ends up with the lightest load. Winner: Adam
Challenge 3: Monster Truck Racing. All three cars are modified with monster truck tires and suspension and are raced around a track. Adam takes the early lead but his engine overheats and burns out. Rutledge actually loses a wheel, leaving Tanner to finish the race. Winner: Tanner[3]