Pete McCluskey.
Lifetime Supporter
RWD v FWD v AWD
- Thread starter Pete
- Start date
Pete, this is very interesting. From decades of driving all sorts of vehicles from vintage cars through to semi-trailer rigs, with an emphasis on performance cars, I certainly enjoy and prefer to throw around a powerful car with rear wheel drive. I think they are more fun, more controllable, and give you more feed-back towards the limit, even if an all-wheel-drive car is faster round a particular corner. My 2c worth, and apologies to all the WRX enthusiasts.
With respect to VBH it isn't quite as simple as that and I'm sure she knows it.
I own five AWD cars (and a buggy) and all of them have completely different drive systems.
When it comes to comparisons between RWD and AWD it is horses for courses really.
There are distinct advantages to AWD and most of the disadvantages can be dealt with either by "tuning" or driving style changes.
Turn-in is the one place I think it's really hard to beat a RWD.
It can be hard to get an AWD working there and also to keep the nose in mid-corner but it isn't impossible and the advantage you get from AWD in other places makes up for it IMO.
One of my AWD cars is a WRX (no offence taken BTW) with quite a lot of grunt and it really is amazingly good at getting power to the ground.
I also own a GT-R which in some ways is the best of both worlds. RWD with AWD available to get the power down if you need.
Major AWD disadvantages not mentioned by VBH are weight and driveline losses.
Also the weight distribution of many AWDs is pretty ordinary.
FWD - well I don't own any of those anymore, nuff said...
Actually not quite enough: I had a Mini for a while and it was a great fun little car.
There are places where a FWD is better than a RWD in my experience, but nowhere useful eg: they are good at khanacross although, locally anyway, AWD cars seem to be better. RWD doesn't seem to work. But that is such a specific thing and IMO doesn't relate to any real world situation.
If torque is limited they seem to do quite well eg:BTCC.
Anyway:-
Would I make my GT40 AWD - nope.
Would I make it FWD - effoff...
Tim.
I own five AWD cars (and a buggy) and all of them have completely different drive systems.
When it comes to comparisons between RWD and AWD it is horses for courses really.
There are distinct advantages to AWD and most of the disadvantages can be dealt with either by "tuning" or driving style changes.
Turn-in is the one place I think it's really hard to beat a RWD.
It can be hard to get an AWD working there and also to keep the nose in mid-corner but it isn't impossible and the advantage you get from AWD in other places makes up for it IMO.
One of my AWD cars is a WRX (no offence taken BTW) with quite a lot of grunt and it really is amazingly good at getting power to the ground.
I also own a GT-R which in some ways is the best of both worlds. RWD with AWD available to get the power down if you need.
Major AWD disadvantages not mentioned by VBH are weight and driveline losses.
Also the weight distribution of many AWDs is pretty ordinary.
FWD - well I don't own any of those anymore, nuff said...
Actually not quite enough: I had a Mini for a while and it was a great fun little car.
There are places where a FWD is better than a RWD in my experience, but nowhere useful eg: they are good at khanacross although, locally anyway, AWD cars seem to be better. RWD doesn't seem to work. But that is such a specific thing and IMO doesn't relate to any real world situation.
If torque is limited they seem to do quite well eg:BTCC.
Anyway:-
Would I make my GT40 AWD - nope.
Would I make it FWD - effoff...
Tim.
Pete McCluskey.
Lifetime Supporter
I think you summed it up pretty well Tim, horses for courses, awd has it's place particularly in the scrub. The one front wheel car I loved was the Mini, once you got the driving technique sorted it was fun with a capital F.
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