Rear wheel drive car owners,advice sought!
- Thread starter krichardson
- Start date
As long as you have a set of winter tires a rwd car shouldn't matter too much. I've had 2 fwd cars in the winter and my friends rwd cars would always get stuck, however they never had good tires and they had light cars with little traction (those 90s mustangs couldn't drive in an inch of snow). When in doubt, load down your trunk with some heavy stuff to help sink the rear end.
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But I'm done with beating the hell out of cars that are too low to the ground to drive safely down my back roads back home. Getting a 2000 Mercedes ML320 soon, no more cars for me...
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Clearly the correct solution is to move.
Nothing so drastic although I would like to relocate someday.It won't be because of a car lol...
Its called 4wheel DRIVE, not 4wheel STOP for a reason...
My very first car was a '82 Ford Ranger (a super-lightweight RWD, pretty much zero weight over the rear axel), which I drove for many winters in the Philly area and the Northeast in general. Never had an issue, even as a teen... In our area Krich, unless you're drag racing or participating in car-chases, its all how you drive and how comfortable you are.
Bad stopping in 4WDs or Subaru are driver-caused, & take nothing away from the vehicles being better equipped for the road conditions.
nothing will save you from bad judgement.
I'd still rather drive to where I wanna go, than slide all over the place ....OR be in the pathway of those cars.
;-)
nothing will save you from bad judgement.
I'd still rather drive to where I wanna go, than slide all over the place ....OR be in the pathway of those cars.
;-)
It doesn't matter how bad or good your vehicle is for a given situation if you don't drive appropriately for the situation. Hence in theory the 4wd vehicles should be more stable in the snow, but when the snow comes I see a 10 to 1 ratio of 4wd to 2wd vehicles on the side of the road. You need to drive appropriately for the conditions. The best way to deal with winter driving is to make sure you have a decent set of tires, since a rwd vehicle with good tires is better equipped than an 4wd/awd vehicle with mediocre tires in the snow, but a 4wd/awd vehicle with good tires will provide the best traction for everything except for stopping, and know how to drive your car in poor conditions. Know what your vehicle does when it brakes traction, does it oversteer, understeer, at what point will that happen, if it understeers when will it start to oversteer?
I have driven RWD, FWD, 4WD/AWD in the winters here, and it is very hilly and we get quite a bit of snow, sometimes it's plowed sometimes not. They all behave differently, have advantages/disadvantages. The only time I have seen problems, is when the driver did not know how to control the vehicle in a given situation. But unfortunately it doesn't matter how awesome your vehicle is in the snow if the guy next to you is an idiot.
If you get a new vehicle and are trying to learn how it behaves in poor conditions, try to do it away from traffic, if you can find a large empty piece of pavement, like a track or something, where you don't have to worry about damaging your vehicle or others would be best.
Give your self extra time on snowy days and relax.
Its called 4wheel DRIVE, not 4wheel STOP for a reason...
My very first car was a '82 Ford Ranger (a super-lightweight RWD, pretty much zero weight over the rear axel), which I drove for many winters in the Philly area and the Northeast in general. Never had an issue, even as a teen... In our area Krich, unless you're drag racing or participating in car-chases, its all how you drive and how comfortable you are.
Maxx nice of you to drop by...where ya been? Some great and useful replies guys,thank you so much.Here's a dumb question though;someone brought it up earlier and I even mentioned that the Challenger was a consideration along with a few other cars.I was wondering why the Challenger is not RWD and furthermore what are the advantages of having RWD?
The challenger is RWD. RWDs main advantages are oversteer is more predicable and easier to control than understeer in high performance driving, ie racing. You don't have to deal with torque steer, so when you hit the gas pedal your steering wheel doesn't turn itself.
For city driving, you just have to drive the cars and see which feel you like better. RWD is generally easier to steer in a parking lot, because you are not having to fight the drive wheels. My Optima has an electric power steering booster, which allows for massive overboost for slow speeds so parking is easy, but there is very little boost at highway speed where you want a more stable ride.
There are some subtle differences in the way FWD, RWD, and AWD drive. Each person has different preferences, so you need to decide which feel you like the best. If you are looking for performance driving, then RWD and AWD tend to win the races, depending on conditions.
If you want to do long burnouts, get a FWD car with poor tires and not much power, since when you hit the gas hard, the weight get's shifted to the back of the car, unloading the front wheels, and loading the rear wheels, thus moving traction from the front to the back. If you want good traction at slow speeds get FWD or AWD, since there isn't the weight shift, the weight is over the front of the car.
I don't think if you drive moderately you will have much difference in winter performance between your Maxima and a Charger, if both have decent tires. The main thing to decide is which car do you prefer the way it drives, they will be different, so which ever works better for the way you drive.
For city driving RWD has no real advantage, unless you prefer the way it feels.
For city driving, you just have to drive the cars and see which feel you like better. RWD is generally easier to steer in a parking lot, because you are not having to fight the drive wheels. My Optima has an electric power steering booster, which allows for massive overboost for slow speeds so parking is easy, but there is very little boost at highway speed where you want a more stable ride.
There are some subtle differences in the way FWD, RWD, and AWD drive. Each person has different preferences, so you need to decide which feel you like the best. If you are looking for performance driving, then RWD and AWD tend to win the races, depending on conditions.
If you want to do long burnouts, get a FWD car with poor tires and not much power, since when you hit the gas hard, the weight get's shifted to the back of the car, unloading the front wheels, and loading the rear wheels, thus moving traction from the front to the back. If you want good traction at slow speeds get FWD or AWD, since there isn't the weight shift, the weight is over the front of the car.
I don't think if you drive moderately you will have much difference in winter performance between your Maxima and a Charger, if both have decent tires. The main thing to decide is which car do you prefer the way it drives, they will be different, so which ever works better for the way you drive.
For city driving RWD has no real advantage, unless you prefer the way it feels.
