A RWD car with 4 snow tires will outperform an AWD car with all-season tires in the snow.

It is all about the tires.

We have been force fed FWD by the car companies for the last 20 years b/c it is cheaper for them to platform engineer a FWD chassis for many different applications. They cheated you out of decent cars for the sake of the bottom line.

Thankfully the purist Germans never did that and their superior driving cars have constantlyreminded us the RWD is the way to go. When Toyota decided to build its top of the line car, it chose RWD. The slagging sales of Honda’s Acura brand have alot to do with their commitment to FWD in the high end market. (Lacking a V8 does not help them either)

They don’t make FWD race cars do they? (Riced out Honda autocrossers do not count as race cars)

GM has been building superior RWD cars for years. From the Awesome GTO and Corvette to the first class, top level Cadillac lineup which no German crap can touch for luxury, performance or refinement. Now we have the only performance roadsters on the market, the Solstice and the Sky and a soon to dominate Rear Drive Impala and best of all Camaro which are both going to stomp the competition into the ground. I can’t wait to see the Camaro kill the sales of the Rustang and destroy the launch of some POS Challenger. In fact I am so sure the Camaro is going to clean house that Chrysler (out of fear) will cancel the Challenger when they realize that they just can’t compete.

GM leads the way in a lot of things and rear drive cars is just part of their dominance. The Germans just didn;t have the knowledge or the capability to build a FWD car that’s why they have always been RWD. But they still don;t hold a candle to the GM rear drivers

When it comes to everyday driving I do not see much advantage to rear wheel drive.

#2 The Mustang out sold the Camaro 3 to 1 before GM put it out of production. They won’t be able to kill Mustang sales with their terrible attempt at retro styling, the LS2 isn’t bad though.

I’m happy to see this, I personally hate driving FWD, they don’t feel right. Not to mention performance, I would rather have RWD in the snow. Maybe people will stop try to make FWD fast and perform well now.

Promblem is you have a whole generation brought up on fwd and awd cars and suvs, that have no idea how to drive a RWD car. When i was young, you threw on two snows or studs put 100lb.bag of sand in the trunk and learned how to drive in bad weather,there was no awd,traction control,and ABS. Knowning how to control a car without all these DRIVING AIDS makes you a better driver.

I’ll say it again, RWD for life!

The General will always lead the way. The Germans and every other wannbe will always follow

RWD sucks. 1000lb bag of sand? BS on that. I love FWD and AWD and hope they both continue to dominate. I have 2 RWD vehicles and 2 FWD vehicles. I can tell you that in addition to being better on snow the FWD vehicles are WAY better on wet roads as well. RWD? NEVER AGAIN.

The mustang outsold the camaro because most people like the more subtle look , the name/history, The relative size overall and the more functional rear seats, and typically cheaper prize compared to similar models, except when you get to the ultra high performance models where the Camaro has been much less expensive. In the history of the 2 cars the camaro had similar sales numbers in the first 3 generations. The mustang has always been more of a family car than that of the Camaro. What most people (the general public) could care less about is the performance and handling the better reliability, if you doubt this why is it , if it was outsold 3 to 1 that do you see more or same number of camaros than mustangs of the same years on the road after a 5, 10, 15,20 year period. Where have all the mustang 5.0s and 5.0 wannabees gone from the 80’s? I still see Camaros Irocs, Z28s and V6s from the same period and this is ford country where I’m at. Some camaro owners like the sports roadster feel you get when you have a 2 seater. I personally fold my back sets down and it looks like the were never there, and if needed in a emergency you have capacity for 2 more. Another attribute or detractor depending on who you are is the Indi car type seating low to the ground that a lot of performance guys like, but may be one of the reasons the general public didn’t buy it. Also to compound the gap a lack of advertising in the 10 years of the 4rth gen, I can name you the 2 or so commercials and their variations they had for that length of time same goes for the firebird, if anything the firebird had more because of the formula and trans-am models. Anyhow some arguments should not be seatled by sales numbers especialy when it comes to performance. If that’s the case the eclipse out sold both of them 2 to 1 in the mid 90‘s, where are those eclipses now that almost seamed to be every other car. A lot of them burned up with engine fires. The last 2 I’ve seen where completely destroyed…

to #8…its 100 lbs of sand which is perfectly logical…and if the car is close to a 50/50 weight dist (which is what BMW and other companies aim for) then RWD is vastly superior…better handling and no torque steer…which is something everyone who drives can appreciate, not just those who drive their cars to the limit…and even if the weight dist isnt ideal just spend a few hundred bucks and strap on some snow tires and you will be just fine in the winter…for snow the tires matter as much if not more than the car…right on #1

and if i cared about the camparo of mustang and camaro (which is dated and retarded right now until the new camaro comes out) then i will read a forum about that…so dont waste my time #9…at least say something pertaining to the posted article…thanks

It’s not a question of which is better, its a question of what costs less.

GMrules, you’re so consistently biased and uneducated.

FWD appeals to certain people because honestly, they lack driving skill. FWD cars all suffer from understeer and torque steer, two traits you NEVER want in a car. A little oversteer is a bit managable, but understeer is not and is what puts idiots into the guardrail. Some dink on here says FWD is better in the rain…. I hope I never find myself on the same road with them.

Ahk-Med, you have a valid point. But I am curious to find out if insurance costs would go down if more people drove RWD vehicles as a result of less collisions. I would hope people would slow down in the rain and snow without that false sense of security with a FWD vehicle.

GMRules, I love GM too, but get your facts straight buddy, the DTS has front wheel drive. Most of the Caddys had FWD up until recently.

GMRules admitted in an earlier article that he drives a Chevy Cobalt. Apparently he knows nothing about rear wheel drive, performance cars, or GM for that matter. On top of that, his statements are always uneducated opinions, non of which are based on facts or even educated guesses. I wouldn’t be surprised if he/she was just a 14 year old with to much time on his hands.

Admit it GMrules, you’ve never even driven a GM have you? if you have, that must be the extent of your vehicular experience.

Anyways, RWD RULES. I hate driving Fwd cars.

I learned how to drive in a Volvo 960 in Pittsburgh and never had a problem in winter, I slide a couple of times but nothing I couldn’t handle, I did wreck our grand prix when the front wheels hit ice and it under steered into a ball field. A quick stab of the gas would have brought the last RWD Volvo back into line.

“FWD cars all suffer from understeer and torque steer, two traits you NEVER want in a car”

I have to disagree here.

Many of the “sporty” FWD vehicles have equal length half-shafts, which all but eliminates torque steer. For the non-”sporty” FWD cars, why would you be standing on the gas during a launch anyways?

Most vehicles these days are DESIGNED to understeer, as it is generally accepted that it is easier for the average driver to control/correct understeer.

Advantage FWD:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1126289740313424097&q=parallel+park

“top level Cadillac lineup which no German crap can touch for luxury, performance or refinement.” Don’t feed me that BS. luxury would be a matter of opinion but performance and refinement are not say compare a cadillac STS-V to a Mercedes CLS-55 or E-55 or to a BMW M5, the Benz and the M5 take top spot read the comparo in Car and Driver. and If “GMrules” why did they lose $10 billion last year? Cadillac’s have been front wheel drive as with most of the Gm line-up for the past 10 years. If the GTO was so “Awesome” why did they have to put it out of production early oh yeah slower than slow sales. The German automakers realized that people don’t need FWD and continued to build superior RWD vehicles. They could certainly have afforded to develope a FWD car. but they made a much better investment which was they bought out Chrysler.

I think the introduction of sophisticated traction control systems has helped a lot in the re-introduction of rwd cars.

I have grown up on FWD vehicles.. and I for one would buy a RWD car over FWD any day!!.. AWD is good for SUV’s, Trucks, and Crossovers… but if u want performance in either a sedan, coupe, etc… RWD dominates!! Cant wait for the CAMARO and 650hp+ CORVETTE!! even though I cant afford a corvette even the base model.. ill be getting my hands on a V8 powered CAMARO!!

FWD cars are crap, it’s that simple.

Ahk-Med
FWD cars are more expensive to maintain over long periods than RWD. The reason Police departments like RWD cars is because over the long run it is easier to repair a RWD car.

FWD-cars have more natural understeer than RWD-cars. You can set a car up to do either but a FWD-car inherently has understeer as when you go into a turn the outer front wheel is spinning faster than the inner wheel. This gives the outer wheel more traction while the inner wheel just kind of slides along. This is why Honda put in the last gen Prelude the Active Torque Transfer System to speed up the slower spinning inner wheel. This helps to eliminate understeer. The problem is more pronounced on FWD because the power is at the point of where the imbalance is.

Having a RWD car that you have to carry bags of sand in the trunk for months was kind of dumb. But now with Traction Control you don’t have to look out the window in December and hope for no snow.

I too grew up driving FWD but after I drove AWD and RWD its RWD for life.

Oh yeah, I agree renton

the only thing AWD is good for is towing. the only thing FWD is good for is…well, nothing really. RWD for life…

id say awd is better for your normal sedan / suv but any sports car needs rwd an suv would suck with rwd i think bu tidunno all my cars are rwd and i love it

RWD and some variants of AWD have inherently better traction because the rear wheels are powered during acceleration when the car’s weight is transferred to the rear of the vehicle.

I may buy a small Honda Fit as a work vehicle but for any kind of car I really care about or really want, it gets no purchase from me if it is FWD.

to #10 “unknown” or maybe should I say ahki-med I was responding to #4 or do you not read the previous post. Or do you just post comments and don’t read them.

Renton, in Post #1 says: “Thankfully the purist Germans never did that and their superior driving cars have constantly reminded us the RWD is the way to go [...] The slagging sales of Honda’s Acura brand have alot to do with their commitment to FWD in the high end market. ”

Wow, dead on in my personal experience. I drove a Honda Accord for several years and was ready to move up to the (cheap end of the) luxury sedans. I was happy with my Honda and ready to go Acura until I drove the FWD TS (or RS, or whatever the initials are). Ended up going with the 3-series BMW almost fully because of the RWD. It’s night and day.

Anonymous (3): The “advantage” in everyday driving is that it feels better.

Hitting the gas coming out of a curve, RWD feels right. (See #5 in link, especially.)

Sure, if you don’t enjoy driving at any level, and merely want to commute, or just hate cars and have one only as a necessary evil, it won’t matter.

But if you like driving…

Ahk-Med, have a look at the last review of the Lancer Evo vs WRX STi in Car and Driver. Lancer, suffers from torque steer. And I would classify the Evo as one of the MOST sporty 4banger FWD vehicles. I have never heard of such a thing, engineering understeer into a FWD car because it’s easier to manage??? That contridicts everything ever learned about driving. To counteract understeer in a FWD car effectively, you must go against every instinct in your mind. Either step on the gas to pull through a corner, or apply the brakes while steering towards the direction the car is headed so the ABS can slow you down. ABS can’t do anything when the tires are pointed in a completely different direction than where the car is heading. These are both things “the average driver” does not think about, nor have time to in that moment.

You spite yourself being so argumentative.

GMRules, you’re a died-in-the-wool, slave to GM and your ignorance proves it. The Germans will always follow? How have the Germans followed GM? Did they ever pursue saggy suspension design, solid rear axles, and a commitment to FWD in all cars up to and including their top of the line (GM with Cadillac)? NO!! As the first poster mentioned, the Germans have always maintained their design and engineering purity and the cars the build prove it, as does their market share (Hmmm ….. how’s GM doing in market share these days?). GM has only very recent decided to go back to RWD in Cadillac and their higher end cars because they realized that they couldn’t engineer around the laws of physics. Simply put, it is impossible to make a well-handling, high performance car with FWD. The poor cars built by GM in the last 20+ years prove that.

So keep living in your dreamworld, that the universe revolves around GM and they set the stage for all engineering and design in the world. It’s blowhards like yourself that continue to give GM some sales volume as they limp along towards an inevitable death as an automaker. GM makes some fine cars (very few though, Corvette especially the Z06, the Solstice was a great idea, etc) but it isn’t enough to carry their entire lineup and this engineering excellence does not make its way to every car they build. The Germans, particularly BMW, charge a much higher price but you get what you pay for. I’ve owned American cars before and I feel bad sometimes not buying an American company’s product, but why pay for poor design, engineering, and ridiculous resale value? There’s a reason GM and Ford have been playing catch-up with both the Japanese and Germans for years.

Bring back the days of Duesenberg and Packard when American cars set the standard for the world. What the hell happened?

i have 2 cars an 06 nissan altima v6 i paid 23,000 for and an 00 ford mustang v6 i paid 7,500 for. the mustang is so much more fun due to its basic merit of being rear wheel drive. i wonder if there is a way i could import a diesel bmw 2 series from europe- rear wheel drive and 50 mpg

I have bought any wheels been used on Chevolet Camaro and Pontiac FireBird year 2000. Please, tell me any kind of cars could be fit with those wheels. Thank you very much for your consideration. Alex Nguyen

After Reading all of the comments in this Post “GMRULES” you take the cake when it comes to the most ridiculous, uneducated, biased, baseless, sensless and just plain stupid comments.

I’d be the first to admit that I dislike american cars but, that is not the issue in this forum. In the whole FWD/RWD/AWD debate only one thing is clear.

FWD-is wrong wheel drive, anyone with the opinion that FWD performs better that RWD is obviously not a “Driver” you may be a “Commuter” but definetly not a “Driver”
The only reason that American Cars ever went to FWD is because its cheaper to make and allows them to make more roomy interiors. Secondly, the only reason that anyone would get the notion that RWD is worse in bad weather is because your a “Commuter”. “Drivers” understand the importance of Throttle control
and “Commuters” who are oblivious to the notion are just trying to get from point A to B.

The truth of why “Commuters” feel the way they do is because in FWD you actually have less control of the car. For people that have no sense of what throttle control is thats a good thing, for the rest of the “Drivers” out there that have a sense of what throttle control, weight transfer and overall handling is well…….RWD and RWD biased cars are the only way to go.

The Germans and Japanese (For the most part) have always understood and this is why (here comes the list)

BMW- Does NOT make a FWD Car and never have-THEY ONLY MAKE RWD Mercedes-Does NOT make a FWD Car and never have-THEY ONLY MAKE RWD
Audi-Does NOT make a FWD Car and never have-THEY ONLY MAKE AWD
Lexus-Only Makes ONE FWD Car -THE rest are RWD and AWD
Infiniti-Does NOT make a FWD Car -THEY ONLY MAKE RWD and AWD
Porsche-Does NOT make a FWD Car -THEY ONLY MAKE RWD and AWD
Subaru-Does NOT make a FWD Car and never have-THEY ONLY MAKE AWD
Ferrari-Does NOT make a FWD Car and never have-THEY ONLY MAKE RWD Lamborghini-Does NOT make a FWD Car and never have-THEY ONLY MAKE RWD Lotus-Does NOT make a FWD Car and never have-THEY ONLY MAKE RWD

The list is just too long but you get the point…………..The only car companies that make FWD are the Companies that make inexpensive cars for “Commuters”
I hate FWD but I’m glad they make FWD cars because “Commuters” who can’t drive shouldn’t be in total control ANYWAY ! and Car COmpanies around the world know this.

“Drivers” value the control of RWD/AWD (RWD Biased cars), with that said,

1. they don’t even make Bicycles in FWD. Unless its a kids tricycle.
2. They don’t make ANY motorcyles in fwd do they ? that would be silly wouldn’t it
3. You can’t even find a shopping cart anywhere in this world that would require you to pull it around.

Why, WHy, WHy you ask ? Because FWD is Wrong Wheel Drive !