the difference between all wheel drive and 4 wheel drive
January 18th, 2006It’s exceedingly rare I see something on MSN autos that’s worth looking at and in fact they’ve printed at least one article that’s about as misinformed as journalism gets (e.g. an article claiming ‘bigger tires are better!’ citing sales numbers and interviews with tire company spokepeople as supporting evidence! In fact, there are more reasons to avoid larger wheels than desire them.)
This explanation of all wheel drive systems however has little to fault.
(The only things I’d like to add point out are 1) unless your 4WD/AWD vehicle has a limited slip rear differential or traction control, you essentially have 2 wheel drive and 2) I’ve found full time all wheel drive with a rear biased torque split the most satisfying to drive and that seems to be the way the whole industry is moving).