Are rear wheel drive cars really bad in the snow/winter weather compared to front wheel drive cars?
Does this mean they sell less rear wheel drive cars in the north/scotland becaue of this?
Has anybody here used snow chains? Do they make much difference?
In the hands of a rubbish driver - rear drive is probably more difficult in snow that front wheel drive.
In practice I've never found rear drive to be much of a liability - where really steep hills have been involved front wheel drive has been easier.
No
No
Yes Not for the better.
On the grounds that driving manual advice always tells you to be well prepared in advance I tried a set on my Focus this summer to get some experience of driving with them before winter set in. It wasn't a happy experience. I found much less grip during hard cornering and only got 50 miles up the M1 before the first of them flew off taking part of the wheel arch with it. Maybe it was a faulty set of snowchains. From now on it's back to my tank-tracked APC for driving in really bad conditions. The other advantage of it being if anyone else has broken down in the snow and is blocking the road you just go over the top of them.
-- Dave Baker Puma Race Engines
Dave Baker ( snipped-for-privacy@null.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :
No, they're just harder to drive.
If you're a typical driver (i.e. crap in snow) then you're less likely to screw it up with FWD. If you try to drive RWD in snow or ice and haven't already learned how to handle it on a skid pan (however impromptu) then you're likely to stuff it up big stylee.
If you live somewhere snowy, get (in this order) something with the biggest diameter wheels you can, the biggest battery(s) you can, and then AWD.
4WD is no use in snow, because by the time you need it it's too late to select it. 4WD is for mud crawling only, if you're dealing with snow on tarmac, get permanent AWD (and ideally with a viscous centre diff).
They have to fit, they have to be well enough made to be capable of fitting accurately, you have to fit them properly in the freezing cold, and you have to remove them when you hit tarmac again. Apart from that, they're great. Fit all 4 though, unless you're either driving FWD or more interested in ploughing on than stopping (rear chains only on RWD is a game for the nutters).
OTOH, global warming is caused by me carrying the things around in the boot all winter. Sorry about that.
What about theese
From reading the net people are saying a 2 wheel drive car with chains is better in the ice/snow than 4 wheel drive.
Jack Brown (abc) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :
Not necessarily.
It's all down to how well you can get the power down. Two driven tyres with studs or chains or winter compounds will be better than four low-profile "normal" tyres - but four driven studded/chained/winter tyres will be better than two.
No. I think you have it the wrong way round. IMO in most situations RWD is better. Mike
best cars I have used in snow is old beetle, and skoda estelle/rapid as rear engined.
2nd are front engined fwd cars at bottom of pile, front engined rear drive, real crap.
There are two times when you need snowchains in the UK. One is when you have a little snow on a tarmac road, the other is when you're already stuck in a snow bank and you simply want to extract yourself.
We don't have great long stretches of continual snow. Or if we do, you're in somewhere so remote that you ought to have tooled up to deal with it properly.
If you're on patches of snow over tarmac, I question the lifetime of these things. Not in terms of "Will they last for next year", but "Will they make it to the next junction?" They look that flimsy, if they're not on pure snow.
For extracting yourself from a snowbank, then unfitted chains are rarely much use anyway, Most (although not all) require you to roll forwards a few feet to fit them, and that's the one thing you can't do at that point.
As the second of these is _by_far_ the most common problem for UK drivers, then the simple solution is a couple of strips of old carpet in the boot. Put them under each drive wheel and use them as a roadway. Sacking, blankets, Ikea blue carrier bags (excellent) or even your coat work too. Personally I use the woven polypropylene builders' sacks I keep firewood in.
In my experience, up to the point of skidding, FWD is better (but boring!), after that point, RWD is better provided you know what you are doing (mainly because you can steer with both ends), and if you don't you're probably going to lose it anyway. For the average driver, FWD is much safer.
Biggles
Presumably for the bonfire when stuck in a snowdrift off the A9.
Geo
Presumably because the handling of a rear-engined Tatra with swing axles is little better on dry tarmac than it is on ice !
A couple of years ago I came up to the back of a three car queue at the bottom of a snow covered hill. Those in front, a BMW, Jag and another big RWD, tried to get going, making a few feet before sliding back into the kerb, across the road etc.
After about 15 mins they finaly gave up and little old me in my 18 year old red shed of a Cavalier pulled out and sailed past.
Front wheel drive, manual, thinnish wheels and not too much power...............ohh, and I do make a habit of 'enjoying' myself in deserted car parks etc when it's snowed and learning just how my cars do handle.
Ian
Only in as much as rear wheel drive cars are harder for the average driver to control in a skid anyway.
No, its not exactly permafrost up here!
If its a reasonable amount of snow then yes, definitely, it will mean the difference between your wheels spinning and getting up the hill. They are a real PITA though as you can't go over around 35mph, so if the snow clears up its back out to take them off again. I had a nightmare journey in the Alps with a hire car where they were off and on about 2 or 3 times, taking at least 20 minutes each time. Meanwhile the locals would whiz past in their snow tyres. The next time of course I hired a car with snow tyres - absolutely brilliant - never again with chains. I would take snow tyres on 2wd over a
4x4 without them any day. Z
I'm sure grip is more down to the width of tyre, rather than FWD versus RWD. I've had the same experiences with a narrow tyred RWD car. As far as power is concerned, a sensitive right foot can control that. Mike.
True Mike - the wife's Tiga scares the hell out of me on snow - wide tyres, low weight and plenty of power - even a careful right foot doesn't help much.
My motto in snow is drive with the gears, not the brakes and accelerator ( smart answers ahead I feel, but you know what I mean )
Ian
must admit i never ever got stuck driving my dads moggie traveller that had narrow wheels and low power
I'd agree, driven properly, not much different. Driven carelessly, you'll lose the back end.
16 years ago we had a mega-snowfall overnight here in Mansfield (we were hit much harder than most of the surrounding area for reasons I don't understand, it's not normally the case). My wife was working nursing shifts at the time and got up to do a morning shift - ten minutes later she came back in to tell me her car was stuck (fwd Nissan Prairie). I threw some clothes on and went out, expecting it was just her driving, but I couldn't move it either forwards or backwards! No choice but to leave it there in the middle of the street, and to get her to work we got into our (rwd) Volvo 240 auto estate - on paper, the worst possible choice.The Volvo not only got us out of the drive, it got us all the way to the hospital, and would have made it all the way back, hills included, had the alternator not failed (I ended up hitching a lift the last mile with our milkman - one-year-old babe in arms, which is why I know exactly how long ago it took place!)
So that day, in the worst snowfall I have every seen, RWD beat FWD hands down.
Today we have two RWD automatic cars. I still anticipate that should we get snow this winter (and the forecast is that it's fairly unlikely), my classic Mini will be the one doing commuting duty!
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