FWD cars ruin brick paving?

not as a function of fwd. as a function of power steering, heavier cars, modern wider tires and drivers that turn the wheel on the spot rather than when the vehicle is rolling, possibly, but even then, all those are irrelevant if the bricks are set well and fit tight.

in europe, many big rigs have three trailer axles, not two. and they have lots of "pavé" or brick roads. yes, it's theoretically more of an issue, but when the brick is set right, it's simply not a problem.

to set brick right, you need a proper substrate, properly compacted. look up roman road construction as an example - some of those things are still in use today.

There is logic to it. FWD cars make the front wheels do both the propelling and the steering. Trucks period cause most road damage. A typical 18 Wheeler causes as much damage as about 4000 cars/pickup do. It's not because of the non-steerable axles. The single axle, single wheels up front on the cab that do the steering on the semi are more damaging (relative to the weight being carried) then the other dual wheel non-steerable axles.

My brother in law told me years ago that FWD vehicles don't track like a RWD vehicle do.

He mentions if you pull into a parking space with a RWD vehicle with the steering wheel turned as you pull in it will track the same when you pull out, but he says a FWD vehicle won't track the same.

I believe that's also true. The twisting force on the front wheels try's to make them turn, esp when backing up.

you guys are something else. on fwd, the drive forces are directly in the plane of the steering wheels. on rwd they're not, and the steering wheels can have considerable side forces on them.

now, how about y'all discuss ways in which bricks can move? because if they can't, you can drive tanks on them all day without any problems.

There are brick/cobblestone streets in Europe that are over 100 years old, and front wheel drive cars galore. I wonder how well those streets are holding up?

Or maybe they own first generation Nissan Frontier 4WD pick-em-up trucks

- at least mine leaves black rubber streaks all over my broom finish concrete driveway.

Per AASHTO 1993, a fully loaded garbage truck is equal to about 9,500 sub 2-ton passenger vehicles for pavement damage.

There are special brick paved yards for bulk items such as aggregate and coal that hold up well to 30-ton wheel-loaders that steer by center pivot, as well as bulldozers and track-loaders.

ok tom, we know you're the highway engineer - where in your opinion could this "fwd" thing come from?

right, but we have people somehow concerned that their accord/camry might wreck their driveway. assuming they have actually witnessed such a thing, is there any explanation possible other than poor setting?

No idea - urban legend?

Unless people are driving FWD cars with locked differentials, but I have only seen those at the track (for obvious reasons).

Those are built quite a bit differently then a simple brick driveway for a house. And at that they do require maintenance.

That's true, garbage trucks are typically far far more damaging then just about any other legal truck that doesn't require a special permit. That's because in order for them to have the needed turning radius and backup capability they have to use as few axles as possible but they still want to be able to load them to the gills. So they have VERY high axle loads.

and that's your answer - it's nothing to do with fwd.

look into the difference between sharp and soft sand, and also consider the difference both the depth and the parallelism of the brick sides make = in storms, trees in the middle of a forest don't suffer as much damage as those on the edges - their touching canopies reinforce each other.

yet some last, under very heavy loads, many decades.

About eight years ago a garbage truck broke down in front of my house, I stepped over there and asked them if they want to use some of my tools to get it going. In Japan they have little bitty garbage trucks. Google,,, Japanese garbage trucks.