From: mshar@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Mike Mshar)
Subject: Re: FWD vs. RWD, Which is best.
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 04:14:26 GMT

In article <1992Oct2.212217.24201@lmpsbbs.comm.mot.com> smith@comm.mot.com (Jeff Smith) writes:
>Hey, have  any of you people ever actually *driven* a front wheel
>drive car in the snow?! It doesn't sound like it! Let me preface this
>by saying I *much* prefer RWD at least as far as performance cars go.
>However...when I lived in an area where snow was a factor, the FWD car
>was much *easier* to drive in snow without losing control. Period. The
>car would simply *never* fishtail. With a RWD car, when it loses traction
>with the rear wheels (and it will, unless you're extremely careful, and
>even then it sometimes will) it tends to fishtail, or even spin. A FWD
>car simply will not. As for that McCluggage guy who supposedly claims he
>couldn't drive a FWD car up a hill in snow...well, that's B.S. I passed
>plenty of RWD cars who were stuck on hills in the snow when I had my
>front-driver. I don't know what his problem was.
>

OK, I have watched this debate for some time now, and I have kept my mouth
shut. Well, I do have an opinion (note the word I used) and here it is.

The front wheel drive car I had experience with was a Chysler mini-van. 
Actually, this isn't the only one, but it was one I drove quite a bit.
It did handle pretty good in the snow, but I could get it to fishtail 
easily on the bad stuff, you know, compacted snow and ice. Another thing
that this particular vehicle did was to fishtail the front end. If I hit
the gas fairly hard on snow, the front end of the van would start to slide
sideways while heading in the same direction as it was going to begin
with. I must say, it scared the hell out of me, the first time it happened.

Anyway, the primary reason why I am not an FWD fan is because it is an
inflexible system. What I mean is that you cannot swap trannies, differential
gearing, and other things on FWD like you can on RWD. Also, FWD transaxles
cannot handle the high horsepower and torque engines that I like to own.
Try putting a moderately built 305 on top of a transaxle; I wouldn't 
give it more than ten thousand miles. I noticed many new FWD cars are
coming out with high HP engines, and I will bet money that these transaxles
in these car will have a lot of problems. For the performance people out
there, let's face it, there isn't a transaxle made that can handle the 
torque and horsepower the a TH350 can. Manuals tend to have the same
problem, I have also noticed. 

Again, this is my opinion. For the thirty year old mother/father of three
who couldn't care less about performance, I guess FWD is fine. But for
any real performance oriented car, RWD is the way to go. If I am wrong, 
then why hasn't anyone in NASCAR or the NHRA tried FWD??

Just one man's .02...



-- 
|       Michael G. Mshar        | My Life-Long Goal: To keep common sense    |
|   mmshar@mn.ecn.purdue.edu    | alive and keep the idiots from taking over.|
|  mshar@mentor.cc.purdue.edu   |     \\President, Nice Guys Anonymous//     |
|____>>> United States Steel, Mechanical Engineer, Technical Services <<<____|