7 ms·

RWD are harder to drive in snow and slippery conditions.

Our_Benefactors 4y ago
It’s not such a straightforward equation any more. As the article explains, electric cars can play tricks with the weight distribution that ICE vehicles can’t, and I would put a modern rwd with the latest traction assistance features above a FWD car from the early 2000s. Snow tires makes more of a difference than being FWD or RWD in heavy conditions is the real truth here.
- PaulHoule 4y ago
  I have an 1/8 mile long driveway with a curve on a slope. I have sworn by an FF compact car with good snow tires (Used to be Hakka R's, but now Blizzak) Snow tires are essential. I went out one day on Dec 31 without snows and made it about 300 feet from my driveway before I went in the ditch and rolled my car. Circa 2008 I drove a FR Buick for a few weeks that had traction control and I was impressed with how it handled in the snow.
  - Vvector 4y ago
    My apologies, what does FF and FR stand for?
    - bydo 4y ago
      FF is front engine, front wheel drive FR is front engine, rear wheel drive
    - iamthefury 4y ago
      Front engine, Front drive vs Front Engine, Rear Drive The engine can be placed front (in front of the front axle), mid-engine (between the axles), or rear over/behind the rear axle. It affects weight distribution and therefore the vehicle’s handling.
- melenaboija 4y ago
  RWD are harder to drive on snow than AWD, that is a fact. Moving the weight helps on making them more similar to a front wheel drive (which traditionally were better than RWD on snow) but I don't think is even close to an AWD. And snow tires is what makes a difference, true, but you can mount them on any car and same thing for traction control. So a same age AWD with snow tires drives better than a RWD with snow tires, specially if you come from a stop on an upwards icy road.
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    Snow tires don't hold a candle to the doubling(!) of contact patch over which torque is transmitted that you get going from FWD/RWD to AWD and no amount of low effort quips about steering and braking will change the fact that, among people who drive like adults, the ability to get up hills, cross snow banks where cross streets meet plowed main roads and get up to speed for a merge without anything dumb happening are the dominant factor in the "can I safely drive today" equation.
    - eitland 4y ago
      Either I am misreading you or or we disagree wildly. AWD is better than FWD or RWD, yes, but driving in the winter without snow tires. AWD matters exactly 0 when emergency braking and little as long as you aren't driving flat and not accelerating. Snow tyres help when accelerating, braking, driving straight forward and through curves, uphill and downhill. There is a reason why snow tires are mandatory here and AWD is not.
      - vkou 4y ago
        > AWD matters exactly 0 when emergency braking Correct. All cars, whether they are FWD, RWD, or AWD are All-Wheel-Brake. The most important aspect of stopping safely are your tires.
    - Syonyk 4y ago
      > Snow tires don't hold a candle to... Yeah. They do. I've driven pretty much every combination of FWD, RWD, 4WD, and AWD, with and without snow tires, in a variety of winter conditions. The "other tires" were regular all seasons, not high performance summer tires or anything. RWD with all seasons is really bad in snow, and mine generally didn't leave the parking lot in winter, because it simply couldn't. When you can start it, put it in reverse, let the clutch out, get out, and watch a wheel turning without the car having moved an inch, it's not a good day to take that car. FWD with all seasons is better, because there's typically more weight over the drive wheels, but they're not great in snow. 4WD/AWD with all seasons (I lump them together because while there are some differences, it doesn't matter in typical snow) is far better, and hysterically fun to drive (drift all the wide corners), but it's still somewhat tricky in snow. And, yes, you do get better braking with 4WD, because the front brakes slow the rear wheels too (most of the braking force is on the front wheels, especially at initial application). The catch is that when you lock the wheels, you lock all four and have zero guidance, vs just locking the front and at least continuing mostly straight (or, usually, whatever the local downhill is). FWD or RWD with snow tires is, by far, better than AWD with all seasons. And then AWD/4WD with snow tires is just a case of "What snow?"
- yellowapple 4y ago
  > Snow tires makes more of a difference than being FWD or RWD in heavy conditions is the real truth here. A FWD with snow tires or chains will almost certainly have better snow/ice handling than a RWD with snow tires or chains, by the simple virtue of the drive axle being steerable. If you've played Kerbal Space Program or a similar spaceflight simulator + rocket designer, then the reasoning here should be pretty intuitive: if you can only apply thrust to the reverse, and don't have reaction wheels, then in space you have no ability to steer under your own control. You need to be able to point thrust to the sides if you want to be able to turn (or stop turning). Same deal on an icy road. RWD means all your thrust is pointed backwards; FWD means you can point your thrust to the sides and control your car's orientation. Having both FWD and RWD (i.e. AWD or 4WD) is even better; sure, it constrains the overall thrust angles, but you also get more of it - which means better control when you're driving on a surface that ain't flat. This ain't just theoretical; it's something I've repeatedly observed every winter here in the Reno/Tahoe area.
  - m463 4y ago
    > by the simple virtue of the drive axle being steerable. Is that a virtue? it makes steering tougher. The actual virtue is the weight of the motor over the front wheels (coefficient of friction * basically weight above tires)
    - yellowapple 4y ago
      > Is that a virtue? it makes steering tougher. Not in my experience it doesn't. In icy or otherwise low-friction conditions, the steerable wheels being powered makes correcting for understeer and oversteer much easier than if they're unpowered - specifically because, per above, you can readily accelerate in directions other than forward/reverse, allowing you to orient the car even when sliding out. You can't rely on the tires' lateral friction to help you steer; a tire at an angle on ice will just slide with the rest of the car, and needs to be spinning to apply any force on said car other than forward. The catch, though, is that you have to be willing to accelerate at the very moment your brain would otherwise panic and tell your feet to hit the brakes. Hitting the brakes will make things considerably worse by stopping the spin on your tires (especially the fronts, which are the very tires for which spinning is absolutely essential for steering control). (In snow, this is a little bit less severe; the deeper the snow, the more pushback on the sides of the steering tires when at an angle, which helps a little bit with steering - but not nearly as much as on a dry road, thus still necessitating being able to accelerate with those tires) > The actual virtue is the weight of the motor over the front wheels (coefficient of friction * basically weight above tires) This also helps, but not nearly as much as the front wheels being able to accelerate in the direction they're pointed.
singleshot_ 4y ago
RWD cars allow you develop a much higher degree of skill at driving because of the requirement to separately manage traction on the drive and steering axles.
- PaulHoule 4y ago
  For one thing, you can enter and maintain a drift in an FR car. In a FF car you can easily enter a drift but the car will either straighten out or go into a spin. I’d tell you about my tactics for going around corners fast in a FF car but I’d get downvoted…
  - klyrs 4y ago
    Come on, you have karma to spare, I'm dying to know.
    - PaulHoule 4y ago
      “One foot on the brake, One foot on the gas”. You apply brakes and the gas simultaneously when going through a corner.
      - winrid 4y ago
        Left foot braking is indeed used to go fast in a FWD car. But you can use it in RWD too to manage balance.
      - klyrs 4y ago
        Thanks, I hate it. :)
      - TacticalCoder 4y ago
        > “One foot on the brake, One foot on the gas”. Back in the days this could also be used for performance reasons, to keep the turbo on, preventing it from needing to kick in again upon re-acceleration out of of the corner (back then turbo lag was huge and the "kick" was hard to control). This technique was known to be very harsh on the engine but some races pilots would do it anyway.
klyrs 4y ago
As somebody who learned to drive in snow in a RWD vehicle, I think FWD is frankly ridiculous in slippery conditions. If you lose traction in the front, you lose all control of the vehicle. With RWD, you rarely lose traction on all 4 tires, so you always have at least one working control. I've never really gotten the hang of driving FWD in snow, and greatly prefer RWD. The trick, in my experience, is to learn how to get into a tailspin and do donuts. Unplowed parking lots are best for this. When you're familiar enough with the vehicle to do controlled tricks, you're just about prepared for an emergency. I've never owned a FWD car through a snowy winter; it's really down to what you're experienced with.
- GoToRO 4y ago
  It's easy. You point the front wheels in the direction you want to go, and accelerate. The front wheels will dig the snow and also throw it off the wheels if you spin them really hard so clean tires can bite better on the snow.
  - klyrs 4y ago
    I know this on an intellectual level; like reading a book about riding a bike. But my learned instinct is to use my accelerator to control the rate of spin, which is a horrible mistake in FWD.
  - olyjohn 4y ago
    If you have too much forward momentum though, smashing the gas to get both wheels spinning kinda results in you just continuing to go straight.
- doubled112 4y ago
  > If you lose traction in the front, you lose all control of the vehicle You only have so much traction to accelerate, brake, and steer. Sharing them on the same wheels seems objectively worse at the limits to me, except in the sense that every car is all wheel stop. I think some of the safety issues associated to RWD were problems of the days where they were more common. Trucks need weight in the back, we know that, and winter tires are way better now. You have to learn how the car handles when it's not an emergency to know what to do in a panic. I toss every car I own around in a snowy parking lot at least once so I know what it'll do. This seems insane to a lot of people I've talked to. That said, I think understeer is safer and more predictable in most situations for people who use their cars as a transportation appliance. You point and shoot, so to speak. Most people aren't driving at the limits.
Auracle 4y ago
I've driven a Camaro year 'round in Minnesota for the last 10 years. The only place I've gotten stuck is our own (sloped) driveway, a few times. Snow tires are amazing, and it's ridiculous how few people have them here. It's always a hoot borrowing someone's pickup in the winter that they feel is oh-so-good in the snow and realizing how carefully I need to drive it because of their all-season tires. I literally plowed a road with the front of my car this year through nearly 2 feet of snow. To be fair, they probably wouldn't get stuck in my driveway but I can stop a hell of a lot quicker and turn if necessary. I also find controlling a near spinout to be more intuitive on a RWD vehicle than a FWD one, but that might be just because my first car was RWD as well.

It’s not such a straightforward equation any more. As the article explains, electric cars can play tricks with the weight distribution that ICE vehicles can’t, and I would put a modern rwd with the latest traction assistance features above a FWD car from the early 2000s. Snow tires makes more of a difference than being FWD or RWD in heavy conditions is the real truth here.

PaulHoule 4y ago
I have an 1/8 mile long driveway with a curve on a slope. I have sworn by an FF compact car with good snow tires (Used to be Hakka R's, but now Blizzak) Snow tires are essential. I went out one day on Dec 31 without snows and made it about 300 feet from my driveway before I went in the ditch and rolled my car. Circa 2008 I drove a FR Buick for a few weeks that had traction control and I was impressed with how it handled in the snow.
- Vvector 4y ago
  My apologies, what does FF and FR stand for?
  - bydo 4y ago
    FF is front engine, front wheel drive FR is front engine, rear wheel drive
  - iamthefury 4y ago
    Front engine, Front drive vs Front Engine, Rear Drive The engine can be placed front (in front of the front axle), mid-engine (between the axles), or rear over/behind the rear axle. It affects weight distribution and therefore the vehicle’s handling.
melenaboija 4y ago
RWD are harder to drive on snow than AWD, that is a fact. Moving the weight helps on making them more similar to a front wheel drive (which traditionally were better than RWD on snow) but I don't think is even close to an AWD. And snow tires is what makes a difference, true, but you can mount them on any car and same thing for traction control. So a same age AWD with snow tires drives better than a RWD with snow tires, specially if you come from a stop on an upwards icy road.
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  Snow tires don't hold a candle to the doubling(!) of contact patch over which torque is transmitted that you get going from FWD/RWD to AWD and no amount of low effort quips about steering and braking will change the fact that, among people who drive like adults, the ability to get up hills, cross snow banks where cross streets meet plowed main roads and get up to speed for a merge without anything dumb happening are the dominant factor in the "can I safely drive today" equation.
  - eitland 4y ago
    Either I am misreading you or or we disagree wildly. AWD is better than FWD or RWD, yes, but driving in the winter without snow tires. AWD matters exactly 0 when emergency braking and little as long as you aren't driving flat and not accelerating. Snow tyres help when accelerating, braking, driving straight forward and through curves, uphill and downhill. There is a reason why snow tires are mandatory here and AWD is not.
    - vkou 4y ago
      > AWD matters exactly 0 when emergency braking Correct. All cars, whether they are FWD, RWD, or AWD are All-Wheel-Brake. The most important aspect of stopping safely are your tires.
  - Syonyk 4y ago
    > Snow tires don't hold a candle to... Yeah. They do. I've driven pretty much every combination of FWD, RWD, 4WD, and AWD, with and without snow tires, in a variety of winter conditions. The "other tires" were regular all seasons, not high performance summer tires or anything. RWD with all seasons is really bad in snow, and mine generally didn't leave the parking lot in winter, because it simply couldn't. When you can start it, put it in reverse, let the clutch out, get out, and watch a wheel turning without the car having moved an inch, it's not a good day to take that car. FWD with all seasons is better, because there's typically more weight over the drive wheels, but they're not great in snow. 4WD/AWD with all seasons (I lump them together because while there are some differences, it doesn't matter in typical snow) is far better, and hysterically fun to drive (drift all the wide corners), but it's still somewhat tricky in snow. And, yes, you do get better braking with 4WD, because the front brakes slow the rear wheels too (most of the braking force is on the front wheels, especially at initial application). The catch is that when you lock the wheels, you lock all four and have zero guidance, vs just locking the front and at least continuing mostly straight (or, usually, whatever the local downhill is). FWD or RWD with snow tires is, by far, better than AWD with all seasons. And then AWD/4WD with snow tires is just a case of "What snow?"
yellowapple 4y ago
> Snow tires makes more of a difference than being FWD or RWD in heavy conditions is the real truth here. A FWD with snow tires or chains will almost certainly have better snow/ice handling than a RWD with snow tires or chains, by the simple virtue of the drive axle being steerable. If you've played Kerbal Space Program or a similar spaceflight simulator + rocket designer, then the reasoning here should be pretty intuitive: if you can only apply thrust to the reverse, and don't have reaction wheels, then in space you have no ability to steer under your own control. You need to be able to point thrust to the sides if you want to be able to turn (or stop turning). Same deal on an icy road. RWD means all your thrust is pointed backwards; FWD means you can point your thrust to the sides and control your car's orientation. Having both FWD and RWD (i.e. AWD or 4WD) is even better; sure, it constrains the overall thrust angles, but you also get more of it - which means better control when you're driving on a surface that ain't flat. This ain't just theoretical; it's something I've repeatedly observed every winter here in the Reno/Tahoe area.
- m463 4y ago
  > by the simple virtue of the drive axle being steerable. Is that a virtue? it makes steering tougher. The actual virtue is the weight of the motor over the front wheels (coefficient of friction * basically weight above tires)
  - yellowapple 4y ago
    > Is that a virtue? it makes steering tougher. Not in my experience it doesn't. In icy or otherwise low-friction conditions, the steerable wheels being powered makes correcting for understeer and oversteer much easier than if they're unpowered - specifically because, per above, you can readily accelerate in directions other than forward/reverse, allowing you to orient the car even when sliding out. You can't rely on the tires' lateral friction to help you steer; a tire at an angle on ice will just slide with the rest of the car, and needs to be spinning to apply any force on said car other than forward. The catch, though, is that you have to be willing to accelerate at the very moment your brain would otherwise panic and tell your feet to hit the brakes. Hitting the brakes will make things considerably worse by stopping the spin on your tires (especially the fronts, which are the very tires for which spinning is absolutely essential for steering control). (In snow, this is a little bit less severe; the deeper the snow, the more pushback on the sides of the steering tires when at an angle, which helps a little bit with steering - but not nearly as much as on a dry road, thus still necessitating being able to accelerate with those tires) > The actual virtue is the weight of the motor over the front wheels (coefficient of friction * basically weight above tires) This also helps, but not nearly as much as the front wheels being able to accelerate in the direction they're pointed.

singleshot_ 4y ago

RWD cars allow you develop a much higher degree of skill at driving because of the requirement to separately manage traction on the drive and steering axles.

PaulHoule 4y ago
For one thing, you can enter and maintain a drift in an FR car. In a FF car you can easily enter a drift but the car will either straighten out or go into a spin. I’d tell you about my tactics for going around corners fast in a FF car but I’d get downvoted…
- klyrs 4y ago
  Come on, you have karma to spare, I'm dying to know.
  - PaulHoule 4y ago
    “One foot on the brake, One foot on the gas”. You apply brakes and the gas simultaneously when going through a corner.
    - winrid 4y ago
      Left foot braking is indeed used to go fast in a FWD car. But you can use it in RWD too to manage balance.
    - klyrs 4y ago
      Thanks, I hate it. :)
    - TacticalCoder 4y ago
      > “One foot on the brake, One foot on the gas”. Back in the days this could also be used for performance reasons, to keep the turbo on, preventing it from needing to kick in again upon re-acceleration out of of the corner (back then turbo lag was huge and the "kick" was hard to control). This technique was known to be very harsh on the engine but some races pilots would do it anyway.

klyrs 4y ago

As somebody who learned to drive in snow in a RWD vehicle, I think FWD is frankly ridiculous in slippery conditions. If you lose traction in the front, you lose all control of the vehicle. With RWD, you rarely lose traction on all 4 tires, so you always have at least one working control. I've never really gotten the hang of driving FWD in snow, and greatly prefer RWD. The trick, in my experience, is to learn how to get into a tailspin and do donuts. Unplowed parking lots are best for this. When you're familiar enough with the vehicle to do controlled tricks, you're just about prepared for an emergency. I've never owned a FWD car through a snowy winter; it's really down to what you're experienced with.

GoToRO 4y ago
It's easy. You point the front wheels in the direction you want to go, and accelerate. The front wheels will dig the snow and also throw it off the wheels if you spin them really hard so clean tires can bite better on the snow.
- klyrs 4y ago
  I know this on an intellectual level; like reading a book about riding a bike. But my learned instinct is to use my accelerator to control the rate of spin, which is a horrible mistake in FWD.
- olyjohn 4y ago
  If you have too much forward momentum though, smashing the gas to get both wheels spinning kinda results in you just continuing to go straight.
doubled112 4y ago
> If you lose traction in the front, you lose all control of the vehicle You only have so much traction to accelerate, brake, and steer. Sharing them on the same wheels seems objectively worse at the limits to me, except in the sense that every car is all wheel stop. I think some of the safety issues associated to RWD were problems of the days where they were more common. Trucks need weight in the back, we know that, and winter tires are way better now. You have to learn how the car handles when it's not an emergency to know what to do in a panic. I toss every car I own around in a snowy parking lot at least once so I know what it'll do. This seems insane to a lot of people I've talked to. That said, I think understeer is safer and more predictable in most situations for people who use their cars as a transportation appliance. You point and shoot, so to speak. Most people aren't driving at the limits.

Auracle 4y ago

I've driven a Camaro year 'round in Minnesota for the last 10 years. The only place I've gotten stuck is our own (sloped) driveway, a few times. Snow tires are amazing, and it's ridiculous how few people have them here. It's always a hoot borrowing someone's pickup in the winter that they feel is oh-so-good in the snow and realizing how carefully I need to drive it because of their all-season tires. I literally plowed a road with the front of my car this year through nearly 2 feet of snow. To be fair, they probably wouldn't get stuck in my driveway but I can stop a hell of a lot quicker and turn if necessary. I also find controlling a near spinout to be more intuitive on a RWD vehicle than a FWD one, but that might be just because my first car was RWD as well.