3 ms·

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 los

by 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.
- klyrs 4y ago
  > Most people aren't driving at the limits. Strictly speaking, if your car is out of control, you're driving past the limits. The whole point of the parking lot exercise is to learn where the limit is. I drive like a granny, but prepare for the worst. And I've learned over the years to avoid the first day of snow in a season.
kube-system 4y ago
> 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. You've still got one control working in the rear: brakes. The understeer characteristics of a FWD car are very easy and intuitive to recover from. If someone can't manage traction in an FWD understeer condition, they almost certainly lack the skills to manage oversteer.
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  > The understeer characteristics of a FWD car are very easy and intuitive to recover This might be true when discussing snap over-steer and throttle induced under-steer on a track but is a complete lie for snow driving where most drivers will just keep steering harder in response to under-steer which is not productive and you don't have enough traction for lifting and braking to induce much extra weight on the front.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    > most drivers will just keep steering harder in response to under-steer That's my point. Make the wrong correction in RWD car and you end up oversteering beyond 90 degrees in an unrecoverable spin. The failure modes of FWD understeer in the snow are all recoverable.
    - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
      >That's my point. Make the wrong correction in RWD car and you end up oversteering beyond 90 degrees in an unrecoverable spin. The failure modes of FWD understeer in the snow are all recoverable. You're making one of those textbook correct but reality wrong statements that clipboard warriors love. Sure, you can recover from under-steer but if you're already doing the wrong thing and pointing the wheel where you want the car to go you almost certainly won't. With over-steer if you do the "natural" thing and steer the wheels toward where you want the car to point at least you have a chance. Sure many people might flub it but that's a heck of a lot better than the "no chance" you get if you react the same way to under-steer. Also, if you do over-correct the over-correction may very well not be as severe as the initial over-steer giving you a better chance to get it right the second time. Sure, under-steer is theoretically recoverable and with over-steer you can theoretically spin or slide backwards but in reality in "on the street" situations (i.e. not what you see someone doing on an old taxiway in a training video) 99.9% of the time you'll have hit something long before either happens. Edit: Since I'm apparently so wrong anyone care to explain? Or is it just "sideways bad because smart man with vest and clipboard say so".

by klyrs 4y ago

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.

klyrs 4y ago
> Most people aren't driving at the limits. Strictly speaking, if your car is out of control, you're driving past the limits. The whole point of the parking lot exercise is to learn where the limit is. I drive like a granny, but prepare for the worst. And I've learned over the years to avoid the first day of snow in a season.

kube-system 4y ago

> 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. You've still got one control working in the rear: brakes. The understeer characteristics of a FWD car are very easy and intuitive to recover from. If someone can't manage traction in an FWD understeer condition, they almost certainly lack the skills to manage oversteer.

dsfyu404ed 4y ago
> The understeer characteristics of a FWD car are very easy and intuitive to recover This might be true when discussing snap over-steer and throttle induced under-steer on a track but is a complete lie for snow driving where most drivers will just keep steering harder in response to under-steer which is not productive and you don't have enough traction for lifting and braking to induce much extra weight on the front.
- kube-system 4y ago
  > most drivers will just keep steering harder in response to under-steer That's my point. Make the wrong correction in RWD car and you end up oversteering beyond 90 degrees in an unrecoverable spin. The failure modes of FWD understeer in the snow are all recoverable.
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    >That's my point. Make the wrong correction in RWD car and you end up oversteering beyond 90 degrees in an unrecoverable spin. The failure modes of FWD understeer in the snow are all recoverable. You're making one of those textbook correct but reality wrong statements that clipboard warriors love. Sure, you can recover from under-steer but if you're already doing the wrong thing and pointing the wheel where you want the car to go you almost certainly won't. With over-steer if you do the "natural" thing and steer the wheels toward where you want the car to point at least you have a chance. Sure many people might flub it but that's a heck of a lot better than the "no chance" you get if you react the same way to under-steer. Also, if you do over-correct the over-correction may very well not be as severe as the initial over-steer giving you a better chance to get it right the second time. Sure, under-steer is theoretically recoverable and with over-steer you can theoretically spin or slide backwards but in reality in "on the street" situations (i.e. not what you see someone doing on an old taxiway in a training video) 99.9% of the time you'll have hit something long before either happens. Edit: Since I'm apparently so wrong anyone care to explain? Or is it just "sideways bad because smart man with vest and clipboard say so".