Any other RWD purists out there?

[Posmo]

I've been getting a bit of flack on the forums for my view on front wheel drive cars. As some of you might know, I wouldn't accept a front wheel drive car even as a commuter box. I just feel that RWD does just about everything better, and allows you to do the most fun thing possible when driving a car, powersliding. I know it's childish to go everywhere sideways, but just by looking at Top Gear, you can tell it's a shit-ton of fun.

Most people say that rwd is more dangerous for a mediocre driver, but I disagree with that aswell. If anything, rwd makes you a better driver by making you appreciate both front & rear wheel traction on your car (esp. on snow). With fwd, you only really care about the wheel traction at the front (and if you lose it, you're going straight into the tree), Rwd makes you learn throttle control better, and makes you better at applying opposite lock when needed. Other + points include more even tire wear, more traction under acceleration and more balanced handling.

I just couldn't justify buying a fwd car, unless it was DIRT cheap, and I absolutely only needed something to commute in. Not when there are rwd options available. Sure, they might fetch a premium on the used car marked (atleast they do in here), but there is a reason for that. They are just better.

So, I ask you, are there any other people here who feel that front (fail) wheel drive is for feeble people who don't know what they are missing?


(I understand that this post is highly opinionated and not very cohesive.)

 

[Reckoning]

Some people just don't give a flying rat's arse whether their car is rear wheel, front wheel, all wheel, no wheel drive nor the cylinders.

Performance orientated people generally will be rwd or awd, occasional fwd.
But most people who have fwd cars either can't afford anything else or don't really care.


Like everything in life, both sides have their positives and negatives which also depend on the bias of the person observing said comparison.


I don't mind fwd, it can be fun, but yes I do prefer rwd.

 

[Spectre]

Um, Posmo.... are you sure you're feeling alright? Did you somehow miss the multitude of "FWD is for the Feeble" threads and posts?

As for me... check out the fleet inventory below. Then guess what I think about FWD.

 

[prizrak]

As much hate as I have for the FWD cars I don't agree with you that RWD can do everything better. In low traction situations FWD is far better than RWD. No matter how well you drive you are not going to beat physics.

FWD is safer for "regular" drivers because their behavior is more expected by a regular driver. They understeer into corners and all you have to do is take your foot off the gas to get it back in line. In RWD it is entirely too easy to oversteer and spin out if you don't know what you are doing.

Rwd makes you learn throttle control better,

That's actually wrong. RWD is naturally more balanced allowing you to take more liberties with the throttle. When accelerating weight transfers to the back so in a straight you can just floor it. Going around a turn means being off throttle till the apex and then accelerate pretty quickly. In FWD cars you have to feather the throttle through corners to minimize understeer.

FWD is a shitty layout and I hate it but it has its advantages over RWD.

 

[MacGuffin]

I just happened to drive a powerful RWD car in heavy rain. To be honest, I wished for a 4WD...

 

[EyeMWing]

My FWD inventory is the unfortunate result of decisions I made when I thought $10,000 for a used Ford Focus was the best I could do on the used car market - and that decision was made under pressure from the fact that I'd just killed my RWD 7.4L V8 behemoth. I WILL reclaim the funnest shit in all of driving.

FWD isn't totally reprehensible, but it isn't pointless either. It serves beautifully to keep morons out of our lanes of travel as often as possible.

 

[NooDle]

I think it has a lot to do with where you live, climate wise, and traffic wise.
I think every car enthousiast loves RWD and would buy such cars, but if you live in a big city and are in traffic every day, there would be no point since you never get to enjoy your "RWDness"

Also, you live in "holyfuckitscold" country, which means snow & ice, which means doriftoooo!
Most of us Euros don't have such conditions (well maybe once a year for a week or so), so again, we don't have the chance to enjoy our RWD.

Sure it's fun on a track, and I can even understand the douchecock in the old BMW who drifts around roundabouts when it's wet, but other than that? FWD is usually more than enough for most people here, and easier/cheaper to maintain aswell (shorter distance between engine and wheels => less stuff to go wrong)

 

[Lightning Count]

RWD has a lot more performance potential as you don't compromise handling when you start using more powerful engines. That said FWD is getting better, remember when 200bhp was the limit for FWD, well the new Focus RS (which I have driven) handles it's 300bhp very well and is plenty of fun to drive quickly.

AWD is very good and very safe, but unfortunately due to drive train losses, you need for the engine to be putting down a LOT of power for it to match a similar rear wheel drive car. Case in point, the F430 Scuderia vs Gallardo LP560-4, the Gallardo needs 60 more horse power to better the lighter, less powerful Scuderia.

That said when AWD is done right, it can be incredibly formidable, as it offers scary levels of performance at high levels and a reassuring amount of safety should the weather turn against you.

 

[Smurfen]

Wrong wheel drive is not acceptable here and would be punishible by up to 21 years in jail if i were the prime minister

 

[Adunaphel]

I think it has a lot to do with where you live, climate wise, and traffic wise.
I think every car enthousiast loves RWD and would buy such cars, but if you live in a big city and are in traffic every day, there would be no point since you never get to enjoy your "RWDness"

Also, you live in "holyfuckitscold" country, which means snow & ice, which means doriftoooo!
Most of us Euros don't have such conditions (well maybe once a year for a week or so), so again, we don't have the chance to enjoy our RWD.

Sure it's fun on a track, and I can even understand the douchecock in the old BMW who drifts around roundabouts when it's wet, but other than that? FWD is usually more than enough for most people here, and easier/cheaper to maintain aswell (shorter distance between engine and wheels => less stuff to go wrong)

"RWD-ness" as you call it is not just mad DORIFUTOOOOOO shit. For me it is the way the car responds to inputs. If I turn the wheel the car turns in immediately, without threatening to go straight first. If I press the throttle mid turn, the car turns in more, instead of heading in the general direction of the guardrails on the outside.
And I live in a country with lots of traffic every day, yet I have more than ample opportunities to enjoy the handling of my car in those circumstances without endangering myself or other motorists.

 

[Posmo]

"RWD-ness" as you call it is not just mad DORIFUTOOOOOO shit. For me it is the way the car responds to inputs. If I turn the wheel the car turns in immediately, without threatening to go straight first. If I press the throttle mid turn, the car turns in more, instead of heading in the general direction of the guardrails on the outside.
And I live in a country with lots of traffic every day, yet I have more than ample opportunities to enjoy the handling of my car in those circumstances without endangering myself or other motorists.

I do like all of the things you mentioned, I was just too lazy to put them in my post. And also you guys have missed the point of the thread a bit. What I'm asking is:

Are there other people here who simply couldn't buy a front wheel drive car?

 

[DanRoM]

I have to agree with NooDle...

Of course, RWD would be more fun driven "spirited", but well, I have fun on the Ring with my FWD too. The problem is, there are simply no RWD cars to buy in certain classes. The only RWD hatchback in Europe seems to be the BMW 1 series. And that serves as my answer to Posmo's question: I'd like to have a RWD car, but with my other constraints, there wasn't one to buy.

 

[Posmo]

I do like all of the things you mentioned, I was just too lazy to put them in my post. And also you guys have missed the point of the thread a bit. What I'm asking is:

Are there other people here who simply couldn't buy a front wheel drive car?

(Apart from Spectre, who often has the correct opinions.)

 

[Spectre]

I think it has a lot to do with where you live, climate wise, and traffic wise.
I think every car enthousiast loves RWD and would buy such cars, but if you live in a big city and are in traffic every day, there would be no point since you never get to enjoy your "RWDness"

Also, you live in "holyfuckitscold" country, which means snow & ice, which means doriftoooo!
Most of us Euros don't have such conditions (well maybe once a year for a week or so), so again, we don't have the chance to enjoy our RWD.

Sure it's fun on a track, and I can even understand the douchecock in the old BMW who drifts around roundabouts when it's wet, but other than that? FWD is usually more than enough for most people here, and easier/cheaper to maintain aswell (shorter distance between engine and wheels => less stuff to go wrong)

Actually, FWD is more maintenance intensive than RWD, as those CV boots and joints tend to go out far more often than their RWD counterparts. It is also more difficult to maintain - just ask airmenair here who just had the delightful experience of servicing the transmission on his FWD Acura/Honda. There are a few more parts on a RWD drivetrain as opposed to a FWD drivetrain, but that is offset by the fact that the parts are simpler and under far less stress as they don't actually have to deal with steering the car directly.

The only traction advantage a FWD car has is initial traction from a stop because of the weight over the drive wheels; even that is illusory. If you have a RWD vehicle with the same weight over the drive wheels, it will have the same traction. Once it starts moving and weight transfer comes into play, the RWD car will have more traction than the FWD one. And even in every day driving, RWD is safer - if your front wheels lose traction in a turn, you can still steer with the throttle. Can't do that in a fail wheel drive car.

Fail wheel drive is only popular because it's cheaper for manufacturers to crank out FWD cars. And even then, modern manufacturing means that the cost delta is very small now.

***

Posmo, you know damn well that unless someone held a gun to my head or something similarly dire that I won't be buying a FWD car. Ever.

 

[stevanford1]

Apart from the Focus RS, there is no FWD car i want.

 

[Adunaphel]

Are there other people here who simply couldn't buy a front wheel drive car?

I wouldn't say that I absolutely positively could never buy a FWD car, but I am very much biased towards RWD ones. Sadly, like DanRoM pointed out, the amount of RWD cars out there is not that great, esp if you want something relatively new. The past 10 years the only companies that made RWD saloons available here were BMW, Jaaag and M-B. And I wouldn't touch a M-B car made after 94 with a 10 foot pole.

 

[Spectre]

I wouldn't say that I absolutely positively could never buy a FWD car, but I am very much biased towards RWD ones. Sadly, like DanRoM pointed out, the amount of RWD cars out there is not that great, esp if you want something relatively new. The past 10 years the only companies that made RWD saloons available here were BMW, Jaaag and M-B. And I wouldn't touch a M-B car made after 94 with a 10 foot pole.

Fortunately, my local market and my brand preferences mean that this is a non-issue for me.

 

[Matt2000]

Wheelspinning a FWD car just makes you pull a disappointed face, and that's enough to make RWD better. There are cars that I would buy regardless of there FWDness though, like the Octavia vRS for example. I've even recently been considering FWD rot boxes as cheap runabouts (for some reason I want an old Renault estate, haven't worked out why yet, and have no idea if they're FWD or RWD).

 

[NooDle]

Apart from the Focus RS, there is no FWD car i want.

this thread has nothing to do with WANT. The question the OP is asking is more like : are there any other people out there who will not even consider an FWD car, even as a daily commuter box.

So far, I see one guy who says 'yes me'. And he's scary

 

[LeVeL]

RWD is certainly a lot of fun and it teaches you to be a better driver, but, quite frankly, the way that the vast majority of you use your cars it really doesn't matter what-wheel-drive they are. On public streets, especially in cities, it doesn't make one bit of difference whether your car is FWD, RWD, or AWD. When I would sit in traffic for an hour and a half on my way to work every morning this summer, the last thing I cared about was which wheels were being driven.

With that out of the way, FWD is far from being the devil that most people here make it out to be. Sure, you can toss a RWD car sideways and have a lot of fun and yes, theoretically RWD is better balanced and whatnot (although once again, 99% of FGers will never notice that), but FWD can be a lot of fun too. Drive a well set-up FWD car and I dare you to tell me that its not fun. You can toss it in, get the back end out without having to worry about delicate throttle control, mash the throttle and just go. FWDs also tend to be lighter, don't forget that (Civics, CRXs, etc are pretty small).

That said, my next car will most likely be RWD or maybe AWD, as it will see a lot of autocross duty and empty backroads, not just work commute.

Apart from the Focus RS, there is no FWD car i want.

Dat's cool. Want a cookie?