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I'd like to elaborate on that. Just thinking intuitively (I'm no physicist), as a car (or anything else) accelerates, the weight of the thing is shifted backwards because of Newton's laws of inertia. You see it on a car when the front lifts up and the rear squats down during a quick take off. So, with FWD you essentially have weight lifted off the front tires just when you need weight there the most for traction. With RWD the weight of inertia pushes on the rear tires so they grip and get you moving better.
When the front tires have double duty of propelling the car and steering it, they simply won't do either exteremly well. 'Tis better to divide up the work.
You are so right. If it were not for the extreme imbalance between weight on the front wheels and the rear on FWD cars, they would be undriveable. None of the advantage comes from the FWD. It all comes from loading all the weight up front with the engine and transaxle and all. If a car was 50 50 weight balance, no one would be crowing about the FWD performance in the snow (which, one can achieve on a RWD car by simply adding 300 pounds or so over the rear axle).
Just as a question, when was the last horse pushed carriage you saw? And have you tried to push a rope up a hill?
When was the last time you changed the plug wires on a 4th gen Camaro/Firebird and tried to get to the distributor cap way back under the cowl? Even on the LS1 cars that had individual coil packs, it's a PITA to reach the rear cyls:
I changed the plug wires on a FWD Cavalier and they were all right there in front and easy to get to. Here's a Honda one. How hard s it to get to the spark plugs?
How about the plugs and distributor cap in this common FWD car?
So let's not make easily countered broad generalizations, ok?
i noticed that all the pictures of front drivers you provided were of the four cylinder variety. V6 front drivers are harder to change plugs on because the back three cylinders are harder to get to. as for simple maintenance though, pretty much nothing beats my 64 falcon inline six ofr ease of maintenance. not only are the plugs a snap to change, as well as any distributor maintenance required, but you can even change the starter without getting under the car.
When was the last time you changed the plug wires on a 4th gen Camaro/Firebird and tried to get to the distributor cap way back under the cowl? Even on the LS1 cars that had individual coil packs, it's a PITA to reach the rear cyls:
I changed the plug wires on a FWD Cavalier and they were all right there in front and easy to get to. Here's a Honda one. How hard s it to get to the spark plugs?
How about the plugs and distributor cap in this common FWD car?
So let's not make easily countered broad generalizations, ok?
If you would have read what I posted, I said the dist. cap/plug wires were the PITA, not the plugs.
The plugs were easy. The cap and rotor looked like you would have to pull the engine to replace them. I won't bother getting into the belt driven accessories. This was on a 1995 Cavalier BTW.
Yes I've heard horror stories on the 4th gen F body being difficult. One of the reasons why I don't own one. (besides the fact everyone and their cousin, uncle, mother, sister, aunt and grandma has one)
Quote:
Originally Posted by hoffdano
So out of hundreds of FWD vehicles on the market today - you reject them because the distributor cap was hard to reach on ONE?
No not just one. I've been around several....and some of the belt driven accessories are buried deep to where you have to practically disassemble the engine just to get to them.
On at least some FWD V-6 setups there is a bolt you loosen and the engine will rock forward so you can access the 3 rear plugs, it *may* be that the Cavalier has this, and it may make getting the cap and wires off and back on easier.
But I agree, many V-6 FWD setups are a real PITA to work on. The V-6 is not necessarily a real "upgrade" from the 4, IMHO - it has some more power but it's still not really powerful, MPG is worse, and some common maintenance tasks become PITA.
The water-cooled VW like the red car in Merc's post is mostly easy to work on, several things are very well thought out for servicability like the outboard mounting of the throwout bearing. Doing a clutch is somewhat a PITA but with FWD (or 4WD, or most AWD) that's the nature of the beast.
Sorry to have offended you, ye of few posts. If you check my history, you'll see that I am generally quite active and helpful in the automotive forums when it comes to legit questions and discussions. However, this particular topic has been hashed to death previously and really is nothing more than troll bait. Is it really necessary to post an inane question that anyone could find the real answer to with nothing more than a modicum of effort?
If you want the "real" answer, you could search for the previous threads about this or read the following:
FWD was adopted as it is a more compact solution, making it easier to build the car. Also, do to the benefit of being compact it allows for a car to have a larger interior relative to the overall dimension of a car than would be possible in a RWD or AWD setup. The added bonus is that it is a marginally more efficient setup do to less rotating parts and mechanical loss in the drivetrain. FWD's achilles heel is it's handling dynamics, exacerbated by poor weight distribution. One ancilliary benefit is that it affords better traction in poor weather since the vehicles weight is centered over the front axle.
RWD is the enthusiasts choice as it affords the best weight balance and handling dynamics. However, it is more costly to build, slightly less efficient than an otherwise comparable FWD setup and compromises interior space do to the necessity of a tunnel for the trans and driveshaft.
Which is "better" is entirely situationally dependent. In general, if you care about performance and handling dynamics above all else RWD will be a better match. If you don't care about those things, FWD will suit you just fine.
Up next for debate...Bush vs. Obama, which is better?
Another classic cool guy move, assuming you're special enough to offend people on an anonymous msg board. You are on a roll my friend!
that vid is faked!!! If you don't believe me, just listen to a lot of people here who are *experts* and say that a fwd car cannot work!!
Thank you
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