All-wheel drive means that power goes to all four wheels of the car, which helps it grip the road better, especially in bad weather like rain or snow. This is important for safety and control while driving.
The drivetrain is the system in a car that takes power from the engine and sends it to the wheels. It includes parts like the transmission and axles, and it helps the car move. Knowing about it can help you understand how well a car drives.
In a rear wheel drive car, the back wheels push the car forward, while the front wheels help steer it. This setup is often found in sports cars and larger vehicles, making them handle differently than front wheel drive cars.
In a front wheel drive car, the front wheels do both the driving and the steering. This is a popular design for many cars because it can save space and is usually more fuel-efficient.
In a four wheel drive vehicle, all four wheels can get power from the engine, which is great for driving on rough roads or off-road. You can usually turn it on or off depending on what you need.
Traction is how well your car's tires stick to the road. If your tires have good traction, your car can move, stop, and turn safely without sliding around.
Worn out tires are tires that have lost their grip because the rubber is too smooth. This makes it hard for your car to stop or turn safely, especially when the road is slippery.
Tread is the pattern on the surface of a tire that touches the road. It helps the tire grip the road and can affect how well the car drives, especially in wet or snowy conditions.
Snow tires are similar to winter tires and are made to help cars drive better in snow and ice. They have special patterns and materials that help them grip the road when it's slippery.
Winter tires are special tires made for driving in snow and cold weather. They have a special design and are made from rubber that stays soft when it's cold, helping cars grip the road better.
All-season tires are regular tires that can be used in different weather, like rain or light snow. They are not as good as winter tires in heavy snow but are okay for everyday driving.
Car
Mini
Mini is a small car that's fun to drive. It's popular for city driving and has a unique look.
The contact patch is the part of the tire that touches the ground. A bigger contact patch can help the car grip the road better, which is important when driving in snow or rain.
The Ford Country Squire is a big family car that looks like a wagon. It was popular in the past for carrying lots of people and stuff, and it often had a wood-like design on the sides.
A differential helps your car's wheels turn at different speeds, especially when going around corners. In some cars, the system can struggle in slippery conditions because it sends power to the wheel that spins the easiest, which might not be the best for traction.
Maintenance costs are the money you spend to keep your car running well. This includes things like oil changes, tire replacements, and fixing any problems that come up.
The Honda Odyssey is a family minivan that has lots of room for passengers and cargo. It's designed to be practical and is good for driving in different weather conditions, including snow.
LIVE
Hey everyone and welcome back to the Straight Shift, Winter Storm Edition.
So let me set the scene. I am recording in my studio in the middle of the second
winter storm in a row here in the Carolinas. Last weekend we got nothing
but ice but this weekend we have actual snow and I'm talking 12 inches of snow
in many places. It's absolutely beautiful. Those of you from up north you're
like yeah what's the big deal 12 inches of snow we get that all the time. It's a
very rare occurrence down here. The last time we had a big true snowstorm was I
think 12 years ago so it's special to us and even though I grew up in Ohio and
Wisconsin and I am no stranger to snow because it's so rare here it's still a
magical occurrence. It can also be problematic but right now the roads are
quiet everything is closed. Granted the grocery stores probably look like people
were preparing for the apocalypse because all the shelves were bare but
it's just so lovely and magical and honestly the timing couldn't be more
perfect because I wanted to cover this topic because it's a pattern that I see
over and over again with a lot of my clients. When they fill out their perfect
car questionnaire to work with me a lot of people check the box that says I must
have all-wheel drive like emphatically non-negotiable end of discussion they
have to have all-wheel drive but okay that's cool and then I read the rest of
the questionnaire and it usually says that their driving is their daily commute
around the Charlotte area or they're just running errands taking the kids to
school maybe a road trip once a year to the beach maybe they go up to Raleigh
which is three hours away entirely on the highway still in the south so I think
why do you think you need all-wheel drive and I'm not being snarky when I
ask them that I'm genuinely curious and I'm challenging them are you sure you
really need all-wheel drive and most people don't know how to answer that
question they're like well I think it's safer or once every five years we drive
up north or oh we occasionally get snow in Charlotte yeah occasionally like
every dozen years a lot of people are paying for something that they may not
actually need because they don't understand what all-wheel drive is and
what it's good for and what it's not good for when you need it and when really
you don't and so they're paying extra for something that they probably don't
actually need for their lifestyle so that is what today's episode is going to
be about it's not an anti all-wheel drive rant I'm a big fan of all-wheel drive
for the right purposes this is more of a reality check and one of those
semi-technical educational podcast but don't worry I won't get too nerdy
winter storms just have a way of turning mild preferences into full-blown panic
and I want to make sure people understand what the different drive
trains are what they mean and what they can and cannot do so let's get into it
before we go any further let me just address something that pops up anytime
we get any sort of winter storm here in the south I know all you northerners and
westerners having been one myself love giving everybody in the South crap
because oh my god we got an inch of snow and it brings the entire city to a
screeching halt and honestly fair point but it's because we do not have the
equipment and the infrastructure we don't even have the tires to be able to
handle it and we usually get just ice and that doesn't do anybody any good but
we don't have the salt trucks we don't have winter tires most of our cars are
running at best and all season tire and people here unless they have grown up
up north like me they just don't have the training in the experience to drive in
that type of weather hence why there's a lot of confusion over all wheel drive
so to explain what all wheel drive is good for and what it's not we need to
take a step back and look at all of the different drive trains so that you
understand the difference I'm going to start with rear wheel drive because
that's coming less common on cars today but it's important to understand how
that behaves because it will make front wheel drive and all wheel drive and
four wheel drive make a lot more sense in rear wheel drive which is what vehicles
used to be and what sportier vehicles still are and even your big trucks and
SUVs still have a base of rear wheel drive and that simply means that the rear wheels
are in charge of propelling the car forward usually occasionally backwards when
you need to back up but the rear wheels drive the car the front wheels steer
but there's a little division of labor there now what happens when you get into
low traction situations like snow definitely ice even heavy rain that matters because
when your rear wheels lose grip because they are trying to propel the car forward on a slippery
surface the back end of your car starts sliding you as the driver don't feel that right away
the car is already rotating usually before you realize it and next thing you know you are
ass backwards spinning off into the tulips or in this case into the snow ditch that is why
rear wheel drive can be a lot sketchier in winter it's not evil it just demands faster reaction
times and a lot more skill modern traction control helps a bit but it can't rewrite physics now i
grew up a long time ago in the north and so i learned how to drive on a rear wheel drive
in the snow let me tell you you learn car control very quickly when you have to get to school in
the morning and all there is is rear wheel drive but it also helps you to learn where the limits
of traction are and how your car handles at nice low speeds because you can lose traction at seven
miles an hour so it's a great safer way to learn those skills hence why my father took me out to
the big snow covered parking lots after skating practice every day so that we could play and learn
because he said this is going to happen anyway you might as well learn to do it on purpose
so that you learn that control you learn how the car feels and then how to control those slides
little did he know that he would be turning me into the race car driver that i am today
but it was a lot of fun but i learned a lot we didn't have all wheel drive back then
we were starting to get front wheel drive which is what my mother's station wagon was
which is why she always wanted me to drive the station wagon because it was so much safer
but so much less fun but front wheel drive is become the defaults for most cars these days
in a front wheel drive car it does what it says the front wheels are propelling the car
in addition to steering so they've got a lot more work to do they're carrying a lot of the vehicles
weight but here's the key safety difference when those front wheels lose traction when they're trying
to propel the car forward you feel it immediately and the car just starts to get a little bit loose
a little bit light but the back end doesn't start to come around right away that happens when the
rear tires lose traction but when those front wheels start to slip you feel it and it's a
heck of a lot easier to correct give it a little throttle you just kind of point it in the direction
you want to go and hopefully the car settles back down depending on the surface that you have lost
traction upon that early feedback is key it gives you a lot more time to react and it's a
little more forgiving and bad driving conditions rear wheel drive not remotely forgiving and this
is where people don't like hearing that all-wheel drive is not that much different all-wheel drive
means what it says all four wheels propel the car forward which means that they can help you get
moving if you are stuck hopefully at least one of those tires can find some level of traction
and it can pull the rest of the vehicle along and get you moving until the other wheels start to
get some traction and now you can move forward it also helps you continue to move forward on
snow semi-slippery surfaces because today the all-wheel drive systems are what they call
intelligence because intelligence all-wheel drive is a great marketing term but all that
really means is that there are computers that are calculating what level of traction each tire has
therefore i'm going to give the most power to the wheel that has the tire with the most
traction because that's the one that's going to be able to get us out of this problem
you can think of it like an office you've got four team members and they're all supposed to
be pulling around the same amount of weight right and they have a supervisor that supervisor is the
car's computer and the computer is keeping an eye on everybody make sure they're doing the work
seeing if there are any problems that they need to fix if a couple of tires suddenly don't have
traction they raise their hand and go help help i can't do my job and the supervisor says okay who
has traction oh okay you have great traction you have some traction let me distribute the workload
to you and you can get us going and then once the other team members get some traction then we can
redistribute the workload and everybody can go back to pulling their own weight that is what
all-wheel drive is great for what it does not help you do is stop doesn't help you brake doesn't
help you stop faster it does nothing at all to improve deceleration on slippery roads all-wheel
drive helps acceleration and momentum but it doesn't do you a dang but a good if you were
trying to stop on a slippery surface all vehicles no matter what kind of powertrain they have
have brakes on all four wheels so all four wheels are trying to brake now they may be intelligent
enough to distribute the braking to different wheels under these conditions but that's not
all-wheel drive that's traction control but those are things that get you out of trouble so a front
wheel drive vehicle can be just as effective and just as safe as an all-wheel drive vehicle
depending on what conditions are causing the low traction if the low traction is being caused by
worn out tires that don't have enough tread to move whatever the slippery thing is out of your way
whether that's water frozen water semi frozen water it's not going to do you a bit of good
anyway you're not going to be able to stop so when we have ice storms here in the south which
is what we usually get people think i'll be fine i've got all-wheel drive nope they are just sliding
just as beautifully as everybody else maybe they'll slide a little more diagonally or a little
more sideways versus getting that good quipping spin out that rear-wheel drive has but either way
they're not really going anywhere so if the roads are icy just stay home that's why you
stocked up on the milk and the bread and hopefully the adult beverages just stay home this weekend
we got actual snow it's the light fluffy stuff and i'm talking like fluffy enough that it's
actually difficult to make a good snowball not that i didn't try but the light fluffy stuff gives
your tires something to have traction on they give that tread something to channel and move out of
the way so that you can propel yourself forward however the tires that we have here in the south
are not really designed to do that that is why people who live in places that have an actual
winter with lots of snow they tend to change out their tires to winter tires or snow tires that are
designed not only with a tread that moves all that snow out of the way to propel them forward
but also the rubber is made of a different compound that tolerates the colder temperatures better
rubber doesn't really like to be cold so they have to make it differently to be able to handle
regular cold temperatures i found out that the hard way when i went to the ir the racetrack in
to be nice and toasty warm to give you great traction and we had unseasonably cold weather
that weekend and it was about 34 degrees and i was basically driving on plastic
taco tires i had no grip whatsoever because the rubber was like whoa who said it was going to
be cold this is not what we're designed for so i should have just put the regular all season tires
on it and had a better day but i didn't so it's not just the tread but when you're talking about
snow that is the most important thing so we don't have that down here if you're lucky you have a
good all season tire and they're pretty new and you've got some traction and if it's snowing out
and you didn't grow up completely in the south you've driven on snow before it's not horrible you
just have to go a lot slower you have to know how to control the car when you do start to slip and
how you start to slip you need to remember that going uphill is a lot harder than going downhill
but going downhill you need to be sure that you can actually stop when you get to that stop sign
that they always put at the bottom of the hill so a lot of it is driver skill like i said growing
up we didn't have fancy all wheel drive but it made everything a lot of fun so of course
yesterday when we had all this beautiful snow we literally got about 12 inches and about 10 hours
just amazing for charlotte so the first thing my husband and i did was like oh where's the nearest
giant open parking lot that we can go play because that's what we do so the giant open parking lots
are getting harder and harder to find so we found one that was reasonably large and fairly open you
just have to watch out for the islands this didn't have light poles but it did have islands with trees
and it's difficult to see where the curbs are when there's that much snow but we went over there
anyway the problem is my car maggie my little mini she's fun in the snow she's front wheel drive so
not as fun as rear wheel drive but you know mini she's not running right now still because i have
not ordered the four billion parts that she needs so i have my mother's 2003 base model toyota carola
you can have fun in anything right so we went over there in the carola and still managed to have
some fun we did drop the front tire pressures quite a bit and that's something a lot of people
don't necessarily know to do to give themselves more traction is you drop your tires we drop down
to i think maybe 20 psi from near 40 psi so basically we cut it in half and that makes the
tire a lot softer which also puts more of it on the surface it gives you a larger contact patch
and it was able to move things so we had a good time and i shot a really short youtube video on it
and i will put a link to that in the description because i have to have fun in the snow
and i have to share it with you guys now back to the different drive trains like i said we never
had a wheel drive when i was growing up and i grew up in cleveland on the east side which is
extremely snowy but we were fine we also knew how to adapt when i was a toddler we had this giant
green wood grain ugly as you know what ford country squire station wagon and that
land yacht was rear wheel drive so we had two things that we had to do in the winter
because in those old cars they were long they were big that big heavy engine was all up front
yet the rear wheels were trying to propel the car with no weight over them
so yeah not the best snow machines so we did two things we would put 25 to 50 pound bags
of cat litter in the back one it helped weight down the car but two if we got stuck on some ice
where we couldn't get some traction you go and you get some of that kitty litter and you pour it
underneath the tire on the slippery area and then that gave the tire something to grab onto
so that you could hopefully rock out of the little rut that you were stuck in and kitty litter is
better for that than salt because cat litter doesn't damage your car like salt does and it's also
usually cheaper and we had it anyway so it didn't matter the other thing we did was we added additional
weight to the back of the car by carrying the newfoundland around with us every time we went
out and he loved it his name was Bambi and he loved riding in the car so we would just get him
back there and you know there's another 140 150 pounds over the drive wheels as long as we could
get him to stay back there because he did like to try and move up front and get into the back seat
and like lean over the driver's shoulder and drool down the side of their neck while they were
driving but he was usually pretty good and we could keep him in the back these are the things
that we did growing up without all wheel drive the other thing that you need to understand
is the concept of a differential and most all wheel drive cars today use open differentials
and this is going to be important when I start explaining the difference between all wheel drive
and four wheel drive without getting into exactly what a differential is and how it is built
the purpose of it is is to send power to the wheels and an open diff is lazy it sends the power to
the wheel with the least resistance because it's easy so that's why in the snow and ice that one
wheel will spin and everybody else is absolutely nothing we call it the one wheel peel I have that
problem in Maggie she has an open diff lots and lots of vehicles do and it doesn't drive you crazy
until you were trying to get traction with that one drive wheel and it's just going
it's really annoying diff's not broken it's doing exactly what it's designed to do
and why I'm going to put a limited slip in Maggie but this is where people get confused about all
wheel drive versus four wheel drive four wheel drive is something that we have had for a lot longer
than all wheel drive and we associate it with trucks pickup trucks that's what used to be the
only thing that had four wheel drive and then the big suburbans and expeditions that are based
on the pickup trucks they have part time four wheel drive which means that its rear wheel drive
all the time unless you push a magic button and it locks in four wheel drive all wheel drive systems
on the other hand they rely on clutches and that brake based traction control I mentioned earlier
they're reactive but they're also designed to drive on the roads they're really not heavy
off-road focused this is why all wheel drive struggles in the sand I had a client who did a
lot of regular driving on beaches up in the northeast and all wheel drive was not going to work
sand is many ways so much worse than snow especially very fine sand it requires momentum
the all wheel drive system just basically panics and it cuts powers and applies the brakes and just
kind of digs you in deeper so we had to make sure that we got him a vehicle with true four by four
four wheel drive with a locking differential and a low mode in order to be able to handle that sand
without getting stuck if you really want to see some great examples of that there's a youtube channel
that my husband absolutely loves and I watch with him sometimes because it's highly entertaining
good family entertainment it's called matt's off-road recovery it's a really popular youtube channel
he lives out in Utah and his whole business is getting people unstuck from stupid places that
they probably should not have been trying to go in the vehicle that they had and one of those is sand
because they have the salt lakes and everybody gets into that sand and silt and they all get
stuck and he has to do these crazy things to get them out it's very entertaining he's always kind
of shaking his head at the people in their all wheel drive rental cars thinking that they can
go out on this stuff and not get stuck and they do every single time it's made him a mint that's why
true four wheel drive gives you a lot more advantage because it gives you more control I had a true
four wheel drive car when I lived in Ohio for the first couple years of my adult life and I had to
use it some days to get out of snow drifts because I had to park on the street and they'd come through
at night and they would plow the road and I would get completely plowed in so I would have to get
in on the passenger side crawl over put it in for low and literally plow myself out and then I could
either turn that off or I could put it in for high if I knew I was going to be driving on
very snowy roads in order to get to work but down here in the south this only happens once every 10
to 15 years and so the all wheel drive isn't as helpful it is helpful in the rain it will help
you to get a little bit more traction in heavy rain that's why all wheel drive is very popular
in places like Seattle where they get a ton of rain not as much snow but you really have to think
about the trade-offs do you really need it if you live in a place that doesn't have regular snow
and I say snow not ice because they are a little bit more expensive the insurance on them tends to
be a little bit more expensive you have slightly higher maintenance costs you have tire costs because
with these intelligent all wheel drive systems remember that supervisor I talked about that's
distributing work it relies on all four of those tires essentially being the same they have to
have the same tread pattern so they absolutely have to be the same make-and-model tire but they
also need to have the same tread depth in order for that system to work correctly because most of
them don't take into account differences in tread depth so you're not going to get the same performance
and it's just not going to be as safe to drive so what that means is if you blow one tire run over
a pothole a big nail or whatever and you have to replace one tire guess what you're very often
replacing all four tires instead of just the two from that axle all wheel drive vehicles are also a
little bit harder to find down here in the south because they send them up north in places where
they're actually more needed so front wheel drive is way more common down here and for the vast
majority of people in the south front wheel drive is perfectly fine in fact most of you will never
even know the difference when you are just driving around town doing the normal things that you do
with your life next time you go to look for a car think about do i really need all wheel drive do i
really understand what that means and is it going to be something that i need for my lifestyle or
you know maybe yeah it's great because we drive up north every couple of years to have Christmas
with the family up there guess what you can rent cars there's a lot of vehicles out there that aren't
made in all wheel drive the honda odyssey that's front wheel drive it does just fine up north in
the snow don't think that all wheel drive means that you can drive in any conditions that it
automatically means that you're going to be safe and don't think that you absolutely have to have
it necessarily depending on where you live and what you do so buy the drive train for your real
life for that 90 percent of your life knowing that that other 10 percent or in the case of snow
in charlotte the half of one percent every 12 years you can just stay home or you can rent something
or you can just learn to drive in the snow it's a lot of fun but i hope that that's helpful in
understanding the difference in the drive trains and what they do and how they differ from each other
so that you can make a better decision the next time you're faced with well should i get front
wheel drive or should i get all wheel drive whatever drive frame you have in your car
and whatever the weather outside your door please drive safely i'm out of here the straight shift
podcast is copyright liam shattuck the car trip all views expressed by guests and or co-hosts or
those of the guests and or co-hosts and not necessarily those of lian shattuck or the car
trip
About this episode
Exploring the misconceptions around all-wheel drive (AWD) and its necessity for winter driving, this episode challenges common beliefs held by car buyers in warmer climates. The host discusses the differences between rear-wheel drive, front-wheel drive, and AWD, emphasizing that many people overestimate the need for AWD based on infrequent snow events. With personal anecdotes and technical insights, listeners gain a clearer understanding of how different drivetrains perform in low-traction situations and the importance of proper tires for winter conditions.
In this episode of The Straight Shift, The Car Chick® discusses the importance of understanding different drivetrains, particularly in the context of winter driving. She reflects on the recent winter storms in the Carolinas and addresses common misconceptions about all-wheel drive vehicles. The conversation covers the differences between rear-wheel drive, front-wheel drive, all-wheel drive, and four-wheel drive, emphasizing the significance of tires and driving skills in snowy conditions. The episode concludes with advice on making informed decisions about vehicle purchases based on individual driving needs.
Takeaways
Many people overestimate their need for all-wheel drive.
Understanding the differences in drivetrains is crucial for safety.
All-wheel drive does not improve braking on slippery surfaces.
Tires play a significant role in winter driving performance.
Four-wheel drive offers more control than all-wheel drive in certain conditions.
All-wheel drive systems can be expensive to maintain and replace tires.
