Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General General Ford Five Hundred

Two personal opinions: The Ford 500 will NOT be a smash due to extremely blah styling and too little power to compete in the class (people read the numbers, and for the same money they will often go for more horsepower).

The second opinion is that I really prefer RWD to FWD in the snow. And yes I have driven both. You lose traction to the front wheels in an FWD, and you can't brake or steer, which are the more important parts of the job. You lose rear-wheel traction, and you still have a couple of options.

And I use snow tires. Cheap life insurance.

Yes, the braking systems are the same, but in a front wheel slide on ice in an FWD car, you can't steer, accelerate, or brake. You're sliding, and there isn't a ton you can do about it except hammer the clutch pedal and hope those wheels start to grip.

I find that RWD lessens the chances of this happening by taking acceleration out of the equation for the wheels that have to steer and do the lion's share of the braking.

WHAT!

You are either accelerating or braking! Not both! Every car is baised towards barking in the front. If you brake and start sliding, it doesn't matter which drive system you have. Absolutely none.

-Andy

....but it makes a world of difference on acceleration, or going around turns.

Listen, I just gave my preference (note the word OPINION in my original post). If I am going to be sliding around, I find it much easier (and in some ways fun!) to catch a rear end that's coming around, than to catch a front end that has started to slide in a turn.

You'll notice by re-reading my original post that I said that when, or ONCE you have lost traction, you can't brake or steer on an FWD car, not that you lose traction when braking, and that makes it hard to brake or steer. Lose traction on the drive wheels on a rear drive car, you still have the fronts to brake and steer.

And I never said I was braking and steering at the same time. You might have been misreading and reacting at the same time, however.

If you want to continue this debate and not bore the other posters...like the Ford 500 design (sorry, couldn't resist ), PM me.

There is a lot of misconception here on both sides. Here's the truth.

1. FWD traction is inferior, except perhaps in the case of accelerating. Asking the front tires to handle "pulling" and "turning" as well as braking or accelerating means that the front tires will reach their saturation point sooner than if the duties were split between front and rear. This is true whether the pavement is dry, wet, or snowy.

2. It doesn't matter how you are sliding, when you can't control it, you can't control it. But the failure mode of a FWD car is "better" for two reasons; a) If you plow straight ahead into a collision, you take full advantage of the car's crumple zones, unlike when you slide sideways into it, and b) the instinctive reaction of most people when they start to slide is to lift off the gas pedal. In a nose-heavy, FWD car, the car will (almost always) slow down in a nice straight line until the grip returns. In an oversteer condition, it is possible to exacerbate the problem by lifting (lift-throttle oversteer), and oversteer is more likely in a RWD car because it's more likely that the rear tires will break loose first, especially rounding a corner and speeding up at the same time.

My own experience is with two different RWD cars, and several FWDs. I never had any trouble driving my 74 Capri on slippery roads. The rear would move around, but I knew how to bring it back in, and that car was very easy to control, even without fancy electronics. My Beetles were a different story. With their rearward weight bias, they would just feel twitchy all the time on snowy or slushy roads. I felt more confident with my FWDs, but that didn't save me from plowing into the curb a couple winters ago. (Yes, I was going too fast in slush ) I let off the gas, and the car just kept going, and going... I was glad to be on the outside of the curve, at least, and not plowing into the oncoming lanes.

Bottom line: Slow down in the snow, no matter which wheels are driving.

Amen on slowing down in the snow. I have done some stupid bad-weather drives in my time, and have learned that discretion is the better part of valour.

I have more experience with rear drive cars than front drive, which could explain my bias towards rear drivers in bad weather. I have only lost control of a rear drive car once on the street when I wasn't playing and doing 20 km/h powerslides on empty snowy roads. My Acura Integra, I lost control a lot. Both those losses of control were before I could afford to put snow tires on a car.

And Roger, my dad ran into the same issue with his Beetle back in the 60's -- he did a full 360 on a snowy road and kept right on driving!