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I've driven 2 Pathfinders with selectable 4wheel drive, and had a V8 4Runner with AWD, all where excellent vehicles in the snow, the 4Runner with the AWD could easily get stuck in deep snow with the VSC on but once you locked the diff and split it 50/50 the truck was a beast all 3 had aggressive tires, not snows but they drove like they where on rails, I miss the security of those vehicles in the snow

Currently my Maxima stays in the garage when it snows, I go out but only when I have to, I just feel different driving, the super wide tires and the constant slip and slide just don't make me feel like I want to drive around, I would rather wait a day, and let the roads get plowed and still have my car.

Overall in general most people driving anything labels as a 4x4 or AWD makes me really uncomfortable cause I've seen many vehicles slide across the road right in front of me

UDel

A couple years ago my friend had a IS300 and was following me in my fwd 4 cylinder Accord while it was snowing pretty bad in Delaware. He said the car is really terrible in the snow/ice and keep an eye on him in my mirror. While we were taking a curvy on ramp to get on a road I saw his car loose control in the snow and spin off into a ditch. I was traveling faster then him and made the turn with no problems whatsoever. I do not know if it is a combination of several things weight balance, size, rwd, etc but I have read other places that the IS300 is well known to be a bad winter driver including I think Car Driver or Road and Track where a long term IS300 was heavily damaged driving in the snow from losing control and getting in an accident and them commenting it was terrible in the snow. Mustangs, Firebirds, Camaros are also really awful in the snow, I drove a Firebird in the snow once and it was a nightmare.

My old fwd Accord with all season tires was great in the snow and I had no problems with it and never saw the need for a awd/4wd vehicle. Even my GS430 with all season tires was pretty decent when I drove it in the snow but not as good as any fwd I have driven, I was able to control and get out of the higher snow in the GS pretty well and only had one instance where it started sliding which I corrected pretty quick. Not sure what the issue is with the IS300, my friend said he was not giving it alot of gas and when turning he just lost it.

Faymester

Like I said, I go skiing in the IS300 (there is in fact snow there, just not in the city).

What's with people who can't drive the IS300 in snow?

bad co

quattro quattro quattro did i mention quattro?
here are few pic's from around this time last year back when i had my a4
****ty camera phone pics




this was in a parking lot that is roughly .3 of a mile long its a truck dock basicly far from residential areas no popo problems. this was with about 9" of fresh powder and 19" of total unshuvled/driven snow. Every one of my friends got stuck they had to shovle them selfs out i just parked lit up a cigarette and watched them lol

DASHOCKER

iTrader: (2)

Just thinking back to the Blizzard of 06.. We recieved about 2 to 3 feet of snow.. Here is a pic I saved of fellow New Yorker CL buddy Ben's RX during the 06 Blizzard.. Also a pic of my Rav4 under the car cover.. Car covers save so much time and effort when it comes to clean up..

SLegacy99

I have trouble driving this thing on dry pavement. I like driving it, but I feel more secure in my Legacy when it comes to quick acceleration or narrow, windy roads. I've never driven a car before where the traction control light comes on almost every time you accelerate until I drove the IS300.

LexFather

Correct me if I am wrong but technically isn't it
4WD by far is the best
AWD
FWD
RWD

What about snow tires on RWD or FWD? How does this come into play?

19psi

well, here's the main difference between 4wd and awd. 4wd ( like in a 4x4 pickup) locks the front and rear driveshafts together so youalways have at least one front and one rear tire spinning.
awd uses a viscous center diff which will lock up to 100% for a time if there is a speed differential between the front adn rear axles. so if you have the fronts spinning faster thant he rear, the center diff tightens and transfers power. it works great, very smooth, easy to drive but not quite as sure footed in deep snow as true 4wd.

you would want snow tires on all4 wheels whether is fwd or rwd. think about braking. the front tires do most of the braking. you want a snow tire up front to grab the road and haul your *** down. for a rwd car obviously you'd need thm in teh rear as well if youwant to be able to move at all! for fwd, since you have the front tires doing all the work, you'd need snows up there and you'd need them in teh back too to prevent massive oversteer which would result from good traction up front and none in the back.

SLegacy99

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooQRxlChvMw

Interesting comparison

bad co

lab tests are b.s
real world test's are what count
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-FLbgL7KKQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6ecB...eature=related
first video is in dutch no need to understand the language to get the video

Nextourer

AWD.

The ideal vehicle for me would be an Outback with winter tyres (or maybe just Nokian WRG2s). A little higher ground clearance than a regular vehicle and AWD + winter tyre should help with both accel/decel traction and emergency manoeuvres.

tex2670

I survived for 15 years on FWD in CT and PA. I bought an IS 250AWD last year, but there was no snow in Philly to speak of last winter. Looking forward to this winter, where more snow is predicted...

mmarshall

No, not for most driving. Let me explain the diffrerence.

Traditional 4WD, which is found on most pickup trucks, older truck-based SUVs, and some recent cheap, entry-level Suzuki SUVs, is a durable but simple/unsophisticated system that lacks either a center differential or separate differentials for the front/rear wheels. In short, all four wheels rotate at the same speed......whatever goes through the transfer case. But the vehicle, when going around a corner, doesn't want to do that. Think back to geometry class in school....the larger a circle, the longer the arc/diameter around the outer edge. So, naturally, the outer wheels of the vehicle have to turn faster than the inner wheels while cornering..........the sharper the curve, of course, the greater the difference between the inner/outer wheel speeds. In addition, the front and rear wheels also have to turn at different speeds because of the position of the steering wheel, steering angle, and the position of the rear wheels in relation to the center of the curve....there is some mathematics involved. So, on dry pavement, you're OK with traditional 4WD engaged as long as you go straight, where all four wheels can rotate at the same speed with no problem, but you run into problems on a curve....the inner tires, especially, want to go slower than the outside ones because of the smaller curve diameter, but are prevented from doing do, and tend to scrub and put great side-pressures on the wheels, bearings, axle, and rear differential. This can not only cause serious tire wear problems but driveline damage as well....even a "lock-up" where the vehicle will no longer move at all because the driveline binds up and stops turning.

That is why these vehicles have a warning label not to use 4WD on dry pavement....or any other surface that does not allow some wheel slip to compensate for the lack of a center differential.

Now...to the issue.....rain-slick/snowy roads.


Traditional 4WD is fine if you are off-road (or on a slippery paved surface) where you KNOW what is under your wheels. As long as the curves are rain or snow-slick or the road is CONTINUOUSLY slick, you're fine.....you can use the 4WD all you want. But..............how about when the road is slick one minute, wet the next, dry the next? What if it goes fron dry to slick to dry, as it often does when the sun hits certain spots, melts them, and doesn't melt others....or when traffic flow and tire friction clears certain spots and not others. THis may not cut it with a traditional 4WD system.....you could hit a dry curve (or partly dry) without realizing it, and start stressing the driveline and tires out.



AWD, on the other hand, with differentials for front, center, and rear, aviods this problem, because it allow all four wheels to rotate at different speeds, no matter what the surface is underneath the wheels or its amount of friction.. It doesn't matter if the road is dry, wet, slick, alternating, or a combination of the above. That, among other reasons, is why it has gained such huge popularity (Heck, I'm a convert to it myself). For most driving, AWD makes far more sense, unless you are into strictly heavy-duty off-roading, where traditional 4WD is somewhat more durable under mountain-goat and creek-crossing conditions.

But, with either system, it is important to keep tire pressures as recommended and to drive with 4 more-or-less-equal tires in tread wear condition. Even with AWD, the center differential builds up heat as it compensates for the differences in front/rear tire speeds, and continuous use of mis-matched tire PSIs and rotation speeds will notably shorten its life. This is why you cannot use small donut-spare tires either. Subaru, for instance, supplies a fuse-puller to disconnect the AWD from the rear wheels, and says to put two good tires up front, the and the small spare in the rear if you need to drive this way, until the flat is repaired. (Yes, a real spare would solve that problem, but you know what cost-cutting is like today)

herbvdh

My first AWD was my 2000 RX300 which I loved in the snow I actually plowed with the front bumper to get to the road. I found that I was 5 MPH average faster than FWD the 4WD were running about 5 MPH faster than I was. I sold the RX300 to my son. I then had a LS400 do not use this in any snow what so ever. Traded this for a Prius which was good in the snow traded that for a RX400h AWD which I love in the snow.

SLegacy99

I think my dad is finally going senile. He was telling me tonight how dissapointed he was that the RX400h doesn't have the snow mode like their AWD RX300 did and thus it is worse to have AWD than 4WD. Confused, I inquired a little more as to what he meant. He told me that him and my mom had hit some ice and had trouble stopping. I pointed out that AWD nor 4WD would make any difference in stopping a vehicle. He's had AWD since '92 and in '02 the whole family was in AWD vehicles and we haven't looked back since. He knows full well about the workings of Quattro, X-drive, all-trac so I am mystified with this conversation. Very weird.