Hi Steve
I think your driving needs should be considered. My stable consists of four main vehicles three of which are 4wd or AWD. Our ES350 is FWD of course which is adequate for all but the worst conditions here in northern Indiana. When I need to drive 200 miles then go back into a field to check corn plants I drive my diesel Jeep.
If you are mostly on road I would think RWD will be fine..the electronic stability control on these newer cars can go a long way to help as well. Maybe consider winter tires for an extra margin of safety...As has been stated earlier...It doesn't matter what drive train you have they all take about the same distance to stop.

 

The point I was trying to make is that an awd car really provides no added benefit IMO, because most people assume it is automatically more capable in snow. You said your chance of being stuck with it is less likely and I was saying my rwd car actually bested the awd car in deep snow since it was equipped with proper tires, so I didn't see the benefit of having awd. Hopefully that was a clearer explanation.

 

Sure, and it doesn't make sense. You don't think that an AWD car is going to be more versatile in bad traction situations compared to a RWD with the same exact tires? The AWD is going to better in every challenging traction condition than the RWD if it's put on fair ground using the same rubber.

Just because your RWD does better than someone else's AWD with winter tires compared to their all seasons doesn't make AWD pointless. I can't even fathom what kind of logic even arrives to that kind of conclusion.

 

If you are suggesting that 2wd is more than ample, that suggests that 1wd would be sufficient.

and awd is just way over the top!

 

Well about driving through severe rain storms? Doesn't awd hold a significant advantage over RWD under those conditions?

 

I live in Dallas and a week or 2 ago it snowed pretty bad and the city iced over. Most ppl end up not going to work cuz everything shuts down. I'd say the utility purposes of AWD is useless in TX unless you just want better handling for the hell of it (like making fast turns and not spinning out)

 

tires only do so much. a rwd car with winter tires will not do better than an awd with winter tires in snow

 

Maybe, but it would have to be pretty severe. Remember, all that AWD does is allow your car to maintain traction when one or more of the other wheels don't have it. It doesn't guarantee traction, but it gives you better odds at having more wheels to provide traction.

In the rain on a flat road, you would have to be hydroplaning in order to lose traction. First line of defense, of course, is your tires. If you have tires that never hydroplane then the two drive wheels (or four) will always have traction and be providing control and motion. In that case, four drive wheels providing perfect traction is no better than two drive wheels and two passive wheels providing traction.

In a RWD car, you may be in a situation where the rear wheels lose traction due to hydroplaning or you may have driven into too deep of a drift of snow, or got stuck in some other kind of road hazard etc where the rear wheels no longer can grip the road. At that point you are stuck. In an AWD those rear wheels can lose traction and even have no connection to the road at all and as long as your front wheels can still grip you are still able to move and provide a meaningful input into where you're going.

Bottom line is, and what most people here have been trying to convey is that IF you have tires that are up to the task of maintaining perfect traction in every situation you'll find yourself in (no risk of the drive wheels slipping), then you don't get much out of the AWD system during normal situations - I am not going to count getting stuck in a ditch, or parking on top of moderate snow/ice banks like I do (I did it yesterday and it was awesome, I have to do stuff like this to justify the stock height hehe).

Lexus' AWD system on these cars is simpler than say, Acuras SH-AWD. It does not provide varying amounts of power to each wheel independently it only splits up the power between the front and rear axles. Default distribution is 70% rear and 30% front but it is able to dynamically change that up to 50/50 depending on what it senses is going on at each end. Acuras system is likely more performance oriented and Lexus' more utilitarian.

The thing is, due to the distribution, driving an AWD GS still feels and handles like you're driving a RWD. You don't really "lose" anything except for maybe a small fraction of your fuel economy from using the AWD drive train. The main problem people on this board have with AWD is that they are more difficult to do suspension modifications to without introducing comfort problems.

In any case, after all of that, I'm still going to say that I don't think you need to worry about it. Either drive system will probably end up being equally good for what you'll need out of it and you're not likely to even have to think about it.

 

yeah, I wish i had RWD, all thing being equal. I'd rather have less weight, more performance, a simpler system, and I think the RWD GS rides better and has better steering feel than the AWD, does anyone have a comment on that?

Anyway, it snows like 2x a year here. Big deal. I do have many occasions to drive thru torrential rain storms however, and hope that I am getting some benefit from the awd. Now if i were to move back to the northeast, where it snows all the time, I'd want the awd.

As for the RL's SH-AWD, I think they had a good idea going in, but the RL never wins any handing tests (or any other tests besides). And I spotted a very rare current generation model with the latest styling refresh. I thought, oh, there's the new Accord... then I saw the A badge.

Poor Acura, they try so hard, they are like the engineering geeks in high school and college who were smarter than everyone else, always got the highest test scores, and yet were rejected by every girl.