Magnum

Perhaps you can describe the activities of this "Chrysler Corp" you seem
to believe exists. Where are they headquartered?

 

My great, stinking, fetid, rotten, filthy failure
was in crediting the general readership of rec.autos.makers.chrysler
with enough brain cells to think contextually.

Apparently all the readership, except one dildo named Daniel, was able
to understand. You should come down off your high and mighty throne
sometime, take those lithium pills that were prescribed, and act like
a decent human being


Steve B.

 

It isn't a FWD or RWD issue, it is a weight distribution issue. If a
car was perfectly balanced fore and aft, then RWD would perform as well
as FWD starting out and would perform better once you were moving as you
aren't asking the same set of wheels to both pull and steer. And the
steeper the hill becomes, the more weight shifts to the rear and the
better RWD becomes.

Matt

 

You haven't driven both systems in snow, have you....

 

day.

and if your car was parked on an icy street, and a snow plow came by and
surrounded your car with a nice row of snow and ice, and you tried to drive
away, you and your RWD traction control vehicle would just sit there,
spinning one rear wheel or the other in perpetuity, while the guy with the
FWD vehicle parked behind you would simply drive away.

Where do you drive your RWD traction control vehicle?

 

Actually, I have. Have you?

I live in northern PA and have driven just about every road going
vehicle from motorcycles to tractor trailers in the snow. I didn't own
my first FWD car until 1984 after 8 years of driving RWD/4WD
exclusively. Since then, I've owned at least one FWD and RWD (pickups
mainly) at any given time.

The best snow car I've ever had was RWD. It was also rear engine ... a
VW Beetle. As I said, the issue is weight bias towards the driving
wheels, not whether they are in the front or the rear.

Matt

 

Oh, *horseshit*. I drove for over a decade's worth of Colorado and
Michigan winters with non-traction-control, non-limited-slip-differential
RWD vehicles and did just fine. There is no such thing as an "all-season"
tire; as long as you remember that and shoe the car appropriately, RWD
vehicles work just fine in winter.

 

Amen to that. I love embarrassing CRV and RAV4 drivers in winter with my 10
year old FWD neon with PROPER Michelin Arctic Alpin SNOW TIRES. They just
don't get it. Stoplight drags are no contest.

 

Well lining in Canada I certainly have experienced snow, particularly
since I drive to Western Canadian ski hills including Whistler where one
can experience all of the ugly weather conditions in two hrs, from +5
and heavy rain, through freezing rain, to -5 and snow. OH I forgot to
mention many steep long hills.

Most of my driving has been RWD, including a few VWs, but FWD in the
last 20yrs. RWD required chains over the winter tires to tackle some of
our ski hills.
RWD required very good winter tires, to be just passable.
As for the VW it was very good in winter conditions for straight ahead
driving even with summer tires. I never did get winter tires for my VWs.
Unfortunately when the fuel tank wasn't full and their wasn't added
weight in the front (sand bags) lack of turning traction severely
limited cornering speed on slippery roads. Also spinning around could
also be a problem at times. The heater / defroster we won't take about!

The VWs were good in their time, having some advantages over the 50s
monster junky NA cars, but they are no competition with todays excellent
FWD vehicles.

FWD with all season tires does the job for me very well. Automatic also
helps in avoiding wheel spin in taking off.
The FWD cars I've had have been very stable platforms, continuing
straight ahead when braking on slippery roads and allowing one to
literally pull the car around corners behind the drive wheels.
I've been so happy with FWD on cars from the Horizon 2Dr to my current
'95 Concord and my wife's '91 Sybring I wouldn't return to RWD.
The roads close before I have trouble in winter conditions.

I should mention ABS which improves control on slippery surface braking
so well, ABS should be a legal requirement.

 

Yes I rented a 2.7L Magnum for two weeks.
The 2.7L is a great engine for my wife's Sybring FWD, but not for the
much heavier Magnum RWD. I drove to the top of the 10,000 ft mountain
in Maui, so it got a good test.

What got me in trouble was pulling out into traffic. The 2.7L Magnum
just didn't take off like my '95 Concord with it's stump puller 3.3L V6.

I also found the A/C so so, but adequate. Those small windows reduce
A/C requirements significantly. They also reduce visibility
significantly.

 

Those experienced with real winter driving know how to get traction
control at low speeds. It's called a light foot on the brake; with RWD
a light pull on the parking brake does the trick.

 

Be easy on him, it's probably all he knows.
Too bad too, this Mercedes RWD thing being forced on Chrysler.
I suspect the big departure of Chrysler designers were related to the
Mercedes RWD thing.

My cousin in eastern Canada has had a few Volvos. When they went FWD he
was considering buying something else to get RWD.
Finally he bought a '01 Volvo 60. He now admits he loves the FWD Volvo.

 

Nope! FWD is much better when pulling out (particularly right) into
traffic and when taking sharp city corners.
Or is there something else that makes my '95 Concord handle better than
any car I have owned or rented? I rent new cars at least twice per
years on distant trips.

On a few roads here in BC, Canada there are many curves which are posted
as low as 30Kmph. I have a problem with yahoos driving too close,
particularly those in SUVs, because I know they can't stop as fast as me
if wildlife (deer, etc.) just happen to run out in front of me.
Unfortunately they can't pass for many Kms, so I have had to resort to a
shake off procedure.
On corners to the left (so oncoming traffic isn't threatened) I
gradually increase my speed on each corner, say about 10Kmph on each.
Eventually they can't keep the track, in fact a few have almost hit the
concrete divider on the road shoulder keeping cars from falling down the
mountain side. That does it to them, they learn not to drive by keeping
that space to me so small. I haven't had an SUV or Van keep up to me
yet and I've not nearly reached my Concords limits even at double+ the
posted corner speed. In fact I've never had my Concord limit out on any
corner, it's cornering power in so fantastic even though it looks like
just a dull passenger carrier.

 

Read again what I wrote. You've never driven a FWD car that was
perfectly balanced front to rear weight-wise and a RWD car that was also
perfectly balanced. I don't know what the bias is on your Concord, but
most cars have at least 60% of the weight on the front wheels and I've
seen specs with 65% on the front. Sure, with 60% of the weight on the
front wheels, a FWD will have more starting traction than a RWD with 40%
on the drive wheels. However, balance them equally, and starting
traction will be the same. If the original VW Beetle used the front
wheels for driving with the rear engine, it wouldn't be able to move at
all in the snow. Do you really not understand this concept of weight
distribution?


Matt

 

Apparently, you don't understand the concept of design consequences. FWD
designs usually have an unequal weight distribution that puts a majority
of the weight on the front wheels. This is a consequence of FWD design.
No-one in their right minds would attempt to design a FWD car and try to
equalise the weight front vs. rear.

Some years ago Alfa Romeo built cars with the transmission placed in the
rear (or as far back as was practical. These were RWD cars and the
designers were attempting to achieve an even front-to-rear weight ratio.

I think the original discussion was on the merits of FWD vs. RWD cars.
Discussing the merits of RWD cars against a non-existent type of FWD car
(a FWD car with an even front-to-rear weight ratio) is utterly pointless.

 

OK here is what you said:

I certainly understand what you said and now I'm wondering why you even
bothered saying it.
What is perfect weight distribution? It varies with the specific
driving situation. I'm not talking "ifs" but reality from my
experiences.
I should say I liked my two VW beetles I had for 6 yrs, but they just
don't compare to my FWD experiences.
You are correct about RWD getting a weight shift increase when going up
hill, however a typical FWD front engine is still better than a RWD
front engine vehicle, due to it's initial weight forward bias.
For other normal driving conditions FWD front engine excels.
Note I'm not talking racing where both steering and driving the front
wheels is a negative.
I find I can go up a hill with FWD and all season tires that my RWD
front engine cars couldn't go up with winter tires; chains were required.
My FWD cars only bog down when deep snow drags underneath. The VW
beetle had the same problem, with the additional problem that it's front
bottom shape tended to toboggan it up off it's wheels in deep snow,
requiring the snow to be removed from underneath it, to get the driving
wheels back on the ground.

The RWD rear engine VW bug presented the problem of not enough weight
on the front wheels to steer and track well on slippery roads and even
on dry roads with a strong cross wind.

I'm speaking from the experience of 25 recent years of several different
Chrysler FWD cars, a significant size range from the '79 Horizon to the
'95 Concord, preceded by 14 years of RWD front engine and 6 years of two
RWD VW beetles.
Oh yes I also had a GMC stretch length Van, that I converted to a
camper, for 15 years. What a dandy it was in the snow! >

In all of those years winter conditions were several months of typical
Canadian snow and ice. The last 30 years included many drives on steep
hills to ski hills in the western Canadian mountains.
Being an engineer and a car buff, including doing much of my own
maintenance, I'm fully aware of what is happening to my vehicle as I
drive.
The Magnum in the subject we have above I wouldn't even attempt to use
in the winter driving I do. Why make winter driving more difficult?

 

I understand design rather well. The weight distribution isn't a
consequence of FWD it is a largely a consequence of front engine
placement. The old Detroit RWD cars had weight distributions not all
that different than today's FWD cars. Likewise, the VW old Beetle was
heavy in the rear, not due to being RWD, but due to having its engine in
the rear.

You obviously are missing my point completely. The point is that
traction isn't a function of which set of wheels are driving; it is a
function of which set of wheels have the most weight. If I put 2,000
lbs. in my pickup, it will run as well in snow in RWD as my FWD minivans do.

Yes, that is a good ploy for a nice handling, nicely balanced vehicle.

And my point is that the "merit" has little to do wtih FWD vs. RWD, and
has almost everything to do with front engine vs. rear engine. And I
gave an excellent counter example, the VW old Beetle, that proves my
point quite well.


Matt

 

What you say is correct for straight ahead traction, but there is far
more to overall driving traction than your simple example.

 

OK, I'm game, state a condition where the above isn't correct.

Matt

 

umm how about taking an off ramp with 2000lbs in the back of your truck, its
going to want to swing out in snow,