Saying you drive a FWD for its "handling" is like saying you drive a dump truck for its handling.
You drive a dump truck for a reason, and that's because it hauls dirt. You drive a FWD car for a reason and that's because it's cheap.
There is nothing wrong with those reasons. Just stop lying to yourself, and to us.
Cheap is not a crime.
What's a crime is when you say you drive a FWD car for its handling, which is exactly like saying you drive a dump truck for its handling.
The only way you can support that argument is with bro science.
I've been discussing FWD for decades, where there are no new arguments from those who bought FWD because it's cheap and then they try to convince the world that they bought it for its handling.
The only way to back up those marketing claims is with bro science.
We can resolve that argument easily with two methods, both of which work in and of themselves.
The first is that to take your 90% at face value, which is that you have lousy handling for 90% of the time to have good handling for 10% of the time when you can't even drive all that fast anyway, so handling can be solved with simply slowing down.
However, the second is more technically interesting.
How do you propose to support your supposition that FWD handles better in the rain than RWD does?
You're using bro science here, since all you have to do is "slow down" in rainy conditions, and if you really drive in *deep snow*, then chains and/or weight works fine for the rare occasions that *deep snow* is still on the road (rare being single digit percentages).
I agree that a planned trip to Tahoe is nothing like living in the snow belt, where I rode a motorcycle for heaven's sake, in the snow belt, which means I learned all too well how to drive in the *track* of the car in front of me, when the snow was a few inches thick.
However, this *bro science* of FWD handling better is what is the crime becuase the only way the bro science works is that if whatever claim you make for FWD getting to work doesn't work for RWD.
If you're saying *nobody* can get to work in your area if they're in RWD, or that everyone in RWD is getting into accidents in the rain while the FWD cars are NOT getting into accidents ... then we can talk logic.
But your bro science is super selective and just doesn't hold logic.
You do? You have *better* handling with FWD than RWD?
Pray tell. How?
I've been listinging to FWD discussions for over 30 years and counting. They never change.
Here's how it starts.
Bean counter comes up with great idea to increase profits 00/car.
Marketing ponders how to "spin" it so the populace will buy it.
Marketing pushes chronic understeer & marginal traction in deep snow.
A dump truck is for hauling loads, not anything to do with handling per se.
I drive a FWD car because of the packaging arrangements, not the cost.
So why make a big deal out of it?
Dump trucks, laden, have incredible slip angles.
When you talk about handling, you should be referring to slip angles.
No such an animal as bro science. That is your creation to explain things you don't understand.
When you talk about handling with nary a mention of slip angles, it's you who is relying on bro science.
You need to have a good long talk with a few rally drivers. Get yourself an education about things you seem not to understand.
Slip angles and torque.
Escapism on your part.
You haven't driven too many modern FWD cars, have you? You prove that by your use of the term *chronic understeer* when quite a lot of RWD cars have chronic *oversteer*. I have seen FE RWD cars with chronic understeer. It's all to do with slip angles and GofG. Ask yourself why the best handling cars are *mid engined*.
FWIW, the original mini did not have chronic understeer and I could bat my 850 around hairpins leaving my friend with his RWD 327 GM POS swinging sideways all over the road behind me. He had the wherewithall on the straightaways, the V8 engine saw to that, but on the hairpins the mini was king. Power into the hairpins whether facing downhill or uphill and let the car pull itself around the corners in a way the RWD POS could never do.
Snow and rain handling. FWD is better. Not snowing or raining? Doesn't matter to me, I'm not racing.
I don't know why you keep saying cheap, but it doesn't make logical sense since most cars are FWD. If you mean all FWD cars are cheap, you're wrong.
Rain and snow handling, FWD is better. You're bringing up arguments which were settled decades ago.
Snow and rain handling FWD is better. Unless you put 3-400 pounds of sandbags in the trunk.
I haven't seen FWD "marketed" in decades.
No. I have "better' handling 10% of the time and 90% handling is a non-issue.
Rain often causes slickness. FWD handles slickness better. All of my FWD drive cars have handled better than my RWD. I just never lose traction with FWD.
I don't need to use chains or weights since I quit driving RWD cars.
Why do you misstate what I said about handling. I never said FWD is better handling. I said FWD is better in the rain and snow.
Again, you're saying I said something I never said. Not logical.
About 10% of the time I'm driving I don't slip and slide in the rain and snow as I did when driving RWD. The other 90% of the time handling is a non-issue.
That FWD has better handling under slick conditions was settled about 30 years ago. You might as well just face facts. BTW, I drove RWD for decades. It's nice not having to put 300 pounds of sandbags in my trunk when it's snowy season. But it was no big deal, and I liked RWD for maintenance reasons.
I remember the original Minis running at Lime Rock. A Corvette could run away on the straight but somehow after the twisty stuff the Mini would be stuck to its bumper again.
That's not a fair test because the 'Vettes handled for shit anyway speaking of understeer, They did love straight lines.
Not a clue, other than all the shops that said they couldn't do it. The one who did it badly is a local race shop and was full of self-confidence.
Maybe he used them to bend a cotter pin. No idea. Whatever he did worked, he can use whatever tool he wants!
I know.
Nobody ever has enough of them. I have at least 6 sizes, from the tiny
3" long ones to over a foot. A few duplicates. I'm especially fond of the ones I found long ago while I was putting chains on -- they were exactly the right tool to use to snug down the red thingy that folds back and holds them together. Tough luck for the guy who left them!
Z-chains with the giant O-ring are just SOOOO much better than the ones made of real chain.
There is only one reason manufacturers went to FWD cars.
Find a reference that claims otherwise. You can't.
You have to separate "rain and snow" from "deep snow", where the difference is immense. In deep snow, having an inordinate amount of weight over the drive wheels helps - but in deep snow, you're not going all that fast so it's not really all that useful - but it's nice to have weight over the drive wheels.
But that weight that is over the drive wheels is not over the other wheels, which makes your entire weight balance equation horrid when you're not in deep snow. That's a big deal because the percentage of time you're not in deep snow is astronomical compared ot the amount of time you drive in deep snow.
As for lousy traction conditions (aka rain, snow, ice), the FWD and RWD slide differently. FWD slams into the tree on the corner at the front driver side fender while RWD hits at the rear quarter panel.
They slide differently.
You guys are all a bunch of bro-science aficionados since you seem intent on justifying that which can't possibly be justified on the basis of logic.
There is one reason and one reason only for FWD, and it's not handling. I don't even need to start discussing the fact that plenty of states never see snow in their lives.
But you bro-science boys will try to defend the marketing bullshit to your dying days so let's just leave it at the fact that you actually *believe* that FWD is for handling.
OK. You keep believing that the best handling cars on earth are all FWD cars.
That's a perfectly logical reason to own a FWD car.
I commend you that it's not bro science trying to justify lousy weight distribution and atrocious understeer.
Do you understand absolutely nothing in any given conversation? Nothing?
The crime I said *many* times isn't that FWD is cheap. The crime is something else.
If I have to explain the crime *again*, and *again* and *again* and
*again*, then you're just proving to me you're incapable of understanding the simplest of concepts.
Slip angle is critical, where people tend to increase the slip angle when they get into a scary situation (or when purposefully drifting).
Handling is a *lot* of things, but you'll note I used the term "chronic understeer" in the previous post that I think you're responding to.
There's also weight balance to consider and acceleration issues (e.g., liftoff understeer).
The simple summary is that it's incredibly difficult to have a well handling FWD car, and if you do, it won't ever be close to cheap.
Exactly my point.
Everyone who tries to *justify* FWD based on their lies to themselves based on the marketing myth has to use "bro science" since real science fails them.
It's more than slip angles.
There are many tradeoffs that FWD has with respect to RWD besides just steering. There's generally better weight balance in RWD, distribution of power and steering is better, weight transfer is better, power handling is greater, even transmissions are better in RWD (because they can have larger transmissions).
There's no other reason for FWD other than profits.
The other stuff that people claim is why they bought FWD just happens to come with FWD as a bonus, which is the room inside the cabin and the sliding straighter and tremendous unbalance of weight over the drive wheels in deep snow.
Remember *why* FWD exists.
Bean counter comes up with great idea to increase profits 00/car.
Marketing ponders how to "spin" it so the populace will buy it.
Marketing pushes bro science without noting the huge negatives.
Voila! Yet another never-ending topic where idiots try to claim that high-octane gas gets them better MPG, and that blue coolant is the only way to go if it's a European car, otherwise red or pink is the way to go if it's an Asian car, and, oh yeah, you bought FWD for its handling.
FWD allows manufacturers to package the whole drive train on a single pallet and drop it in the car as an assembly. That is the biggest selling point From a reliability standpoint there is a much shorter drive train although the axles are more complex.
I was taught to look at a thread if it was taking an unreasonable amount of force to break the limiting friction. You obviously need to learn by your mistakes. That is a great pity.
You know this for a fact? Or are you guessing? I have seen it done.
What I learnt from 50 years in the trade is how much force a bolt needs
- relative to its size - the make its fixing secure. I learnt to use a tension wrench, I learnt to look at thread forms, I learnt to *think* first, then act.
Your *logical fact* doesn't explain why my experience shows it to be a fallacy.
*All* Chrysler products had a tendency to use LH threads on the LH side, even their trucks. LH threads are not at all uncommon in the trade. It all depends on circumstances so, when treading unfamiliar ground, it's wisest to look first.
Look at the torques most *wheels* are tightened to, then compare that to what maximum torque a lug of that size, tensile strength and thread form is capable of and you will see the disconnect in your logic.
The term *rock ape* comes to mind when I think of broken off wheel studs.
Drums, rotor, they all distort when wheel nuts are tightened unevenly or are overtightened.
See above.
45 - 55 ft lb.
Go look it up. Look up the grade of bolt, the diameter and the thread form form. All engineering books have appropriate charts. You want to argue a point, you do the research. I used to teach the topic but I have discarded all my class notes now.
The issue applies to drums and discs. The effect felt by the driver will differ somewhat but distortion will definitely occur.
I have often been faced with illogical arguments dressed up as logic.
Having been retired for a number of years now, I consider myself very mellow. It's the only reason I'm bothering to reply to your posts.
I know you weren't talking about acceleration, but my rhetorical question is how would FWD give better traction under acceleration?
Answer = it doesn't.
I know you know this ... I am just responding to the *many* drawbacks of FWD, which the marketing guys don't talk about because they want to sell this FWD car desperately because they make more money selling a cheaper-to-build car.
There's nothing wrong with cheaper-to-build cars. Nothing.
The crime is in some people believing they handle better and then arguing bro science to try to prove to others who are far more logical thinkers that they handle better.
They don't. They can't.
They can't even handle the transmission gearing or horsepower of a similarly sized RWD car for heaven's sake.
I know you realize facts about FWD, but on the "reliability" side, they can't put as much power into FWD, on average, as they can with RWD because of the room constraints.
That is, the same *advantages* of cabin room that the FWD aficianados extol is a *disadvantage* when it comes to room for transmission gears, steering stresses, and engine bay room to work.
The crime here though, which I can easily see you're not guilty of, is in running down all those other issues (e.g., weight transfer under acceleration).
None of that really matters.
The one, and only reason FWD exists is for profits.
Everything else we can put on a pro and con chart, where all the things I lump under "handling" suffer except a few extremely minor issues like traction at very slow speeds in *deep* snow.
All those "cabin room" issues are red herrings which the proponents of FWD bring up, because they can't handle the simple facts.
The question was snow and there is simply more weight on the front wheels. I agree for pure acceleration, they suck because the weight shifts to the back wheels and the front lifts. I can easily light up the tires on my 2l Honda and it is not really that powerful a car. Accelerating in a turn is ridiculous. If you drive like you are in the Mobil Gas Economy Run, then I see where you think FWD "handles" better but it is pretty hard to find a FWD race car in any kind of racing unless they are just competing against other FWD cars. They do not handle well enough, whether it is drag racing, oval track or "road".
You can keep insulting me but that doesn't change the logical fact that you can't put enough torque into a lug bolt/nut to permanently bend a rotor. :)
We discussed this many decades ago when people first started discussing rotor warp on the net and I don't know if it's archived in Google's rendition of dejanews or not, nor do I remember if it was on a web forum or even on a bulletin board, it was that long ago.
A mechanical engineer (Richard Kinch perhaps or maybe Bruce Hamilton, who is a different kind of engineer as I recall perhaps?) went into all the details which would make a college professor proud.
Suffice to say that I don't have proof and neither do you. All we can use is logic.
Here's the logic:
If you *can* apply enough torque to a lug nut to permanently bend a rotor, the you can permanently warp a rotor by torquing lug nuts incorrectly.
Otherwise, you can't.
In addition, there's *this* bit of logic:
How much do they typically overtighten lug nuts in the shop? Maybe to
100 foot pounds, right?
Is 100 foot pounds enough to permanently bend a rotor?
You have proven you like to use insults. I try to use logic.
You like to insult so that you can avoid using logic. That's ok. I understand you. Many people who argue bro science are that way. It's ok.
All I care about is the logic of how you're going to permanently bend a rotor with the amount of torque typically applied to a lug bolt, and even if it's grossly overtorqued, how are you gonna not snap that lug bolt?
Again, I understand you. You're trying to defend bro science.
You can't find a *single* reference that backs up your bro science. Not one.
So you bring up exactly 0 references to back up your point.
Hence, you're forced to use bro science to back up your point. It's ok. It works for you.
But I gave you a half dozen references which directly refute your point. You see, I've dealt with people like you for 30 or 40 years.
You're all the same. You're attached to an idea that has no logic behind it. So you come up with all sorts of bro science to back it up.
Nobody but you believes in your bro science. But my facts and references will never convince you.
So until you bring in a reliable article that backs up your bro science, let's stop discussing it because actual logic and your bro science don't agree.
Yup. I'm glad I did it because I learned a great lesson which you haven't learned yet it seems.
People trust their intuition more than they trust facts contrary to their intuition.
You trust your intuition that rotors warped, because your intuition trumps facts that show that street rotors just don't warp (they don't get hot enough to warp and you can't torque a lug nut or bolt down well enough to make 'em warp).
When I was a kid, young and stupid, I trust(ed) my intuition on the right-hand-rule for removing lug nuts on my 70's era Dodge, but my intuition was only right 50% of the time on that vehicle.
You and I know that the torque of a lug nut is around 60 to 100 foot pounds, depending on the spec. I think my Toyota lug nuts are about 84 foot pounds, and I think the bimmer (which has lug bolts) is fewer than 10 foot pounds greater than that (as I recall).
I could look it up, but we can use The term *rock ape* comes to mind when I think of broken off wheel studs.
I get that you're desperate to back up your bro science with anything you can come up with, but let's just get back to logic and forget about the lug torque, shall we?
I gave you a half dozen references which mention the myth of warped rotors. Did you *read* those references?
If so, do you have any references which refute their findings?
I get that you're desperate. I've seen this many times in the past 40 or so years discussing warp.
Let's get back to reference since they are publicly available and if they sucked, someone would write about it.
I gave you a half dozen references that speak logical facts about warp. Why don't you find a *single* reference, that mentions both sides of the equation, and that concludes that warp *does* happen all the time on street cars.
Bear in mind the temperature has to be enormous, but let's see what you come up with to back up your very solid intuition.
Mine seem to be higher than that, so we can *double* your numbers, and still be within a safe range, logically.
I blurted out my coffee when you said "go look it up!". I know you better than you know you.
Do you see what you just did?
YOU are making the argument that rotors warp under typical lug bolt torques, and I'm saying that's a red herring since street rotors don't warp under far worse conditions than that - and I provided a half dozen references which proved that.
Then you bring up bro science, and then you ask me to disprove *your* bro science.
I know you very well because anyone who trusts their intuition more so than facts to the contrary does that. So do people who believe in marketing bullshit, who try to defend the marketing bullshit.
They bring up red herring fallacies, and then they confront the logical person with the onus of disproving your completely bogus argument.
Please stop defending your bro science. It's not personal. I don't even know whom I'm speaking with. I don't take names.
The crime here is that you actually believe your own bro science. And yet, you have zero references to back up your bro science.
Again, your bro science mind is exemplary. I know you all too well, even though I don't even know whom I'm responding to.
People like you trust your intuition more than you trust facts contrary to your intuition. To people like you, the sun really does revolve around the earth (that's just an example of the way you're thinking).
Even though the sun *looks* to intuitive people that it revolves around the earth, facts show otherwise. So facts trump intuition.
You intuitively feel that you've seen rotor warp, and yet it's very likely you *never* once measured it, and it's just as likely you didn't even
*read* the references provided which prove otherwise.
I know you better than you know you because I've met people like you so many times that I already know that you believe in bro science and there is no amount of logic that you will accept because you won't even *read* logical articles.
You want me to disprove your imaginary bro science. Which I already did with the logical articles already provided.
You want *more* disproof of your bro science. I know you. I've met people like you so many times, I just cry.
I'm retired too, and very mellow. I just think it's sad that people have lost the ability to think.
Did you *read* any of the warp articles I provided.
Bear in mind, some of them contradict the others so I don't agree with everything they say - but they all conclude the same thing - which is the important part.
Bear in mind on the "mellow" thing that I don't even look at whom I'm responding to, so it's not personal in the least. I only respond to what you write.
Best car I ever had in the snow was RWD. Yes, my '62 Corvair
You can argue the merits or each, but, snow aside, the fact is, 99% of the drivers can't see the difference 99% of the time. The typical commute to work or shopping is under conditions that you cannot see the variance in handling.
Present and last car are AWD. It varies from F/R 40/60 normal, 50/50 in snow mode and if the front or rear are on slippery road it can shift to either 90/10 to 10/90 depending on traction. It was great one day in the snow going up a hill passing 3 cars stuck or struggling. Retired now, I have no plans to drive in the snow.
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