Lack of RWD choice

[Steve L]

Wow a great debate on drive trains.

I have to say that with the modern front wheel drive systems and suspension technology, there is very little to decern between front wheel drive and rear wheel drive from a towing point of view.

The rear wheel drive oversteer might catch a few folks out. As they are more used to the point and go of front wheel drive.

As clive has hinted the rear end "drifting" of a rear wheel drive car is quite exciting. (go on mate, have a go at the new sport).

On a grassy knoll when you get stuck in rear wheel drive there is little you can do except get the sacks out, as hte car is pointing straight up the hill. With front wheel drive, if you put a full lock left or right towards what looks to be better ground, and give a blast on the gas, you might get the front to swing round. This might enable you to pull off at a lesser steepnes and get you rolling again.

I won't go into the tyre thing but a bigger foot print of tread has a benifit too.

You'd all be suprised just how far you can go up hill by gentle use of the throttle and making the most of the torque of the engine.

I'm sure Clive and Lutz would have a great time at Land rover experience, at Eastnor castle near Ledbury in Herefordshire. There they have one of the most testing off road coarses in the UK. You would need to fit a snorkle to your air intake for this one. I had a whale of a time in my Diahatsu F70 a while back.

I had one of Land Rovers top off road demonstrators work for me once, but he was not so hot at towing on the road. (seemed to like the hedgerows better) We used to go green laneing at the weekend. Great fun when done properly and with farmers permission.

Steve L

 

[Lutz]

Steve, I don't like your idea of giving a FWD full lock and a "blast on the gas" to swing the front end round if you get stuck. Not only the 4x4 community will jump on you for churning up the grass that way.

As I mentioned elsewhere in this forum, I towed my caravan for over 8 years with a FWD car before changing to a 4x4 and never needed any assistance. That is not to say I never got stuck but I always got out of trouble without outside help. My standard procedure in really bad situations was to unhitch, move the car to a position almost at right angles to the caravan, and rehitch. Pulling the caravan round rather than in a straight line always solved the problem and that way, I didn't churn up any grass.

Back in those days I also learnt to drive on soft ground with a lot more foresight than I need now. I'd watch out for likely traction problems ahead and, by appropriate acceleration, approach them with just enough momentum to get me through. That way, I was even able to negotiate quite significant gradients on gravel roads or muddy tracks towing a caravan at 100% weight ratio, despite FWD.

 

[CliveV]

Certainly you would have anyone aware of the GLASS "Tread Lightly" rules cringing at what you suggest Steve.

Having been been on numerous Off-Road centres- including Eastnor - the last one being the Land Rover Experience centre at Honiton, ALL the instructors made it very plain that if you had to resort to such damaging tactics on anything other than a proper off-road course, you should not be in that spot/predicament in the first place.

Sorry my friend but the sheer beauty of a 4x4 with Low range and Diff lock is that at a simple movement of a lever, you can crawl out of such a spot without damaging so much as a blade of grass.

To my shame the damage I caused to the Farmers field with my old Citroen when towing the horse box did not make me popular with the farmer - his animals were suppossed to be back grazing on it the very day!

So the Discovey that pulled the car and the Horse box out in one go! - was a revelation to me.

Never looked back since, and never caused any damage when going off-road.

 

[JamesFrance]

So true Lutz, you can make a rear engined, rear wheel drive Porsche understeeer, in fact from what I hear, that is exactly what they do, these days, up to a point. But it is natural for FWD to understeer and a RWD to oversteer. Its a horse and cart thing. As for modern esp systems, there are an awful lot of cars out there that don't come with an aid such as that.

True, but it took even Porsche designers decades to learn how to do that. The 911SC I had was quite a handful in the wet.

 

[Steve L]

Shame on me!!.

Yes you are quite right guys. I would only risk wheel spin as a last resort. After all once you have spun the wheels the tyre treads are cloggged with packed earth.

As Lutz has said carefull observation and thinking about what and how you drive pays dividends.

Over my caravanning experience only once did I have assistance from a chap with a Landrover. This was on a bogg of a site just north of Blackpool and at 10pm. The site was so wet that the owner had laid paving slabs on top of the grass. Now with a 2 inch kerb to climb, trying not to make too much noise at 10pm and grass so wet your shoes sunk in it I was on a looser straight away with my Renault 18 estate.

The chap on the next pitch came out on his green charger (SWB series 2 Landrover) and in one quick and easy step I was pitched.

I parted with a tin of amber nectar and for the whole weekend we had a great neighbour who lived hundreds of miles from our home county.

Even at todays prices the hire of a 4X4 for the one thing I was stuffed with cost me less than

 

[CliveV]

Hi Steve

Biggest problem with grass is not mud packing the tread but how easily wheel spin can simply rip the turf from the underlying soil. Especialy when the grass is wet.

That is what was happening with my old Citroen - the grass was just removed as tho I was using a turf cutter and I was going nowhere.

We managed to put it back but as I say the Farmer was not best pleased by what hapened and I was certainly NOT putting my foot down or turning the wheels to get grip. Which from my understanding is the technique recommended for muddy ruts.

Wet grass technique has always been - tickover, lowest gear possible, and crawl out - if there is a slope use Diff Lock.

Tread Lightly.

 

[Lutz]

A car with traction control is even better than a diff lock, as it applies the brake only on the wheel that is spinning and stops that from turning at all.

 

[CliveV]

That's probabaly why it's a standard fitment on all Freelanders.

Land Rover did away with the Diff Lock on the early Series II Discoveries (when the TD5 engine was introduced) but the things were not up to even fairly gentle Off-Roading.

Users found that their was no substitute for the Diff Lock and a retro fit kit had to be produced.

One of the biggest problems was brake pad and disc wear. In muddy conditions a set of brake pads could be worn out in a weekend. The Discs sufferred badly as well.

Land Rover went one further and modified the TC to produce "Hill Descent Control" - which as anyone who has "played" with it knows - is really rather good.

My view is that on the Freelander, a "Soft Roader" with better than most off road ability - the Traction Control/Hill Descent Control is excellent.

But if I had to choose between the complexity of TC/HDC with its associated expensive wear on such an important part as the vehicles braking system and just moving a lever to lock both prop-shafts - well I think you guys can probably guess my answer!

But then why not have a vehicle that has both?

 

[DavidW1]

Getting the thread back on track - yes Lutz, it is disappointing there are so few RWD offerings on the market but is that really true?

For the 1.5 tonne van and over segment there are quite a few suitable RWD cars around, albiet mostly at the higher price end of the market but then if you can afford a new Wyoming at 1700 kg MPTLM then you may also be able to afford a top car and will certainly need a large powerful one anyway.

So here goes, hows this for a list:

Merc models past the A & B class, most BMW models, Chrysler 300c saloon and now estate, Cadilac CTS ( billed as GM's Omega replacement), all jag models except the lower power X type models and finally all Lexus models except the RX which is of course all drive. Lets not be too ridiculous and consider Rollers, Bentlys or the Maybach as van tugs, although they are all of course RWD

PC have just favourably reviewd the Chrysler 300c estate but my personal choice would be the Lexus LS - at 1910KG kerbweight and a max tow of 2000KG it would make a fine sight towing a large twin axle on to a CL.

Wet sloping grass? No problem at all I'll bet, its got enough electronic gadgetry to glide over most site imperfections without even noticing they were there.

 

[JeffAberdare]

Hi All,

Just thought I'd mention one other scenario to the potential problems of front wheel drive.

I was preparing to drive off the ferry @ Caen on Friday 11th August and noticed that it was raining quite heavily. The ramp was lowered down to the ships deck and was getting very wet. Some lane had already been offloaded but we all had to then wait as a FWD car (Can't remember the make but don't want to put any blame on any particular make either) was struggling to get up the wet ramp pulling a van. After a short wait for the vehicle to snake slightly and with smoke billowing from the front tyres the car did make it. I was next and hoped that my RWD auto would not have the same problem. With the exception of the traction control light flashing a couple of times, no problem. I am one of the one's who does prefer RWD for towing but that's personal preference.

The other factor to afect this is also the loading of cars & vans as other FWD cars got up that ramp without a hitch that night.

Jeff.