Alternative AWD cars?

hoodie6029

So with the Big Snow 4x4 and quattro drivers were feeling pretty smug (those that weren't blocked in by drifts anyway).
My question is, just out of curiosity, are there any alternative AWD cars out there?
The obvious are cars Volkswagen Group and Subaru.
My neighbour in 2010 had a Toyota Corolla Spacio Japanese import with AWD. It made short work of the snow and ice.
Are there any others that you wouldn't expect to have AWD out there?

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

colm_mcm

Volvo V70 Cross Country

BMW do some X drive saloons, not very common in Ireland though

Jaguar X Type.

CJhaughey

Honda Accord 7th Gen Acuras and Honda Legend all had AWD, no hi-lo box though.
Actually its a common option in countries that have poor weather at times for many cars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSNlxf2qQII

colm_mcm

There’s a few AWD Starlets in Ireland.

Toyotafanboi

Lots of VAG stuff, 4motion Passats and Tiguans are popular. Golf R and some Audi TT's too

As per bangernomics thread, Suzuki SX4/ Fiat Sedici.

Quasqais' too?*

*I don't know the difference between 4wd and awd.

Tzardine

Failing an AWD, you can't go wrong with a small, light Fwd car.

My wife's 2004 Nissan Micra was unstoppable and had no problem continuing where others were stuck.

Only problem is once the snow is gone, it's pretty shameful driving it lol

Truckermal

Lexus LS 600H is AWD.

Tuco88

A seen a working Ford Serria estate 4x4 TD doing a round no trouble at all.

LollipopJimmy

Quality and type of tyre is far more important than the number of wheels being driven, a Focus ST with good tyres would make mincemeat of the snow with its funky diff

hoodie6029

Some great ones there. The Sierra is a rare sight now. Both if browsing on autotrader brought up an AWD Volvo V60. 2.4 diesel, 5 cylinder, hybrid. 290hp. Wouldn't mind it myself

CharlieCroker

Fiat Panda 4x4 or Suzuki Ingnis 4x4.

Both light and well inside bangernomics if you can find one

kirving

hoodie6029 wrote: »

Some great ones there. The Sierra is a rare sight now. Both if browsing on autotrader brought up an AWD Volvo V60. 2.4 diesel, 5 cylinder, hybrid. 290hp. Wouldn't mind it myself

Looking at these myself. Well I was... UK prices have jumped £2-3k over winter, and revenue here still charge €4k VRT for 4-5 year old ones.

Mickiemcfist

Mitsubishi 3000gt, celica gt4

Duke O Smiley

Subaru Vivio 4wd!

colm_mcm

Daihatsu Cuore

Fiat Panda

CJhaughey

If you widen the search parameters to Japan they have many standard models equipped with AWD for the Hokkaido market, things that you would never see here like AWD Nissan Tiidas,Juke,Note, Honda Jazz etc.

colm_mcm

S40 T5

LollipopJimmy

LollipopJimmy wrote: »

Quality and type of tyre is far more important than the number of wheels being driven, a Focus ST with good tyres would make mincemeat of the snow with its funky diff

Well it's not more important as a 4wd with proper tyres will get through much worse than a 2wd will. A 4wd with diff locks and low range will be better again.

There were loads of situations in the past few days that no 2wd would get through regardless of tyres but 4wd would.

Duke O Smiley

https://www.donedeal.ie/cars-for-sale/2006-hummer-h3-p-x-welcome/17637503



Hummer!

colm_mcm

You wouldn’t expect them to be AWD!

First Up

Subarus got me through a good few New England winters and I really wouldn't be interested in driving anything else.

greenfield21

Imo All the newer model focus' are terribly in snow.

Toyotafanboi

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

......

Quasqais' too?*

*I don't know the difference between 4wd and awd.

4wd often allow you select 2wd (like in a Mitsi Outlander)
To be a true 4wd I reckon there must be a transfer case to allow low range.


AWD systems are generally on demand type yokes, they are 2wd until the car senses spinning and then sends torque to the other axle.
AWD don't offer a low range option as there's no transfer case

There's so many systems nowadays I'm not sure that eceptions to the above don't exist tbh

colm_c

Tesla Model S and Model 3

CJhaughey

Augeo wrote: »

4wd often allow you select 2wd (like in a Mitsi Outlander)
To be a true 4wd I reckon there must be a transfer case to allow low range.


AWD systems are generally on demand type yokes, they are 2wd until the car senses spinning and then sends torque to the other axle.
AWD don't offer a low range option as there's no transfer case

There's so many systems nowadays I'm not sure that eceptions to the above don't exist tbh

Our current Subaru is labelled by Subaru as AWD but it has a Hi-lo lever which shifts inside the transmission and my old Landcruiser J90 was fulltime 4WD with Hi-lo and locking centre diff but not rear Difflock, no option to change into 2H or 2L

Wibbs

Tzardine wrote: »

Failing an AWD, you can't go wrong with a small, light Fwd car.

My wife's 2004 Nissan Micra was unstoppable and had no problem continuing where others were stuck.

Compared to a heavier RWD, most certainly. Especially those with wide tyres. IIRC the Micra is running about a 1000 Kgs? That's pretty light these days, hell, it's nigh on anorexic. My old Honda runs to 1100 odd KGs and the tyres are narrow by modern standards(195)) and I was out and about every day of the snow. Now I am running Crossclimates tyres which are winter/snow rated so that helped in a big way, but yeah, light weight on relatively narrow tyres makes a big difference. Having a limited slip differential makes up the rest of the difference IMHO. Maybe even more than the tyres. On Thursday I was out and about beyond going to the local shops and noticed the limo kicking in far more than usual, but I didn't lose traction, though it could be a tad "violent" at times when it came on. I passed quite the few stuck AWD's and RWD's of far higher quality and price than my yoke. Though I'd reckon in the vast majority of cases that was almost certainly driver error. If you're bet into a ditch in your 4X4 and I'm driving by in a FWD with the ground clearance of a snakes naughty bits, that's on you. And I'm mediocre at best in driving ability.

Still, AWD is going to be generally speaking the best bet by a long way in the the hands of the average person and the especially so in the not so average. Though where that average lays is another question. Like I say I'm mediocre as a driver and can run out of talent in a pedal car , but the standard of driving I have observed over the last few days was not far off bloody scary TBH. Like if the Special Olympics ran a Demolition Derby. Actually that's being unkind, I reckon if they did run such an event, those folks would be far less scary and more competent. Autonomous cars can't come quickly enough. Autonomous pedestrians might help too. Jesus, the number of distracted/braindead pedestrians I encountered on my travels were just as scary. The middle aged spandex jogger who ran in front of my car in the midst of a near blizzard, you're damned lucky I value human life. You muesli eating muppet.

Only problem is once the snow is gone, it's pretty shameful driving it lol

Still T, it'll get you where you need to be going. OK, a Micra is hardly "sporty" by any measure, but a better A to B car, carrying you and yours and all their stuff in such a small package you'd be hard pressed to find.

LollipopJimmy wrote: »

Quality and type of tyre is far more important than the number of wheels being driven, a Focus ST with good tyres would make mincemeat of the snow with its funky diff

Again IIRC the Focus has a "computer" differential, rather than a real one? I personally prefer the mechanical offerings.

CJhaughey

CJhaughey wrote: »

Our current Subaru is labelled by Subaru as AWD but it has a Hi-lo lever which shifts inside the transmission....

The Subaru set up is interesting, i think it's sort of like an underdrive for 1st rather than a hi/low as in full fat 4x4s..... it's nothing like actual lo range in a Disco etc where you can crawl

CJhaughey wrote: »

..... and my old Landcruiser J90 was fulltime 4WD with Hi-lo and locking centre diff but not rear Difflock, no option to change into 2H or 2L

Sounds like a 4x4
not all of them offer selectable 2wd

CJhaughey

Augeo wrote: »

The Subaru set up is interesting, i think it's sort of like an underdrive for 1st rather than a hi/low as in full fat 4x4s..... it's nothing like actual lo range in a Disco etc where you can crawl

Its definitely no rock crawler, it drops the ratio from 1.000 to 1.447 in all gears, not a huge amount but enough to make a real difference when trying to move in slippery conditions.
1st goes from 3.5ish to near enough 5:1 5th low is somewhere between 3rd and 4th in High range.

whiterebel

My little Mokka 4x4 (or AWD) was great in the snow. Also accounted well for itself going up a muddy hill in a car park in Slane. Uniroyals seemed to cope well.

_Brian

Tiguan AWD here and it was stellar.

I do a good bit of towing all year round so it’s worth having it.

I had been falling out of love with it recently due to a few niggly electrical issues but we’d have been housebound without it.

drunkmonkey

XC90 AWD here felt pretty smug but by Jesus was I sick of ferrying the extended family around by the end of it. No problem to it loaded with 7 people.

conor2469

My celica gt4 powered through the snow with no issues, the coupe ride height meant it was raking all the hard snow left in the centre of the track though.

fastrac

Its a pity the insurance /nct make it so expensive to keep a winter car here. Plenty RACs ,CRVs Subarus around for small money.

fastrac

fastrac wrote: »

Its a pity the insurance /nct make it so expensive to keep a winter car here. Plenty RACs ,CRVs Subarus around for small money.

Most stuff that can't pass an NCT shouldn't be in the road IMO, there are of course example where the fail item is harsh.

Insurance is indeed prohibitive for more than two cars unless one can mirror etc etc.

I suppose two car households could consider a vehicle like you mention as the second car.

TBH, I don't think we get the weather to justify it though.

god's toy

Had a Fiat Sedici for a few years that had selectable 2/4WD and it was a hoot to drive in the snow and ice Problem was we didn't get enough of it.:pac:

John_Rambo

We've a little Freelander, it was epic in the snow, did a few baby formula runs and elderly supplies for the community, dropped the IT guy in to work in the height of it, no problems, drove by cars abandoned in drifts. My neighbours Audi Q7 couldn't do the runs we did?!?!?! What's going on there?

bear1

159 Q4
Fantastic grip in the weather we are having.

TigerTim

I've a 2008 Citroen C-Crosser for the last 6 & half years. Handy 4X4. Just moving on to next car. Found it very difficult to get any value for it. High tax is a killer.

T.

Brasso

John_Rambo wrote: »

My neighbours Audi Q7 couldn't do the runs we did?!?!?! What's going on there?

Probably due to narrower tyres in the Freelander, Q7 would generally have quite a wide tyre so it just sits on top of the snow. A narrower tyre can dig a bit to get some grip.

As was said about the Japanese imports I once spotted a mid 2000s W203 Merc C-Class that appeared to be a Japanese import (square reg plate) and that had 4matic. Another one you wouldn't expect is the Porsche 911 as the models with "4" (like Carrera 4S) in the name have AWD.

dbrunson

TigerTim wrote: »

I've a 2008 Citroen C-Crosser for the last 6 & half years. Handy 4X4. Just moving on to next car. Found it very difficult to get any value for it. High tax is a killer.

T.

Did you trade in the c crosser?

Cee-Jay-Cee

I had an 05 Legacy 2.0i for 5 years. With winter tyres front and rear that thing would go absolutely anywhere. We had heavy snow about 3 years ago and out of boredom one afternoon I headed up a mountain road, nothing had been on it before so I was driving on 3” of fresh snow and the car never missed a beat. There was one sharp incline (from Strava I know it’s 17% for roughly 600m) and the Legacy sailed up it like it was on the level.

opti76

_Brian wrote: »

Tiguan AWD here and it was stellar.

I do a good bit of towing all year round so it’s worth having it.

I had been falling out of love with it recently due to a few niggly electrical issues but we’d have been housebound without it.

im the same tiguan 4motion .. i was so smug .... only issue is i was like a taxi service for neighbours ..

peasant

Skoda (other than the obvious SUV's) do the Octavia "Scout" with AWD which is raised and plastic clad to look more off-roady but there also are 4x4 versions of the regular Octavia (and have been for quite a few years).

Mercedes have had 4-matic versions of pretty much all their models for years...very few of those ever made it to Ireland.
Same goes for the BMW X-drive

Manic Moran

Lamborghini are all AWD.... As long as you put the right tyres on it, of course. Such things can confuse the hell out of the guys doing the spot checks around here. They seem to have gotten used to my AWD convertible.

Quite a few Mercedes and BMW AWDs around these parts. Even Lexus is in on the game. I guess they figured out that folks who can afford those cars can also afford skiing trips.

heroics

John_Rambo wrote: »

My neighbours Audi Q7 couldn't do the runs we did?!?!?! What's going on there?

Sh1t tyres maybe?

My brothers Q7 had no issues

Caliden

Manic Moran wrote: »

Lamborghini are all AWD.... As long as you put the right tyres on it, of course....

:D

Yea I'd say the front bumper would be gone by the time you make it out of the estate.

Brasso

Brasso wrote: »

Probably due to narrower tyres in the Freelander, Q7 would generally have quite a wide tyre so it just sits on top of the snow. A narrower tyre can dig a bit to get some grip.

..............

Unless the freelander and Q7 were on the same brand and model tyre comparisons are not great to be fair.

heroics

OSI wrote: »

This would have been the answer to why most of the cars that struggled, struggled. Not because they were only 2WD.

Yep in 2010 I had a RWD Lexus is200 with winter tires during the snow and had no problems. Its amazing the difference winter tyres can make.

heroics

heroics wrote: »

Yep in 2010 I had a RWD Lexus is200 with winter tires during the snow and had no problems. Its amazing the difference winter tyres can make.

It's unreal
I was in Germany last year and was taking it handy until I got to trust the winter tyres. You can really make very decent progress with them.

To be fair though, in the 18 inches + of snow lurking in many areas last weekend I think any car, SUV or 4x4 could have got stuck regardless of tyres.

TigerTim

dbrunson wrote: »

Did you trade in the c crosser?

Yes, trading it in today against a 2012 Avensis. Hard to get someone to take it as a trade

PM me if you want any details

T.