What are the main differences between the 2, other than the obvious one? Which is better? Pros and cons of each? Thanks.

 

Performance wise and handling wise RWD > FWD.

In bad weather conditions (snow/rain) FWD > RWD.

That's the general breakdown, and the most common differences people will bring up. My 240sx is a lot more fun to drive

 

in extremely basic and generalized terms:

fwd = understeer (ie, plow)
rwd = oversteer (ie, spin)

which is better? depends on your driving style and what you want from the car.

fwd is generally consider "safer" or more "stable" because if it starts to slide, then you can turn the wheel in and give it some gas and it can pull itself out of the spin.

granted, you can do the same thing with a rwd car, but its much harder, because if you don't get the throttle just right, you are going around.

my 2 cents on the rwd/fwd setup.

 

fwd = pulling
rwd = pushing.

main difference

 

http://www.corollaperformance.com/TechInfo/RWD.html

 

ALL major performance cars are RWD or AWD

never FWD.

 

I can't find the article, but there is a great write-up about
an "average" driver who spent a lot of time with a BMW
engineer who explained the advantages of both. The link that
daemonite posted above is a bit slanted to RWD (I'm biased
that way myself honestly), but it's a VERY good article.

One major point that was brought up in the BMW article that
isn't really clarified in the article above, is the center of
gravity and it's pivot point. With an RWD car, the center
of gravity and it's pivot point is near the drivers seat. A
skilled driver has better seat of the pants feel of what the
car is doing in RWD. Whereas a FWD that pivot point is way
forward of the driver, and the seat of the pants response is
delayed by how far forward that center pivot point is.

As stated above, for the "typical" homogenized American
driver who would probably panic and stamp on the brakes
or freeze up when a car starts to understeer or drift FWD
is safer because it will go where you point it and pull.
A more skilled driver who knows how to read a car, knows
how to pump a break and/or counter steer in the event of
an understeer or drift, RWD will give a more skilled driver
the feel and control they demand.

Honestly, AWD is hands down the best of both worlds.
You get the feel, drift, and control of RWD, but you also get
the "will go where you point it" of FWD. If AWD drivetrains
could be made more simply, more reliable, and have less
percentage of HP loss, then AWD would completely take
over the car market.

Since this has come up, I wonder if Toyota supports any
Advanced Drivers Ed courses. I know Porsche, BMW,
Audi and even VW have driving courses....I wonder if
Toyota or Scion specifically would support us in Drivers Ed
courses.....Hmm.....I think we have something to bring up
as a "club" to Toyota...hmm.....

 

this is why electric cars will be running laps around gas powered cars in the future...

once you can electronically limit power and torque to each wheel independently, cars will be doing amazing things.

 

I have plenty of racecar seat time and I can't stand FWD high horsepower cars. But FWD is great for daily driving. How many FWD cars does Mercedes and BMW produce? I think its just the c-coupe and mini cooper.

 

The Mercedes C is rear wheel drive. All of them are, in fact.

 

awd is a tricky thing...and it probably depends on how front/rear power is split, but here is an opinion from a friend...

bg info first though.
fwd daily car - old pos cavalier
rwd fun car - 95 rx-7 TT
awd (sold) - 98 a4 chipped to 270hp

now, thats just his opinion, and it is pretty much just based off the audi, which i believe has the bias toward fwd. YRMV

 

FWD is better in the winter and stuff as others said, but IMO I would rather get a rear wheel drive car with high power for one thing. Burn rubber.

IMO awesome to do that. Pontiac GTO/Ford Mustang haha.

 

it does have its novelty, but it gets old (and expensive) quick.

 

Some may argue FWD has better traction especially during winter. I remembered an article that I read on Car and Driver mag that makes sense. It argued that RWD actually has more traction especially during launch. When a car accelerates most the weight will be distributed to the rear. In contrast, when a car brake, depends on how hard, most of the weight will be distributed to the front side. Therefore, when a RWD car accelerates, the weight shifted to the rear which contributes to more traction and thus, a better launch. A FWD will, in this case, lose traction, and spin wheel. I bet many of us have experience that already during hard launch. Advantages of RWD is that the RW do all the acceleration with added traction while the FW concentrates on steering the driver to the destination. WIth that said, as long as the driver does not put heavy power to the wheel, a RWD car should handle better than FWD in the snow. Agree?

 

Don't launch in the snow . . . problem solved.

 

also depends where the engine is located..front-mid-rear..my mothers MR2 handled the winters pretty well and my 74 Beetle made it through a lot of bad winters better than my hondas..other than having no heat and having to drive while scraping the inside of the windshield the beetle was a great winter car .

 

so it seems like most of you here prefer rwd... i guess we're all stuck with fwd huh?

or is there some magical way to turn the tc into rwd?

 

disagree. in snow, you pretty much won't be able to have a fast launch. you'll never have the traction, regardless of what the car sitting on top of the suspension is doing.

so that leaves slow, very controlled, managed starts. on these starts, there isn't going to be much weight transfer...just a little. and with a fwd car, the weight of the engine is pushing down on the front wheels, providing extra traction...more so than the rear wheels will gain from weight transfer on slow starts.

BUT

lets pretend that you have extra cool snow tires/chains that allow you to launch as fast as you want. ok, if you are drag racing then the rwd car might have a launch advantage, because of the weight transfer, but you can hardly claim a handling increase because the weight is being shifting away from the front tires, decreasing their traction. reduced traction on the front wheels = reduced ability to turn = worse handling.

yes...money. lots and lots of money.

 

Don't be depressed. FWD occupies over 80% of all cars sales in America (and probably the world) for a reason. RWD is perhaps more "fun" to drive, but it is also notoriously prone to accident. After all, 90%+ of the time we drive not just for fun, but we are commuting to work and school and fighting to stay awake. In this 90% of the time, we'd rather to sit in a safer car then a scary car. Most of us aren't so called "experienced" drivers, or say stunt car drivers, really.

So it's not about which one is better. It's more to do with trade-offs. I will probably get an G35 type RWD eventually to learn the advantages of RWD, but for now, I am enjoying my FWD every bit of it...

 

My mustang is RWD and its HORRIBLE in the rain. Every time it rains, I have to drive slowly with 2 hands on the wheel or when I drive over a big puddle i lose control of the car. Its a pain driving it in the rain. (thats one of the reasons i'm trading it in for a tC)
Other than that its a lot more fun to drive :D