When choosing an AWD car, it is in everyone's best interest to consider all the options. Many of the AWD cars today could actually be four-wheel drive. The difference between the two is that, AWD can best be described as "full time four-wheel drive". In a decision to select the best AWD cars, this is important. Cars with AWD are intended to have four wheels rotating all at once, all the time. On the other hand, four-wheel drive can be best described as "part time four-wheel drive". Four-wheel is just a mode that you switch in to. In other words, the car is only powering two wheels until you decide to shift to four-wheel. One drawback to this that I would like to touch on briefly, is that in a four-wheel drive car, you cannot shift while moving. There are some mechanical aspects that I will not confuse you with, but the point is you cannot be moving when you make the switch from two operating wheels to four operating wheels. Okay, moving on. As I just stated, all wheel drive cars are always driving with four wheels. Also, if you are thinking about an two-wheel, four-wheel, or all wheel drive, a few things must come to mind.
When a person drives around a corner, or an object that exhibits lateral force, a person may only need two-wheel drive. In other words, if you are driving around a corner at a steady, constant speed, you will be just fine driving around the corner more often than not. However, if you go around for example, a slippery curve, or an icy curve a few things can change. If you travel at a constant speed around this slippery curve, you normally have enough grip, or traction, to be fine. However if you travel around the curve and keep increasing speed, you have a great chance of slipping out. Therefore, this is a situation where having an AWD car is very beneficial. This is the difference between having two wheels being powered, and four wheels being powered. But, there are a few drawbacks to having an AWD car versus two-wheel. Just one of the many can be attributed to torque. In four-wheel drive, the torque, or rotating power I suppose you could say, is split evenly between the two front wheels and the two back wheels. So if for instance, one of the tires ends up being lifted up off the ground, or experiences a situation like that, not only does that wheel lose torque, but the adjacent wheel does as well. So, essentially, you would then be driving in two-wheel drive.
However, many of the drawbacks, including the one I just mentioned, can be remedied and be fixed. These are just a few points to consider when thinking about getting an AWD car. So no matter what kind of vehicle you are thinking about, it is important to take in all the options before deciding on a car.
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