Awd diesel?

[bandit86]

Was talking to my brother about his new jetta and the conversation turned to the lack of Awd diesels. Affordable ones anyways. Is there anything oust than the odd jetta or passat tdi Awd? I still can't think of any

[Angmaar]

I think some AWD Diesels are sold in Europe. Some heavy duty trucks are AWD. You could swap a TDI engine into the R32 golf.

[bandit86]

We were talking about decent fuel economy cars and winter driving, he keeps getting decent mileage out of his jettas but not impressed in snowy diving as the trunk is full of tools

[Daox]

Use snow tires if you really need to. I've driven through some really nasty stuff before and never needed awd, and most of the time not even with snow tires.

[bestclimb]

I tend to agree good snow tires on a FWD car does great. Add a set of chains for when it is really bad.

I have good snow tires on a civic, and escort and they go most places I have asked.

Throw a set of chains on it and will will drag it self through snow that wont let you open the doors or drive quick enough on ice that you cant walk on.

[morphector]

+1 on winter tires

I prefer to get studded winter tires as they tend to give better traction on ice. There's a lot of snow and ice where I'm living and never used any chains. You should check out if they're legal where you live!

3 years ago I got a suzuki sx4 wich is the smallest awd car in north america available and it's still a gas hog!

BTW awd and 4x4 easily create a sense of safety, they accelerate much faster than 2wd cars have the same stopping distance when slippery.

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by Angmaar

I think some AWD Diesels are sold in Europe.

We get the VW 4Motion (definitely in the Passat) and Audi Quattro TDi's .
Some Beemers can be had with X-drive.

When you head into the European SUV-market, it's full of diesel AWDs.

[tjts1]

Snow tires and chains are all the AWD i've ever needed.

[brucepick]

Snow tires. Put four of them on any FWD diesel you happen to like. Take them off when snow season is over and you have a nice fuel-economical car again.

In snow, I usually end up passing most other cars on the road, and that was the case with my RWD Volvo as well as the FWD Civic if fitted with four snow tires. Most cars around here have "all seasons", and some of them are pretty worn. Not good; no wonder the owners think they need 4WD. Bunch of hoooie.

Any version of 4WD or AWD gives you a serious fuel economy hit, regardless of the weather.

My Michelin X-Ice4 2's did excellently on various kinds of ice and hardpack, like what you get in parking lots. Also they are Low Rolling Resistance so they didn't hurt my mpg as much as old-school snow tires. If you get more snow than ice, you might select some other kind of snow tire that's optimized for snow.

In any case - be sure to get the real thing, a tire model with the mountain and snowflake symbol. Those actually have to pass a performance standard to get the rating. The "M+S" = mud and snow rated tires are just rated based on the percent of open space in the tread. That's the best we had, many years ago.

[bestclimb]

+1 on x-ices. Have them on my civic and still get 50+mpg in the summer.