The true measure of any winter vehicle is can it get through reliably.
We have a half a dozen steep hills to the nearest paved road, that my rwd vehicles can not get up without dramatics when conditions are bad without chains. they have snow tires on all 4 wheels. This ain't suburbia. Our postman uses studded tires on his Jeep.
Half the snows here don't get any road tender service. We get a lot of ice.
I bought a new GMC Syclone when they came out in 91 and found out very quickly that awd doesn't help with handling or braking, the smooth power delivery leads to a false sense of security.
I tend to put narrower tires on my vehicles for better traction. Tends to reduce hydroplaning.
One of our vehicles has anti lock brakes. I hate them they increase stopping distances in bad weather. About all they do is to keep the vehicle going straight.
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Originally Posted by Isaac Zachary
RWD can help with getting up steeper hills. But how often do you find a super steep hill road in places where it gets snowy and icy every winter? And even if you do find one that requires you to have at least RWD, what are the chances you're going to want to come back down that same road without something like tire chains? And of course it's better to come down a steep hill with tire chains on the front. So are you going to get out and put chains on the front of your RWD car? Or just put chains on your FWD car and make it up and back down just fine?
Yes, getting you going too fast is a problem for a lot of folks. I try to drive as slow as I would in a 2WD when driving an AWD. But I know a lot of people who go buy AWD and then complain that the brakes stop working. It's not the brakes it's that now they don't understand that they have double the traction while accelerating but the same traction while braking, making places feel less slick while accelerating than they really are.
Of course the same thing happens to people driving on the highway without any stops. In town you're constantly stopping and going, which allows 2WD, especially FWD, to remind you it's slick out. But going down a highway people tend to keep going faster, and faster, and faster, even in 2WD until they have to stop. They they ask themselves "Why am I driving so fast!? Why am I driving so fast!?" as the come sliding to a stop (or crash, whichever comes first). This is why you're supposed to go 2/3 the speed limit or slower on ice and snow. If the road is white and the speed limit is 60, you should be going 40 even though it might feel slow.
But knowing how to drive for the conditions in an AWD is the best, except for the cost. AWD costs more new and tends to keep its value higher than 2WD. And once they're as old and cheap as the old 2WD's then there's more parts that are going wrong and so more costly to keep fixed. Not to mention worse fuel mileage. This makes those of us with smaller wallets to tend to drive a 2WD even in places where richer people wouldn't even think of driving a 2WD.
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