Audi have one of the biggest ranges (obviously) - but MB come a close 2nd with Volvo third and BMW trailing behind. We also have cars like the Opel (Vauxhall) Insignia Skoda Octavia and Superb and the Saab 9-3 with 4WD too.
Octavia and Superb available with 4wd here too.
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I suspect many people in this country will only pay for 4WD if they can be seen to driving something with 4WD, to make sure everyone else thinks they're minted and have horses in the country. I.e. a big SUV type thing, or a Subaru, which everyone knows is almost guaranteed to have 4WD.
I expect that's why manufacturers consistently push SUVs here and don't try to sell many 4WD, standard looking saloon cars. Which is a shame.
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Most merc, audi and BMW purchases in the UK are company cars. The CO2 emissions of 4x4's are worse than the the normal cars so suffer a higher BiK tax value,
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Merc said that they didn't convert because of the position of the steering box and the centre diff, though they later managed it with the R Class. I once drove an W220 S500 (something) matic 4WD from Baden Baden through the Black Forest in the rain. That was fairly epic. Like a huge Impreza turbo. Very effective. Not like an A8 at all.
HJ
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Yes, it's just engineering problems that hold them back.
I wonder what proportion of Audi's sales are quattro? If it was significant, I'm sure Merc and BMW would find their way round the engineering problems!
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If it was significant I'm sure Merc and BMW would find their way round the engineering problems!
well with BMW....like the 5 series wipers not set up properly for RHD?....or the Clubman rear passenger door opening out onto the road?
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From the point of view of less skilled drivers such as myself, it wouldn't be so bad if Mercedes & BMW produced front-wheel drive cars rather than RWD.
Now that I have a RWD car, I dread bad winters. I never worried at all when I had FWD cars.
(Yes - I know that a real enthusiast prefers RWD, and can handle it in poor conditions. If you are one of those then I tip my hat to you)
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LDO, you have no doubt mastered clutch control, you just have to do the same with accelerator control. If your wheels spin at all you are overdoing it.
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Now that I have a RWD car I dread bad winters. I never worried at all when I had FWD cars.
Exactly the same for me. I work from home but when I go out it's often a 2-400 mile round trip and I'm terrified of the weather closing in while I'm away.
I got a pair of Autosocks when I first got my Merc. Never needed to use them, and maybe they'll be useless, but it makes me feel better to know they're there.
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>> Now that I have a RWD car I dread bad winters. I never worried at >> all when I had FWD cars.
Im the opposite, last winter i had dreadful problems getting my FWD car out my hilly driveway, where as the RWD I had before had no problems. In fact I had to park the FWD facing downhill and reverse it out - that was after having to take a day off work due to the FWD sliding down the hill backwards.......
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Weight transfer?
Edited by Old Navy on 30/11/2009 at 22:50
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Weight transfer?
Exactly!
out of all the cars I have owned, 80% have been FWD - not by choice I may add, RWD would always be my choice, RWD IMO gives a better balance, and I dislike the front wheels doing 2 jobs, as a lack of traction also results in a lack of steering.
I admit to being a little over enthusiastic sometimes, and finding FWD carrying on in a straight line ignoring where Im trying to point the car, where a RWD would wiggle its bum, but go where I want it to!
BTW I learnt how to control RWD slides in an old Viva, followed up by more practice in MB's BM's etc, before the electronic 'aids' where standard issue.
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Im the opposite last winter i had dreadful problems getting my FWD car out my hilly driveway where as the RWD I had before had no problems.
I can only guess that must depend on the steepness of the drive. We had a bit of snow at work one day and the people in RWD cars - mainly BMW but my boss at the time had an S Type Jag - couldn't get up the slightest of slopes to leave the car park without being pushed. None of the FWD cars had any significant difficulty.
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I notice that the Instruction Manual for my UK RWD 330d touring does cover the 330xd (and other 'x' versions), it includes nuggets like hill descent control for instance.
I know 4WD variants of the 3 Series are popular in North America / Canada where they get much worse winters as well as on the continent where (for instance) winter tyres are often the norm too. Friends who live in NY State have a 'winter car' and a sportier 'summer car' - albeit in an economy where cars are (or were) rather cheaper then elsewhere.
I assume that BMW don't import the 330xd because there wouldn't be a big enough market for it, with many going to company car drivers then the higher CO2 emissions are a problem (that's why I didn't choose an A4 3.0TDi Quattro for instance).
I am reliably informed that RWD BMWs were fairly hopeless in the snow we were blessed with last Feb, my (then) non Quattro FWD 170PD A4 B7 wasn't too good either tbh.
It does make me wonder what the point of all these non-4WD variants of Volvo XC70s, XC60s, Ford Kugas etc really is, tax efficient but losing their core capabilities ?
I got a 330d in the full expectation that I'll walk and/or take public transportation when it snows, but I live in the SE where it doesn't snow very often....
Edited by idle_chatterer on 30/11/2009 at 22:46
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I don't think it is so much the real enthusiast thing as the fact that so many of the younger drivers today have most of their experience with FWD.
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I don't think it is so much the real enthusiast thing as the fact that so many of the younger drivers today have most of their experience with FWD.
Good point about younger drivers! Mind you, I'm no spring chicken (mid fifties) and drove RWD cars for several years before I got my first FWD one, and yet I still find RWD a handful in poor conditions.
Sure, they have a long list of acronyms describing the fancy electronics that are supposed to help you (ABS, ESP, DSC, ASC, CBC, DBC, EBD - yes they are all real ones!), but in my experience they don't seem to make a blind bit of difference. You're just vaguely aware of the dashboard lighting up like a Christmas Tree as the car goes out of control.
To paraphrase Animal Farm "Two driving wheels good, four wheels better!".
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Merc said that they didn't convert because of the position of the steering box and the centre diff
Apart from the steering box being in the way as the drive shaft to the front axle comes out of the RH side of the gearbox, the transmission tunnel mods would, in a RHD car, compromise the driver's footwell too much.
MB did say they were going to modify the gearbox so that there would be a RHD version of the GLK, and then the same solution could be used in saloons, but that seems to have gone very quiet.
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Merc said that they didn't convert because of the position of the steering box and the centre diff though they later managed it with the R Class.
The R Class is really just a lowered ML, so the saloon floorplan issues dont come into it.
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Been working/living for last 2y in Eastern Europe. All Audi's are quattro, Mercs C,E,S are mostly 4Matic, especially government ones, as are 3 and 5 series Xd or Xi.
For poorer class people, GOLF 4/5/6 are the king in 4Motion format, some Octavias too, Police has Golf 5/6 4Motion all.
It's not that it justs snows and rains a little more, but the roads are not cleaned regularly or just main ones, so AWD des help even in city suburbs winter time.
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The fact is that 4WD is no advantage 99% of the time in the climate here in normalish power/weight ratio cars. The manufacturers of FWD cars like Audi had to add 4WD when they wanted to build performance. After all, they could not rally start to build RWD road burners and admit that for best performace FWD is not really the way to go.
I think the Subarus were drived from fairly agricultural cars in the first place so it was a matter of adding lots of BHP to produce a forest racer. The Evo forest racers again derived from FWD, given 4WD and lots of well fed donkeys. For a rally car where speeds are comparitivly low and surfaces often bad 4WD does make a lot of sense a lot of the time.
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idle_chatterer said: "I notice that the Instruction Manual for my UK RWD 330d touring does cover the 330xd (and other 'x' versions), it includes nuggets like hill descent control for instance."
Yes, BMW have produced 4WD models since the late '80s, and I *think* the E34 5-series 'X' was offered here, but didn't sell well.
Re fwd vs rwd in snow: didn't Saab pioneer fwd because it proved better/safer in the snow and ice? I guess as has been said, although rwd is better in some circumstances, overall the fwd is safer in the hands of non-specialist drivers...
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I've been wittering on about rwd cars and snpw for the past 10 years..
When I drove rwd cars on snow or polished snow or ice, they were abysmal - especially with summer tyres. I had an Austin A30 with T&C winter tyres and it was superb in snow despite rwd.. but 40BHP and narrow tyres helped.. I was the last car one winter to go along the coast road Aberdeen to Stonehaven before the next car stuck in the snowdrift I passed over and the road was closed.
On the moors here, the BMWs and Mercedes are stranded and undriveable in snow: rwd, summer tyres, WIDE tyres and lots of power coupled with ignorant drivers means a complete loss of traction.
One girl was so fed up who swapped here BMW 530i for a Mini Cooper.. and became mobile again..
One winter our MD and I had to climb a 1 mile long 300foot high hill : he in his BMW 5 series and I in a Rover 800. Guess who did not get to the top? The BMW. The Rover did.. with lots of wheelspin j...ust. The snow was 1-3 feet deep.
Four wheel drive in the UK? Great for the country. In town Stoke on Trent seizes up due to snow and hills. Unless your 4wd can run over the other cars stranded with no grip, it's a waste of time.. Great in snow though.
Buxton to Congleton road in snow is seriously scary with fwd. Impassible I suspect with rwd... Go off road in many spots and a LONG drop..
Often it's a case of driving styles. Whizzing up to a junction and late braking, accelerating round roundabouts and lost of acceleration as many drivers indulge in in normal conditions means no go on snow...
Edited by madf on 01/12/2009 at 13:59
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