Best AWD/4WD for snow traction

[Samir]

Considering it's April and we've just received 10 cm of snow (Global warming my ass...) I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with some of the AWD systems. It's going to be a serious consideration on my next car and I've noticed it's being offered by pretty much everyone now.

Even Mazda will give AWD as an option on the 2008 Mazda 6!

So in your experience, which of these systems work best in the snow?

Which systems are the best compromise between snow and offroad (if such a compromise need be made)? I seem to see a lot of Jeeps that have no trouble with snow, but all the ones I see are not stock (raised 3 inches, 30 inch tires, aftermarket axles, etc.)

[chickenbones]

I think the problem is those 30 inch tires you described on the Jeeps you saw. Proper tires are still important.

I would say Audi & Subaru are two leaders of AWD technology. Do a search there have been lots of discussions about this.

[B0000rt]

Considering it's April and we've just received 10 cm of snow (Global warming my ass...) I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with some of the AWD systems. It's going to be a serious consideration on my next car and I've noticed it's being offered by pretty much everyone now.

Even Mazda will give AWD as an option on the 2008 Mazda 6!

So in your experience, which of these systems work best in the snow?

Which systems are the best compromise between snow and offroad (if such a compromise need be made)? I seem to see a lot of Jeeps that have no trouble with snow, but all the ones I see are not stock (raised 3 inches, 30 inch tires, aftermarket axles, etc.)
Firstly, the proper terminology is CLIMATE CHANGE not global warming..

Second there are two major types of AWD/4WD systems, for the sake of this thread, assume they mean the same thing, all four wheels spin. The two categories of AWD are as such:
1) Reactive
2) Preventative

For reactive, it usually means a FWD car that engages the rear wheels whenever the front wheels start to slip.

Preventative is as what it sounds. Prevention, so all four wheels are driving all the time.

You can clearly see that the Preventative type of AWD that drives all the wheels all the time is better, but it does take a fuel economy hit!


I think regardless of whatever AWD/4WD system you get, opt for the BEST winter tires out there, if you're that concerned.

[Spray]

Pretty happy with my scooby system so far.

[lumlum1013]

I would say Audi & Subaru are two leaders of AWD technology. Do a search there have been lots of discussions about this.

+1
Subaru's AWD and Audi's Quattros should be the best......
however, please do not rely on AWD system so that you
can stop better or turn better durin' winter season...
IMO a decent set of winter tires are still more important
than AWD system w/ winters... especially you are in Quebec~

I find the AWD definitely helps the acceleration compare to FWD..

[KnifeEdge]

ive never heard the terms preventive or reactive b4 but it does good job of explaining pros and cons

Here's the break down, all subaru's cars are awd which means all 4 wheels are powered all the time. Audi's A3, TT, and any of their cars with a tranversely mounted (sideways) engine is of the reactive kind, they're fwd until slip is detected. THe rest of audi's awd cars are actually awd using torsen differentials which react faster than the viscous differentials used on most subarus, however the disadvantage is torsens act like open differentials when one output becomes unloaded.

Since most awd cars still only come with open diffs at the front and back sometimes this leads to situations where they're even less controllable than 2wd counter parts.

[EH100501AC]

Pretty happy with my scooby system so far.

Even without winter tires, so am I :)

[Veteq]

+1
Subaru's AWD and Audi's Quattros should be the best......
however, please do not rely on AWD system so that you
can stop better or turn better durin' winter season...
IMO a decent set of winter tires are still more important
than AWD system w/ winters... especially you are in Quebec~

I find the AWD definitely helps the acceleration compare to FWD..

+1

Show tires, I drive a Subaru WRX; great of the line but it doesn't stop or turn any better than any other car with the stock all session tires.
Snow tires makes a difference.

[a89aries]

Friend of mine has a 2001 CRV and that car is amazing when it comes to snow, yes you do get the short delay for the system engages. tough it is pretty cool in itself. You tromp the gas in deep snow and you feel the front wheels spin for a 1/4 of a second then wham! the all wheel drive kicks in and you go off like a rocket! He still gets decent mileage and its proven to be very reliable. I should also mention he put winter tires on it as well, makes a huge difference!

[thesober]

Its all about the tires, they are the only thing that contacts the ground so if you think awd/4wd gives you traction, it doesnt. Tires are much more important than a lot of people think.

[SkiD]

Tires are important, but the most important factor to consider with snow while driving is actually pretty simple, drive slower. The maximum posted speed is also not the minimum speed you should be driving.

[thesober]

No matter how careful you drive or how slow you are driving, if you have improper tires you will still be in trouble. Have you seen drivers with summer tires caught in the winter time. No matter how slow, they just slide. Not worth driving at that time.
I was caught with almost bald all season on a RWD, scariest time of my life. I just stopped my car and put my hazzards. Still traumatized now.


Tires are important, but the most important factor to consider with snow while driving is actually pretty simple, drive slower. The maximum posted speed is also not the minimum speed you should be driving.

[Spray]

Weird, not to bash but I feel the exact opposite when driving my moms CRV. I actually found it to be much worse than my saab with it's FWD system. My moms CRV would actually kick out the rear end in heavy snow, as if it's over compensating too much to the rear wheels. Maybe it's some kind of glitch from the factory, but I always hated driving that damn car in the snow.

Friend of mine has a 2001 CRV and that car is amazing when it comes to snow, yes you do get the short delay for the system engages. tough it is pretty cool in itself. You tromp the gas in deep snow and you feel the front wheels spin for a 1/4 of a second then wham! the all wheel drive kicks in and you go off like a rocket! He still gets decent mileage and its proven to be very reliable. I should also mention he put winter tires on it as well, makes a huge difference!

[ES_Revenge]

+1
Subaru's AWD and Audi's Quattros should be the best......


Out of these two, I would take Quattro over so-called "Symmetrical AWD". I'm not that familiar with what Subie uses what system but I know they use a few but never really diffrentiate it in marketing, perhaps somewhat like Haldex-based Quattro is never really mentioned by Audi yet everyone knows abou it. Only Subaru uses like 5 different systems, and I can't be bothered to keep track of that nonsense, lol.

What I do know is, driving the cars the Subies with the clutch type businesses, like the Imprezas (I think these use clutch-type couplings or at least they drive like it), it's still quite easy to put the rear end out on these in bad conditions. Not as easy as in a straight RWD car but if you give even a little effort to "drifting" the rear end out, you can do it without much of a problem on the Subarus (you can also do this on BMW's X-Drive albeit with a bit more effort than the Subarus). While this might be fun at times, the Audis with [traditional Torsen] Quattro, on the other hand, they seem to just go exactly where you point them and go quickly and without any drama or fuss.

Since most awd cars still only come with open diffs at the front and back sometimes this leads to situations where they're even less controllable than 2wd counter parts.
True. But many cars also come with an "AWD Lock" or manual locking diff which can be activated by the driver. Also that's what EDL is for ;) Audi has done away with the hassle/inconvenience of a diff lock in favour of two open diffs on the F/R and then implementing EDL to lock the spinning wheel instead. While there are disadvantages to this (only half the torque available, additional brake heat perhaps, for example) it's much more user friendly for the majority of drivers out there.

I'm not sure how you would equate an AWD car (with presumably a centre diff or clutch of some sort) and two open diffs "less controllable" than a 2WD car though. Even lacking EDL, I don't see how it would be less controllable in the context of the discussion here. You might still get stuck in snow, yes, but it will still be less susceptible to getting stuck overall than a strict 2WD car. And, make no mistake, nearly all AWD systems can get stuck depending on the conditions. I've not seen or driven any modern day AWD cars that are "less controllable" than a similar 2WD car.

All that said, one thing I would say with quite a bit of certainty. Pretty much any AWD system, whether it be reactive or preventative will be better at getting you moving in slippery conditions such as snow, ice, etc. It's like a night and day difference, honestly. It's relatively easy to get stuck with an open diff 2WD car, whereas it takes a "good bit more" to get stuck (or start sliding with power application) in most AWD cars.

Of course I agree with all the sentiments about tyres people mentioned above as well. That's perhaps more important than AWD (again for reasons others have already stated). However winter/snow tyres and All Wheel Drive in winter conditions FTW! :D

[crunked]

Subaru's are the best no doubt! They have over 35 years of experience with awd so they should know what their doing. Mine drives like a tank in snow even with the stock all season tires!!!

[ES_Revenge]

Tires are important, but the most important factor to consider with snow while driving is actually pretty simple, drive slower. The maximum posted speed is also not the minimum speed you should be driving.
This attitude while seemingly great, kind of pisses me off a bit when it's taken to a mass extreme and people duplicate this to an extreme level...

This is a typical "mass attitude" in populous areas I find, such as Toronto. You see it snow like ONE cm and everytime it does it's like people just decided to drive at 1 km/h for no reason. There's a saying that I have... "Everytime it snows in Toronto, it's like it's the first time it has ever snowed." And it's true. Instead of people equipping themselves for snow they try everything but that and instead try to "make do" with "good enough" solutions.

No I'm sorry the solution is not to drive 10km/h because it just snowed and you wanted to be too cheap/unwise/lazy to actually equip your car for the snow--meaning buying snow/winter tyres, not sticking with all-seasons all year round :rolleyes: Because if these people actually bought winter tyres they could be going a lot closer to the speed limit, and often times at the speed limit.

People in areas like Toronto might want to drive as little as a couple hours north and visit places where they are too damn cheap to salt that much (another rant of mine) and snow just stays on the roads all winter long. Yeah that's right, snow doesn't get cleared within a couple hours like it does here! In those places people certainly slow down (quite appropriately) but nowhere near to the degree of extreme that people do in the city. And there's like 10x more snow on the ground and way less salt!

Now don't get me wrong I'm not saying if it's a huge snowstorm go out there and just because you have winter tyres drive like it's a dry summer day out there, lol. Because of course you have the other idiots that just drive like it is summer and they do so on their all-seasons and cause lots of accidents. Certainly driving slower/more carefully, etc. is mandatory. But proceeding to a crawl with light snow that is melting on the ground because there's tons of salt everywhere (becaue the salters have to be out in 10mins of snow touching the ground anyway) is so stupid it's not funny.

But you don't go out in snow with sandals on do you? Well some people I'm sure but it's not the majority. So why is it we see so many people thinking their crap all-season tyres (which are indeed all-season--equally bad in all seasons, lol) are fine provided they go as slow as is humanly possible creating all kinds of traffic for nearly no reason?

And I'm not just blaming people, it's the fact that cars are even allowed to be sold with all-season tyres on them and that all-season tyres are even sold at all.

The problem is people have all season tyres pushed on them from the moment they buy their vehicle and think they are "good enough". They simply are not.

As thesober mentioned, "going slow" or "being careful" isn't a substitute for having the right tyres on your car. No matter how slow you go if you don't have the right tyres you can easily get yourself in trouble. So why do that? Why a. slow down to a ludicrous point of slowness and b. risk an accident with you and your loved ones, when you can do c. instead and equip your vehicle properly and then drive properly.

But I guess I'm wasting my breath here. Because I mean the light snowfalls that occur where people decide to go 3km/h are still well within the abilities of their all-seasons to handle alright but so many people just have no concept of driving :( So I'm sure even if everyone was required to get winter tyres, they'd still drive the same.

I'm surprised people don't slow down to a crawl in hot summer conditions because really their compromise-based all-seasons aren't very good in summer either. It's unbelieveable to see people having anywhere from five to hundreds of pairs of shoes for themselves yet you ask them where their winter tyres are in the winter and they'll tell you "oh I don't need them I have all-seasons" :rolleyes:

Anyway that's the end of my rant, LOL. If you missed it there's two things I went on about--one is taking the "drive slower" bit to a ridiculous extreme, the other is properly equipping your car for where/when you're going to be driving it.

[number84]

i'm a big fan of both subaru and audi's AWD system (i've driven both in the snow)..but there is a newcomer...acura's SH-AWD system that should be considered as well.

[NLI10D]

a little off topic but since ppl are talking about tires ... if you dont drive aggressively in whatever season Nokian WRs are more than enough. I have this on a 3series and it has never let me down. Saves the whole hassle of switching over too.

[BartBandy]

Subaru's system is widely regarded as one of the best, if not the best.

Subaru's OEM Bridgestone RE92 tires are widely regarded as among the worst OEM tires sold with cars today. I've known people to negotiate a tire swap with a Subie purchase.


I understand the WR is a good tire. I always figured that swapping tires isn't a big deal, as I'm going to have to rotate the tires periodically anyway.

[hytong]

I wonder what will happen if govt reduces their snow plow service in GTA

[adamtheman]

Go with a full-time 4x4 system, not an AWD system, if you are looking for any type of offroad or deep snow.

The dodge durango offers an amazing new system for FT 4x4 they have out done themselvs.

[bpopd]

This is Global warming.

Btw... dont get a awd car, in the future there wont be snow anyways with your mentality.

[SkiD]

This attitude while seemingly great, kind of pisses me off a bit when it's taken to a mass extreme and people duplicate this to an extreme level...

This is a typical "mass attitude" in populous areas I find, such as Toronto. You see it snow like ONE cm and everytime it does it's like people just decided to drive at 1 km/h for no reason. There's a saying that I have... "Everytime it snows in Toronto, it's like it's the first time it has ever snowed." And it's true. Instead of people equipping themselves for snow they try everything but that and instead try to "make do" with "good enough" solutions.

No I'm sorry the solution is not to drive 10km/h because it just snowed and you wanted to be too cheap/unwise/lazy to actually equip your car for the snow--meaning buying snow/winter tyres, not sticking with all-seasons all year round :rolleyes: Because if these people actually bought winter tyres they could be going a lot closer to the speed limit, and often times at the speed limit.

People in areas like Toronto might want to drive as little as a couple hours north and visit places where they are too damn cheap to salt that much (another rant of mine) and snow just stays on the roads all winter long. Yeah that's right, snow doesn't get cleared within a couple hours like it does here! In those places people certainly slow down (quite appropriately) but nowhere near to the degree of extreme that people do in the city. And there's like 10x more snow on the ground and way less salt!

Now don't get me wrong I'm not saying if it's a huge snowstorm go out there and just because you have winter tyres drive like it's a dry summer day out there, lol. Because of course you have the other idiots that just drive like it is summer and they do so on their all-seasons and cause lots of accidents. Certainly driving slower/more carefully, etc. is mandatory. But proceeding to a crawl with light snow that is melting on the ground because there's tons of salt everywhere (becaue the salters have to be out in 10mins of snow touching the ground anyway) is so stupid it's not funny.

But you don't go out in snow with sandals on do you? Well some people I'm sure but it's not the majority. So why is it we see so many people thinking their crap all-season tyres (which are indeed all-season--equally bad in all seasons, lol) are fine provided they go as slow as is humanly possible creating all kinds of traffic for nearly no reason?

And I'm not just blaming people, it's the fact that cars are even allowed to be sold with all-season tyres on them and that all-season tyres are even sold at all.

The problem is people have all season tyres pushed on them from the moment they buy their vehicle and think they are "good enough". They simply are not.

As thesober mentioned, "going slow" or "being careful" isn't a substitute for having the right tyres on your car. No matter how slow you go if you don't have the right tyres you can easily get yourself in trouble. So why do that? Why a. slow down to a ludicrous point of slowness and b. risk an accident with you and your loved ones, when you can do c. instead and equip your vehicle properly and then drive properly.

But I guess I'm wasting my breath here. Because I mean the light snowfalls that occur where people decide to go 3km/h are still well within the abilities of their all-seasons to handle alright but so many people just have no concept of driving :( So I'm sure even if everyone was required to get winter tyres, they'd still drive the same.

I'm surprised people don't slow down to a crawl in hot summer conditions because really their compromise-based all-seasons aren't very good in summer either. It's unbelieveable to see people having anywhere from five to hundreds of pairs of shoes for themselves yet you ask them where their winter tyres are in the winter and they'll tell you "oh I don't need them I have all-seasons" :rolleyes:

Anyway that's the end of my rant, LOL. If you missed it there's two things I went on about--one is taking the "drive slower" bit to a ridiculous extreme, the other is properly equipping your car for where/when you're going to be driving it.

Wow, someone got up on the wrong side of the bed.

"drive slower" does not mean drive 1 km/h or 3 km/h, it means drive 50 in a 60 zone, 80 in a 100 zone when it's snowing or the road is covered in it.

Not being from Toronto, I wonder, do people use their tires until they are completely bald, or use summer tires? Edmonton drivers seem to do ok with all season tires during our long winter (and we don't use salt).

AWD and winter tires increase the envelope of performance in the winter (and driver confidence), but slowing down for the conditions should happen no matter what you drive. It's usually 4x4's trucks and SUV's in the ditch after a snowstorm because the drivers do not slow down because they are too overconfident in their vehicles.

Personally, I use winter tires (because I can afford to) and my next vehicle will likely be AWD (don't trust RWD/high horsepower/traction control in winter), but I will still slow down when conditions warrant it.

[B0000rt]

This is Global warming.

Btw... dont get a awd car, in the future there wont be snow anyways with your mentality.
It's called Climate Change.

[brendonp]

Wow, someone got up on the wrong side of the bed.

"drive slower" does not mean drive 1 km/h or 3 km/h, it means drive 50 in a 60 zone, 80 in a 100 zone when it's snowing or the road is covered in it.

Not being from Toronto, I wonder, do people use their tires until they are completely bald, or use summer tires? Edmonton drivers seem to do ok with all season tires during our long winter (and we don't use salt).

AWD and winter tires increase the envelope of performance in the winter (and driver confidence), but slowing down for the conditions should happen no matter what you drive. It's usually 4x4's trucks and SUV's in the ditch after a snowstorm because the drivers do not slow down because they are too overconfident in their vehicles.

Personally, I use winter tires (because I can afford to) and my next vehicle will likely be AWD (don't trust RWD/high horsepower/traction control in winter), but I will still slow down when conditions warrant it.

I can really see where ES_Revenge is coming from! I'm currently living in the KW area (1 hour west of TO), and it's the same deal. A bit of snow on the roads and people drive crazy slow - and generally they have to, because they are riding on all seasons, which simply aren't that great in the snow. If I were to hazard a guess (and yes its a guess!), I'd assume most of the "overconfident" 4x4 crowd are probably running all seasons as well! Sure, they are probably driving to quickly for the conditions, but they'd be much safer if they had proper tires on.

BTW, I use winter tires as well, and I drive a RWD coupe (BMW 330 coupe) all winter (granted it's a 2 month SW Ontario winter!), and I frankly find it easier to drive then my prior FWD vehicle that had much less HP and half the torque. The traction control is certainly better in the BMW, but it's sometimes necessary to shut it off at low speeds to get rolling comfortably (a little slip is sometimes good ;) ); I certainly don't see any reason why you couldn't drive a moderately powerful RWD vehicle in the snow (ie anything under 300 ft-lbs of torque) - I'm planning on trying it in the next year or so!

I certainly won't dismiss AWD/4WD, as I'm happy knowing that my wife is driving an AWD in the winter (with snow tires).

Bottom line - people should really just be more responsible for maintaining their vehicles for the conditions in which they drive...

My $.02,

Brendon

[Taiphun]

I've got "Symmetrical AWD," but I'd say Torsen is better than Symmetrical and definately better than Haldex.

Refer to this post I made a few months back:

http://www.redflagdeals.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4259560&postcount=8

[bionicbadger]

Not being from Toronto, I wonder, do people use their tires until they are completely bald, or use summer tires? Edmonton drivers seem to do ok with all season tires during our long winter (and we don't use salt).


Heh, I use studded tires, a bit noisey but they work great.

As other people have said good tires are more effective then AWD. And good winter driving skills are more important than tires.

[Monsieurmaggot]

I've got "Symmetrical AWD," but I'd say Torsen is better than Symmetrical and definately better than Haldex.

Refer to this post I made a few months back:

http://www.redflagdeals.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4259560&postcount=8

There's so much information relating to having all four wheel spin under power. Unfortunately most folks don't understand the difference between them.

One item that is rarely discussed is axle length (left to right) has a huge bearing on performance and control. The Subarus have IDENTICAL left and right axles with a centre mounted differential. Many AWD or 4-Wheel systems use modified differentials with existing mis-matched axles.

The last thing I want to worry about under extreme driving (ice and snow) conditions is torque steer driving down a mountain slope. Having four mismatched axles will take you off the road quicker than a FWD car.

See this Subaru link for a visual explanation:

http://www.subaru.com/sub/misc/coretech/index.html

[Spray]

Haha yeah you'll commonly see RE92's selling on the Legacy boards for $80 a set...they're absolutely garbage.

Good thing the Spec B's came with the STI tires.

Subaru's system is widely regarded as one of the best, if not the best.

Subaru's OEM Bridgestone RE92 tires are widely regarded as among the worst OEM tires sold with cars today. I've known people to negotiate a tire swap with a Subie purchase.


I understand the WR is a good tire. I always figured that swapping tires isn't a big deal, as I'm going to have to rotate the tires periodically anyway.

[Narci]

I find these thread quite amusing. They automatically become Audi VS Subaru threads :)

Anyways...I haven't had much exp. with a Subaru but I must admit, the Quattro system is pretty impressive...even on dry.

I'm not sure, so i'm asking all you AWD owners...how is the gas mileage?

Personally, I think any car (FWD, RWD, AWD etc.) paired with decent set of winter tires (Nokians come to mind) can get the job done.

Also, I haven't seen anyone comments on temperature. Winter tires are not only used to plow through snow...but it also has a lower temperature rating that keeps your tires from becoming a frozen hockey puck better then All Seasons.

[st7860]

get a 2WD car with ESP and mount blizzaks on all 4 wheels.

[ES_Revenge]

I find these thread quite amusing. They automatically become Audi VS Subaru threads :)

Anyways...I haven't had much exp. with a Subaru but I must admit, the Quattro system is pretty impressive...even on dry.
LOL maybe you're right. But perhaps it's because these are the two that are at least regarded as being the best companies in AWD territory?

Quattro is indeed impressive. But what's funny is how [relatively] simple the system is. Torsen centre + open front and rear [nowadays] + EDL, FTW! There's lots of systems out there that have a lot of technology in most of them and personally the only one that I think is really that good is Honda's E-M clutchpack (SH AWD) system. Not meaning that they others are useless, by no means. As I mentioned before I think any AWD system is a good thing, but just that Audi continues to go on with Torsen (and made it even simpler with EDL and open diffs) and the end result is... It just works. Plain and simple! It just works. Sure it has it's disadvantages (there's no perfect system) but there's no denying Torsen-based Quattro still manages to do the job and do it well.

You can be driving an A4 Quattro or a S6 with the Lambo-based V10 in it, and in some pretty bad conditions you just drive without worrying about a thing. Point the car, open the throttle and off it goes.

Personally, I think any car (FWD, RWD, AWD etc.) paired with decent set of winter tires (Nokians come to mind) can get the job done.
True. "Getting the job done" is subjective of course. As reference several auto publications have done these tests and usually the outcome is as follows:

2WD w/All-Seasons < 2WD w/winter tyres < AWD w/All-Seasons < AWD w/winter tyres

The results may vary among the cars and tyres tested but usually that's the way it sits in the end, in terms of moving the car. Stopping it is another story (because winter tyres will beat all-seasons regardless of drivetrain in most cases).

Also, I haven't seen anyone comments on temperature. Winter tires are not only used to plow through snow...but it also has a lower temperature rating that keeps your tires from becoming a frozen hockey puck better then All Seasons.
Yep for sure. Of course you don't want to keep those winter tyres on too long once it gets warm though because they'll get ripped up pretty quick (wear out quickly).

[ES_Revenge]

get a 2WD car with ESP and mount blizzaks on all 4 wheels.

Stability control is great for when the car starts sliding while cornering (if it encounters yaw while trying to corner) but stability control relies on cutting the throttle (in an ETC car, in cable-throttle cars the spark is ********) and using the brakes. But there's still only so much traction you can get from two tyres being driven. Certainly in a throttle-off/braking application stability control is great. But it doesn't do a thing to get you moving if you're completely stuck. Once you break the limit of traction of those tyres on that axle that is being driven, it's over. At that point, if you get stuck, you actually have to turn OFF the stability control to try to get unstuck. If you need to rock the vehicle you have to turn the stability/traction control off.

Don't get me wrong I'm a firm believer in stability control (or even plain traction control) on cars. It's just that if you get stuck, it has to go off; if you want to maximise straightline performance you have to turn it off (and you have to know what you're doing as well, of course).

Now I'm not saying any/all AWD systems will guarantee you won't get stuck but it's honestly a lot harder to get stuck or start sliding/spinning under acceleration in a car that employs some kind of AWD system.

AWD is an interesting thing in general... Many people think that driving two wheels is "good enough". Certainly if that weren't the case at some times and in some conditions then we would never have any 2WD cars. AWD, however, almost always makes sense from a scientific point of view. In practicality, depending on the implementation and how the system works, you might find a 2WD system is better, sure.

Sometimes though experience is the tell-tale. And in my personal experience, as I've said before, I've really started to see the importance and benefit of AWD after driving many different cars, from many different manufacturers and of many different drivetrain configurations.