carl

How do you work that one out John?
AWD = all wheel drive. All the wheels on the car are driven.
4WD = four wheel drive. Four wheels on the car are driven.

Surely you can see that these are equivalent for the case in which the car has four wheels (as an Impreza does)

johnfelstead

have you had your geometries setup properly steve? It makes a huge diference to how consistent and precisly they handle.

johnfelstead

it's industry accepted terminology. This is why Subaru call the car AWD and not 4WD. The way the diffs work dictates which class the car lives in.

Turbo_Steve

Steve, it sounds like your Geometry is off, as John says.
Do you find the car 'trampolines' (i.e. bumps in the road seem to throw it about a bit?). I had my geometry checked about 2 months after I got my 1st impreza, and the difference was frankly amazing.

As the impreza tends to get driven pretty hard, the geometry settings need to be checked at least as often as you change tyres (and in my experience every time you have a service) especially if you take it to the track.

RB5320

John - no, not yet! Due to get geometry and bumpsteer done in couple of weeks. Even so, I would still expect the car to to react differently dependent on driver input ie, understeer, oversteer or drift subject to how much throttle, how much steering input etc.
Obviously this applies to any car, it just seems to me that the Impreza responds more to these things than a lot of other cars (making it more of a "drivers car"), which is why it can be less forgiving if you do something wrong.

Steve

Neil Smalley

LOL@Carl

JF, Anymore decension and i'll 'accidently' move a muppet thread into drivetrain I know how much you like muppets..

LG John

I suppose in answer to the question that I think was posed somewhere in this thread, you can take some corners faster with AWD! Of course, it needs to be a loose or dodge surface and you need to be going sideways with all wheels spinning Rally style Under such circumstances your FWD and RWD would be struggling

LEGACYTURBS

One of my mates had a 96wrx import, for 10,000miles he dropped the clutch at full revs(at the point where the engine is limiting) without any problems what so ever.
Then bought a 98uk scoob and did the same.
LUCKY? nothing went bent.

Can't say i'm right into that sort of thing.

Turbo_Steve

Geometry = Tracking, Camber, alignment and something else I can't remember the name of with a hangover.

Neil Smalley

SB,Dave

That's exactly what I meant.



[Edited by Neil Smalley - 11/12/2002 12:54:39 PM]

johnfelstead

what a cop out. LOL

AWD can give you more braking/cornering ability than FWD/RWD, it depends on the circumstances/car/driver, which is my main point, you cannot make blanket statements about driving.

[Edited by johnfelstead - 11/12/2002 1:19:31 PM]

carl

References?

Subaru UK web pages seem to think they're equivalent. From http://www.subaru.co.uk/index2.htm:
"Many people believe that four/all-wheel drive is essentially the preserve of large 'Jeep' shaped vehicles, even giving them the generic title of 'Four Wheel Drives'. Whilst these vehicles undoubtedly benefit from the additional grip and road holding that 4WD conveys, Subaru have long believed that conventional passenger cars should not be excluded from the inherent safety and reassurance of AWD."

[Edited by carl - 11/12/2002 2:01:55 PM]

juan

when you say 'geometry could be off' what exactly are you talking about? Just tracking? My current transport hates bumpy lanes.

[Edited by juan - 11/12/2002 5:48:28 PM]