Gills Fan

Probably a dumb *** question I know

RON

On a car with only four wheels, not a lot!!

T5NYW

iTrader: (4)

I think the Term All Wheel Drive generaly means/assumes that its in permenant 4 wheel Drive

and 4 Wheel Drive generaly means/assumes that its 4 wheel Drive is selectable as off road but runs 2 wheel drive for road use.

AWD may also be a Subaru Trade name IMHO ASAIR IIRC etc

Tony

[Edited by T5NYW - 7/21/2003 11:59:48 PM]

greasemonkey

It's just a marketing term. There's no strongly defined term about "AWD" meaning full time systems and "4WD" meaning part-time for example.

As far as Subarus are concerned, AWD is simply Subaru's preferred way of marketing their four wheel drive system, no more, no less.

Boro

iTrader: (1)

Yep, agree with that, a couple of other manufacturers have switched to using "AWD" instead of 4x4 on their badging.

submannz

Yep marketing

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

Ah your all close but not quite there
This is why a cossie was a 4x4 and not an AWD car
A car designed specifically to run a permanent 4 wheel drive system will have All Wheel Drive (remembering that volvo did this to their t5 which baffled me completely ).
The cosworth was oringinally a rwd car, then they brought out a 4wd version, this was the 4x4 (same with the xr4x4i and xr4i).
Partially marketing, but mainly because it was designed from day 1 to run this system throughout the range

Tony

AndrewC

Same reason noone ever calls an Audi Quattro a 4x4,

Andrew...

RON

Just to be picky, I don't think the XR4i was 4wd????

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

There was an xr4x4 and an xr4i, the 4x4 was pretty rare though.

Tony

greasemonkey

Sorry Tony, but this is b*ll*cks. There are no tightly defined, industry-wide terms about 4WD meaning something, AWD meaning something different, and 4x4 meaning something else again.

They're marketing terms, pure and simple. Different manufacturers' ways of "sexing up" (to use the 2003 vernacular) their transmission systems, and that's it.

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

Erm actually its not blx as 4wd is 4x4, and if you notice that 4wd cars have a family of both 2 and 4 wheel drive (im talking cars here btw) where as the subaru is AWD as it was designed that way from day one (with no other model as 2wd).
This is the difference

Tony

Spoon

Sorry Tony but the Impreza was available in front wheel drive too.

As for the XR4x4 Sierra being rare, well, not at all.

The XR4i was also indeed a rwd car only, it had the 2 door shell as opposed to the 4x4's 4 door.

greasemonkey

They're marketing buzzwords Tony, period. If you can find some sort of industry bible that says otherwise, I'll be happy to say I've learned something new. Otherwise, however...

BTW, trivial I know but if either of the "XR" Sierras was rare, it'll be the XR4i, which was discontinued in something like 1985, before the Sierra Cosworth went into production.

The XR4x4 by contrast was available virtually all the way through the Sierra's production run, and was also offered with a 2.0 litre four as well as the V6 during the last year or so of the car's life.

Also, if you're trying to claim that Subaru's viscous coupled transmission system somehow qualifies it for special classification as "all wheel drive", the XR4x4 and Sierra/Escort Cosworth 4x4's used a very similar system, yet Ford called them 4x4's. QED?

[Edited by greasemonkey - 7/22/2003 9:32:39 PM]

Gills Fan

Now now peeps I only asked a question

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

Spoon,
The impreza you are going on about was an afterthought, it was switchable 4wd, the car itself is AWD and was designed like that (along with the rest of the subaru range).
Greasemonkey,
The sierra was designed originally as a rwd car, the 4wd version was added later, the subaru on the other hand was designed as an AWD car, this is the difference, it was designed from day one, the sierra wasnt (thus its a 4wd car and not awd).

Tony

greasemonkey

try this!

Don't see any Scoobs there

If they were using the "all wheel drive" tag to relate to any four wheel drive car in 1968, they're predating Subaru's first use of the technology by some three years.

Also, FWIW, the FWD Imprezas were produced were FWD only - they weren't switchable 2WD/4WD, and far from being an afterthought, they were part of the initial Impreza launch range.

[Edited by greasemonkey - 7/23/2003 12:15:06 AM]

submannz

Tony out side of Europe you can pick up as many FWD imprezas (not WRX) as you like, that are manufactured like this from the factory, plus the switchable FWD/AWD cars are only available in the auto models, and not all auto models as the TT models (or models that have traction control) that fuse locks the centre diff.

So why then are the earlier RS & GT Subaru Legacy's 4WD when they were designed like that from the factory, and no FWD models made?

Hey Andrew, try Audi themselves www.Audi.com on the main page down by Quattro section

[Edited by submannz - 7/23/2003 3:36:17 AM]

AndrewC

I looked at the Audi page it does indeed say Four Wheel Drive, my comment was that Audi don't use the term 4x4 as Subaru don't, my own personal opinion is that the public perception of the term 4x4 is that it related to off-road capabilities - Land Rover, Jeep etc, the kind of image that Subaru and Audi want to avoid with their more on road sports oriented four wheel drive systems.

Andrew...(MY98 UK Turbo, 2000 LandRover Freelander, Series 2 Landrover L/W - would really like a an early quattro but my good lady would kill me!)

richrussell

>So why then are the earlier RS & GT Subaru Legacy's 4WD when they were designed like that from the factory, and no FWD models made?

Certainly by 1996, Legacy was available in three flavours:

FWD (with traction control on some models)
AWD (or 4WD or 4x4 ) with electronic switching of centre diff.
AWD with viscous diffs (as in GT/GT-B)

(this is from the Legacy handbook that comes with the car)

4WD/4x4/AWD/Quattro are all just marketing terms, nothing more, nothing less, as has been established earlier.

Rich

Leslie

Semantics

Les

Spoon

Tony- I mentioned it and didn't go on about it.

Thanks to Greasemonkey and Submannz for answering for me in my absense.

submannz

Yes car makers didn't want there cars to be labled with the big off road trucks so marketing changed the name from 4x4 to 4WD then AWD.

Sorry Andrew, I was trying to show that quattro mention 4WD not AWD and you definately can't get a non 4WD (AWD) quattro, I must have been on some good drugs yesterday.

The term 4x4 was mainly given to vehicles that ran 2WD most of the time and manually selected 4x4 from the gear box.

4WD & AWD came about again for the same reason as above as some of the trucks started comming out full time 4WD that again marketing decided they didn't want to be labeled with the same brush so changed it again.

Have a look at this Subaru now call ALL of there cars AWD even ones that were previously labeled by Suabru as 4x4 and 4WD. http://www.subaru.co.nz/history/index.html?id=330

[Edited by submannz - 7/23/2003 9:21:58 PM]

Fat Boy

Tony - pure tosh m8. These are just marketing terms and have no other pseudo scientific basis, apart from the fact that in the States they tend to describe all their 4 wheel drive cars as AWD, whereas this side of the pond we have tended to use the 4X4 moniker, and as a result of the US being such a huge market their common terminology has started to bleed into ours as manufacturers don't want to cough up for too many region specific ad campaigns.

I remember a group test way back of things like the very early integrale with the Quattro etc in CAR magazine where they first used the title "The best 4 X 4 X far" which was then snaffled by a manufacturer for their adds. No mention of the best AWD car by far