Talk:Powertrain layout/Archives/2013

Need for clarification

Could someone with knowledge in this area make it clear whether the power is going to a single front wheel or to both? In the references, a distinction is made for two-wheel drive. By implication, front-wheel drive and rear-wheel drive are not two-wheel drives, and the power is therefore going to one wheel. Is this correct? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.239.246.66 (talk) 19:23, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Lead, "The most common type of automotive design layout is rear wheeldrive."

Duels with Automobile layout#Front wheel drive layouts, "The most popular layout used in cars today is the front-engine, front-wheel drive, with the engine in front of the front axle, driving the front wheels." This may be due to consumer trucks, commercial vehicles and motorcycle design layout being rear wheel drive. Regardless, it needs to have a source to sort this out. Ward20 (talk) 16:18, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Wow, well spotted, that definitely needs sourcing. At the very least, "today" is misleading because it implies a change to this, whereas a change from it seems much more likely, although your point in distinguishing "cars" from "automotive" is significant. I'd say that it's such a major claim that it should come out altogether until a source is found, rather than just having the tag. Any objections to that? – Kieran T ^(talk) 16:34, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

That suggestion seems reasonable. It's now documented well on the talk page if whoever put it in wants to discuss the material. Ward20 (talk) 16:50, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

"steering feel" and "lift off oversteer"

Should "steering feel" and "lift off oversteer" be included in the tradeoffs between the different layouts? 212.104.155.139 (talk) 00:00, 12 March 2011 (UTC) Phil 12/3/2011

Most definitely. Lift off oversteer only really happens in RWD vehicles with a large weight on the rear tyres (ie rear engine like the stereo-typical Porsche) but when it happens it can have bad results (ie spinning out of control). And I personally prefer the steering feel of RWD because I can effectively steer in long sweeping corners by the back wheels by giving it a small amount of power oversteer (make the rear wheels slip sideways a little by giving them a little more power than they can handle). When pushed to the limit, RWD will put a novice driver into trouble but will allow an experienced driver to get out of trouble.  Stepho  (talk) 02:24, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Another source

As mentioned at http://www.saabsunited.com/2012/12/saab-white-paper-on-fwd-vs-rwd.html there is a whitepaper on FWD vs RWD available at http://anders.isanova.se/framhjulsdrivna-bilars-egenskaper-gunnar-ljungstrom-1960/ but it's in Swedish. If there is interest I can translate selected parts. // Liftarn (talk) 22:14, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

English readers will love the chapter on "Security at high speed" on page 3 - although it's a bit windy :) Unfortunately it's waaaay beyond my ability to translate more than a phrase here and there.  Stepho  talk  02:36, 30 December 2012 (UTC)