My current car is a 2014 Subaru Impreza 5-door hatchback (aka “econobox”). It’s well designed, makes very good use of the interior space, and causes me no problems.
But the all wheel drive (AWD) has a couple of major drawbacks for me: one is that (so I am told) it adversely affects mileage to a noticeable extent; the other is that the tires have to match, so if you have more than (guessing) 25% wear on your tires and one of them goes, you have to buy 4 new tires.
I live in a city where it never snows, and where the occasional rainstorms have no noticeable affect on traction (my evidence for that is all my previous cars that did not have AWD). I don’t drive out in the country or off roads. So I can’t see that I’m getting any benefit at all from it. So here is your opportunity to school me on why AWD is invaluable and I’m a chump for not appreciating it more.
In your case it has close to zero benefits.
Under normal driving conditions on normal roads you are never approaching the limits of grip provided by 2wd and decent tyres. Under cold and icy conditions you can handle 99% of conditions with snow tyres.
So yes, all downside for you as far as I can see.
I always had AWD (or old-fangled 4WD) when I lived in snow country. More expensive to maintain, hard on tires as you say, and perhaps some reduction in gas mileage, but not having a second copy of the same car in 2WD I couldn’t say for sure.
Now living in non-snow country I can’t see any upside to it; none. I no longer have an AWD car and wouldn’t buy a car with that feature unless there were other unrelated features about that car that offset the detrimental AWD.
All the above applies to an ICE. If I was looking at buying an EV I would reconsider AWD. I don’t know enough about EVs to prejudge this.
Thank you for your viewpoint. There are many things I like about the car, chiefly the lack of unnecessary frills and the practical use of space, so I’m not completely down on myself for buying it. But I probably should have done more research.
In the part I quoted, I had to look up the acronym because I had never seen it before. Perhaps it is common in auto publications, but it would be interesting to take an informal poll here to see how many people understand it in this context (so please don’t create a spoiler by explaining it, at least for a while).
I had an Audi Quattro when they first came out and never noticed anything adverse. In fact, Audi did a study that showed the all wheel drive version got slightly better mileage. That original Quattro system used three open differentials. The rear and then the center dif could be locked in sequence with a switch. Modern systems use viscous clutches and are constantly adjusting while turning. That must cause the higher tire wear?
Car and Driver tried to duplicate Audi’s claim but could not as they misunderstood the conditions. The specific Audi claim turned out to be that if you had an all wheel drive car with no power to the rear wheels but all the axles turning, the mileage was improved when you connected the rear wheels to power.
ICE understood in context and out. I own a Nissan Rogue with AWD and it has come in handy at times. Of course, I don’t have a long daily commute so gas mileage is of minimal concern to me. But I do some off-roading and bopping along jeep trails out in the desert and we do tend to get some snow here in the winter, so AWD is nice.
Replacing the tires can be a bitch, I’ll grant you.
I live in western Canada where we have “winter” or risk of winter from Halloween to Easter. My last two vehicles were a '13 Terrain and an '18 Acadia. Both have traction control and anti lock breaks as well as AWD. The Terrain AWD was not in any way adjustable. While it was fabulous in winter conditions it was fairly hard on gas (low 20’s miles per imp gallon in perfect summer highway driving conditions) compared to what one expects in today’s vehicles. When I would put AWD and the snow tires on, it seemed practically unstuckable in winter conditions. The Acaida has an adjustable system so you can have amongst other gimmicks, either FWD or AWD. The FWD is on during non-winter conditions and the gas mileage is into the 30+ MPG with a very powerful v6 engine. Doesn’t get much better, IMHO.
IMO, however, the short answer to the question about AWD where you never get winter, it would be a waste and totally unnecessary, IMHO. (but after these last two vehicles I hope I’m never without AWD where I live)
No, I wasn’t complaining about added tire wear, I haven’t noticed any; I was complaining about the need to keep the levels of tread on all the tires fairly even, so if one tire gets damaged and has to be replaced, you have to buy four tires (unless the tires were still fairly new, in which case you can buy one tire but it has to be the same model as the other tires). You can’t have one new tire and three tires with a significant amount of wear. You can’t have three tires with a different tread pattern from the fourth tire.
@Roderick_Femm For your daily driving and climactic conditions AWD is not really advantageous. I had a Subaru Legacy and your point about tires is only partially true. If you have excess wear it is possible for a tire shop to shave the new tire down to match. However,… what CAN be an issue is when the tires you have are no longer produced and you HAVE to buy 4 new ones. This has happened to me.
I totally understand the context of ICE BTW.
As a side note, if you ever decide to go with an EV you are in a somewhat enviable position as you can order the 2WD version and get the benefits of longer range/less complexity/less cost for exactly the same reasons listed above.
Are you saying that in a AWD car you get better mileage with the AWD turned on?
Or are you saying you get better mileage in a AWD version than in a 2WD version of the “same” car?
I believe that all AWD Subaru s can be made into FWS by pulling the correct fuse. Ask your mechanic.
I agree that the OP has no need for AWD or 4WD. Subaru makes FWD rigs as well as AWD ones.
My cousin that lives in the Sierra Nevada mountains has run with three used tires and one new tire on his Subaru for over 150,000 miles. While Subaru strongly discourages this practice, he has had zero problems for over 10 years so far.
When a tire gets worn beyond limits, he puts a new one on that corner. Subaru has warned him that this will wear out his differentials very fast. It has not happened. If it does he will know right away as he drives on snow covered roads ten months out of the year.
I know what an ICE is as I have rebuilt a few of them.
That’s the key. On slippery surfaces the tire differences totally will not matter as microscopic wheel slip will take care of any accumulating differential lash very quickly. Snow, heavy rain, dirt roads, etc., are ideal for this.
On dry pavement the same kinds of perennial tire circumference imbalance will add up to trouble soon enough. And more so on extended nearly straight highway driving than on urban gridwork or winding country roads where the turns help equalize the ever-accumulating stresses from the unequal tires.