My cousin has read a few reviews, probably an understatement about a few, they said that AWD has more or actually twice the expense on repairs than 4 wheel or front wheel. (If that made sense):smack:
Now she wont touch a new car with AWD. She reads way too much into things:dubious:
I told her in my opinion, it depends a lot on the driver as far as maintenance is concerned. It would be news is this were true. How many vehicles out there are AWD??? If this was a true problem, people would be re selling or exchanging them in droves…right?
Guess I should have this moved to opinions but heck.
Obviously, a car with 4 drive wheels is going to involve more moving parts than a car with only 2 drive wheels. Nobody complains that a bicycle is easier to repair than a motorcycle.
AWD is pretty common these days. When my wife and I were shopping for a Honda CR-V a few years back, the AWD version cost $1500 more than the FWD version, and got 1 MPG less on fuel economy. We bought the FWD version, and I sunk the extra money into a set of spare rims and snow tires, which do far more for control/safety than AWD ever could.
If you’ve got clean, dry roads and a wretched excess of horsepower (see Bugatti Veyron), then AWD is better than 2WD for putting all that power to ground. If you’ve got a few inches of snow on the ground, FWD with snow tires will get you going just fine, and will stop faster than an AWD car with all-season tires.
If you want or need AWD, then it’s simply the cost of ownership. I’ve had AWD Subarus for a while now, and there are some additional expenses but certainly not twice the cost of a 2WD car.
If you don’t need AWD then you’re paying more for something that you might take any advantage of and it will cost you in gas mileage and repairs.
Does she need or want AWD? If not, I’m not sure why she’d want to get an AWD car.
She needs a new one. The ones she wants are all seeming to come with AWD which she thinks is no good. I guess she is looking for something that works in snow. She lives over by Lake Michigan
I heard that from some old farts before I bought my Subaru, 15 years ago. They chided me about the AWD (and the turbo) as, “…just something else to have to fix”. That may have been true in the olden days, before these technologies were more reliable, but they’ve been proven at this point. I’ve not had any maint done on this car that was specifically due to it being AWD.*
As others have said, don’t buy an AWD car unless you need an AWD car… or you want a Subaru.
Oh, unless you consider tires. Oftentimes you can’t just replace 1x of the tires. I’ve gotten burned on that one a couple of times.
I LOVE my AWD Subarus. I’ve had 3 and will probably always have one. But then I live in NE Minnesota and it’s a great peace of mind in the winter. Since your aunt lives by Lake Michigan she must have the same kind of winters I have. Why wouldn’t you want an AWD?!! I have never had any issues with my cars so no repair bills.
I have an AWD Subaru Forester and had an AWD Legacy before it. Both were reliable. In fact, that’s how I chose them. I looked up reliability ratings on Consumer Reports and bought cars near the top of the list. I’m not sure that, if Subaru chose to make a 2WD version of my Forester, it mightn’t turn out to be a tad higher on the list. But it certainly isn’t true that these cars were unreliable because of AWD. You can have your cake and eat it too, in this case.
Can’t speak for anyone else, of course, but I live by Lake Michigan and don’t have AWD or FWD… but I live in an a moderately urbanized area with fairly reliable snow removal. I don’t need either of those and minimizing my transportation costs is important to me. I also keep my vehicles a long time - my “new” car is 16 years old now. If you’re looking at that time span you will replace the tires multiple times, and you will have to replace other moving parts someone who buys a new vehicle every five years (as an example) is unlikely to face.
If I lived in a more rural area the extra expense over time might well be worth it. If I had more disposable income I might desire it, or it might not matter.
But making that decision solely because you “read something” without actually considering all factors is not the brightest decision making one can do.
It sounds like she’s worried about expensive repair/maintenance over the long term. There are more magical black boxes (computers and sensors) involved with AWD systems. The AWD systems are more expensive, but “under warranty” still means “under warranty”.
When buying older, used, not-under-warranty vehicles, or keeping a vehicle after the warranty expires, those costs become more of a concern.
OTOH, AWD systems do provide better traction in a wide-range of driving situations. I consider that to be a big plus from a safety stand point.
My '99 Jeep Cherokee has part-time 4WD (which has come in very handy at times). Yes, there’s the transfer case and the front differential that require maintenance. But the front differential has only required maintenance once in almost a quarter-million miles. So the ‘extra expense’ is minimal if you don’t use 4WD a lot. For AWD? I think they might require maintenance more often. But no more than a 2WD differential. Keep up with the fluids, and they’ll last a long time; so expensive repairs should be rare.
One concern I’d always had about AWD is that they seem to get fewer miles per gallon than 2WD cars. Is this true? (I’m going on 20- to 30-year-old memory.)
Snow tires provide traction for stopping and moving forward. AWD provides traction for moving. Yes, it can help in some manoevering situations but if you’re concerned about traction in snow, tires trump AWD.
You what beats FWD with snow tires this time of year? AWD with snow tires this time of year; it’s not like it is an either/or proposition.
Having said that, even a modern RWD car with a good set of winter tires, and all the traction trickery is still pretty good. FWIW, the only drive related maintenance I’ve had to do on my 11 year old Legacy was wheel bearings and that is something that comes due eventually on most vehicles. I take a bit of a hit MPG-wise but it’s no more severe than picking, say the V6 option on a Camry vs the 4 cyclinder, overall.
AWD = power is sent to all four wheels (distribution front to back and left to right varies).
FWD = power is sent to front wheels only (distribution left to right varies).
4WD = power always goes to all four wheels (distribution can be locked)
Uh… 4WD = Normally rear wheel drive unless 4 wheel drive is engaged. Distribution locked front to rear but not left to right (unless you have usually optional locking differentials). Dry pavement driving not advisable.
