Do folk really perceive RWD to be dangerous?

[JakeT]

mwstewart said:

These days don't most people perceive everything to be dangerous?

According to the Daily Mail if speed doesn't kill you it will give you cancer. But yes, you're totally correct.

[Robert Elise]

otolith said:

I also remember parking my first car (a Morris Ital which couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding) neatly in a lay by on the wrong side of the road having caught the slide but almost run out of road. Too much throttle coming over a hump back bridge into a wet left-hander. Crap tyres. There was a gravelly uphill bend near my house where I used to give that thing a bootful. I didn't really understand what was going on, but I liked it

would driving standards be improved if everyone had to complete a wet circuit in an Ital/Marina?
oh, jumpers for goalposts.

[J4CKO]

Olivera said:

J4CKO said:

The average company 320D driver, thirty years ago would have probably been in a Sierra 1.6/2.0, 73 - 100 bhp with 80 - 100 lb/ft, drift monsters they were not.

I'd argue a Sierra 1.6 or 2.0 'back in the day' would have been bloody tail happy in the wet. Combine no ESP, TCS, ABS or stability control of any kind, with period tyres making P6000 look good, and you would be 360ing in no time at all.

I would argue that they werent that tail happy when you were trying to, usually just span the inside rear, but could be when you didnt want them to be, but replace that asthmatic Pinto Boat Anchor with a heady 74 bhp and 80 lb/ft with 180 bhp and 280 lb/ft at 2500 rpm and see how that pans out without ESP/TCS.

Send out a virus that disables all ESP systems overnight and see what happens on a wet morning.

[speedtwelve]

Olivera said:

I'd argue a Sierra 1.6 or 2.0 'back in the day' would have been bloody tail happy in the wet. Combine no ESP, TCS, ABS or stability control of any kind, with period tyres making P6000 look good, and you would be 360ing in no time at all.

A mate had a 2.0 twin-cam Sierra back in the '90s, and you're correct. It had plastic-fantastic tyres from the Long March dangerous toy factory, and despite only 115-ish bhp at the rear it was hilariously tail-happy in the wet. If raining it would power-oversteer absolutely everywhere.

The Sierra was very benign though, and sideways action happened in slow-time. We both have V8 TVRs now, and the things want to depart arse-first a bit more rapidly in the wet if you are less than circumspect.

I reckon if Mr & Mrs Office Workers' cars had no driver aids nowadays there'd be complete carnage, RWD or not.

[otolith]

Robert Elise said:

would driving standards be improved if everyone had to complete a wet circuit in an Ital/Marina?
oh, jumpers for goalposts.

Preferably one with tired dampers and remoulds!

[Captainawesome]

Torrential rain today. Drove from East coast to West in North Scotland along a mix of nsl and very tight single track in a 354 bhp rwd car. Absolutely hammered it ,did coast to coast in 70 mins and am still alive. Rwd is only dangerous if the driver is inexperienced/idiot.

[stevesingo]

Captainawesome said:

Torrential rain today. Drove from East coast to West in North Scotland along a mix of nsl and very tight single track in a 354 bhp rwd car. Absolutely hammered it ,did coast to coast in 70 mins and am still alive. Rwd is only dangerous if the driver is inexperienced/idiot.

Because your CaptainAwesome

[sealtt]

I bought a V8 M3 when I was quite young and it was my first RWD. I span it the day I got it. Learnt my lesson, never had an incident since in a variety of more powerful cars. Yes RWD can be very dangerous if you aren't careful. But if you are responsible clearly they are fine or else there would not really be much use of the configuration.

[Poopipe]

The only car ive spun properly on the road was rwd - ive managed halfway round in a clio due to lack of talent and entered a ( thankfully empty) motorway fully sideways at at 70 in a 4wd car after misjudging available grip on the slip road .

From these and other experiences I have ascertained that all layouts are lethally dangerous when crewed by retards

[GravelBen]

Poopipe said:

From these and other experiences I have ascertained that all layouts are lethally dangerous when crewed by retards

Pretty much sums it up!

[Kawasicki]

FWD has more dangerous lift off behaviour than RWD. What do most drivers do when they get frightened?

How do you correct lift off oversteer in a FWD? Get back on the throttle. Is that a natural thing to do?

Running wide in understeer is scary. Normally both FWD and RWD cars will understeer moderately under moderate throttle, which is what most drivers use. When either a RWD or FWD starts to run wide and the throttle is lifted then both cars will tighten their line. From my experience the FWD cars tend to over react in this situation, which is great if you want that, but a bit scary for the average enthusiastic driver.

All this talk of old rwd cars oversteering like crazy involved old tyres too. If you put the same old tyres on a fwd car it wouldn't be much better, it would have crazy power on understeer, and poor lift off oversteer with very slow grip recovery.

So, I think RWD is safer, with the obvious weakness with heavy throttle applications, while a FWD is weaker off the throttle, and off the throttle is a more typical "st yourself" reaction.

[XJ Flyer]

In either case what's being described is loss of contact with the road caused by loss of traction under power.The difference with RWD actually being the advantage that it can still be steered in that situation whereas FWD can't.Hence RWD is actually safer in that situation.With the added advantage that rear weight transfer under acceleration creates more traction in the case of RWD and less in the case of FWD.

[Coatesy351]

I've had 10 Rwd cars, still alive and I'm no driving god. Admittedly it doesn't snow here but the roads a very slippery when wet, especially when it rains after a long dry spell.
Only spun when deliberately cocking about. No dangerous at all IMO.

[HertsBiker]

Symbolica said:

Well I'm still alive. With anything modern you really have to cock it up to lose control, at which point FWD vs RWD is of limited relevance - you're going to hit that wall, regardless.

Not looking forward to any snow with RWD and an autobox though

I keep hearing auto bad for snow, why is this? My auto Mondeo (ok it is fwd) feels like it would be excellent on snow...

[thegreenhell]

HertsBiker said:

Symbolica said:

Well I'm still alive. With anything modern you really have to cock it up to lose control, at which point FWD vs RWD is of limited relevance - you're going to hit that wall, regardless.

Not looking forward to any snow with RWD and an autobox though

I keep hearing auto bad for snow, why is this? My auto Mondeo (ok it is fwd) feels like it would be excellent on snow...

One problem with autos is when they kickdown unexpectedly, giving you a sudden burst of torque when you maybe only wanted a little bit, for example to maintain speed up a hill. If you can you should use a manual mode to hold it in a lower gear to prevent this, but on my old Cherokee I only have 2-3-D, so going up hills at highway speeds in winter can be a bit fraught sometimes.

Most of the time it's fine though... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovhb-kDqAuA

[thegreenhell]

StuntmanMike said:

OP, I learned long ago in life, never discuss cars with fkwits.

This is an absolute truth.

[zygalski]

All I know is that the merest fleck of snow & I had all sorts of problems getting off the driveway in my MX-5 & Nissan 200SX.
My current FWD car has no problem at all with the drive to work when it snows.

[philmots]

If you know what you're doing then rwd isn't dangerous.

If the back goes under power, ride it out or balance it.. Let off and you're round the other way.

[defblade]

Hoofy said:

Dunno what you mean.

Just like to take this time to say my BMW may look like that (well, snow socks instead of chains) if it snows this winter - I've got snow tyres on the back, but when the fronts needed replacing this summer no winter tyres were available, so normal ones went on... and it's a shed now, so there's no way I'm buying new snows for the front when I've got socks already.

[V88Dicky]

I've heard on more than one occasion at work some lads discussing the current 3 series.

"Nice car".

"Well built"

"Great on petrol"

"RWD though"

And these are hard burly blokes, well, most of them.


A good friend of mine was only allowed by his wife to get a 320i, if it was the x-drive, because she was terrified of driving a RWD car. TBH I'm terrified whenever she's behind the wheel, regardless of what car she's driving.

My missus, on the other hand, has survived two harsh winters in a 300hp Jag, and one in a 400hp Jag. Winter tyres help, but that's another story......