Driving Behaviour Escort RS2000 4x4

[StefanB]

Hello everybody,
has anyone of you experience with an AWD Escort (beside cosworth´s)?

If yes, how does the car "feels"? On snow for example, does the car just tend to understeer under load or does it start with understeer and than changing to oversteer?
How controllable is the car in such driving situations?

To sum it up I just want to know wether the RS2000 4x4 is a good car to have fun on snow. Because I made some bad experiences with haldex-AWD cars, they behave most of the time like front driven ones.

[tozerman]

I had one of these a few years ago, It was actually one of the best handling cars I've had. My experience is of a very neutral chassis, only used it once in snow and it was very good IIRC. In the dry I could not get the back end out no matter how hard I tried, it just gripped and gripped, I sold it to buy an Impreza and to be fair it was as good as the Subaru if not better. What did it in the end was that it was very slow, that boat anchor of an engine is too underpowered, so if your not after high performance then I think they are good cars.

cheers.....Tony..

[Zad]

I'm not sure which transmission system the Escort used. If it is anything like the XR4x4 and Cosworths (and a quick Google tends to say it is) it is rear biased with progressively locking viscous centre and rear diffs, and you can tell. It isn't the most sophisticated system in the world, but it is a huge improvement from the software controlled brake-activation with an open diff that most modern cars use. The engine isn't a huge beast, but in snow you will be limited by adhesion anyway.

Definitely not Haldex-like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtWqsq9jDvA

(Hopefully yours won't sound like that)

[jeoff82]

Bloke at work had one and he said it felt slow because of the extra transmission weight. I have a FWD one and it handles really well but get the rear beam bushes powerflexed, it also goes like stink