Front Wheel Drive Superiority

Time for another post, here it is,

Front-Wheel Drive


(credit: http://www.bmwblog.com)

This has been driving me crazy for a long time. Front wheel drive is no better than rear wheel drive.

The general rule is that front wheel drive cars understeer, or keep going straight when the wheels are turned. Rear wheel drives generally oversteer, or slide sideways, even when the wheels are straight. This is just a general rule of thumb. It all depends on engine placement, how far the wheels are turned, speed, suspension tuning, downforce, and a lot more. In fact, rear wheel drive cars can understeer, and front-wheel drive cars can oversteer. If not, please, please talk to your dealer.

There is a misconception that front wheel drive is better in gravel, snow and loose materials. Rally cars were rear wheel drive until the Audi Quattro in the '80s. Rally cars aren't exactly slow.

Rear wheel drive has sporty connotations as well. None of the great cars of the ages (the Morris Mini Minor is the exception) were front wheel drive.

Do you have any thoughts about cats? What drives you crazy? I welcome all respectful comments, so keep it clean. One post a week, so stay tuned!

Spoilers

Time for another post, here it is,

Badly Done Spoilers/Wings

(credit: Car Throttle)
(the exception for this chart is the 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona package)

This has been something that has bothered lots of drivers for a long time. Someone drives up in a body-kitted Toyota, with a spoiler that looks like a stretched out stepladder. These spoilers provide no downforce whatsoever, they just wreck your fuel mileage.

A racing wing is effectively the same thing as the wing off an aircraft, flipped upside down. Splitters, areo tweakers, and diffusers help keep the car in line, producing a bit of downforce while doing so. All this really only works for cars that premium fuel isn't high octane enough for.

.The point is, if you see your friend putting a bench on the back of his Civic, please show him this article.

Do you have any thoughts about cats? What drives you crazy? I welcome all respectful comments, so keep it clean. One post a week, so stay tuned!

Pontiac Aztek

Time for another post, here it is,

The Pontiac Aztek

(credit: www.autoblog.com)

The Aztek was a flop. It killed Pontiac, a branch of GM that was running since the mid 20's. Now you may say:
"Pontiac stopped producing cars in 2010!",  to which I say, Pontiac officially stopped being a car company in 2010, yes, but everyone stopped buying them after this.

Remember when Pontiac was the performance division of GM? It was great. You got things like the Bonneville, the Firebird, and the GTO. What went wrong?

We ended up with a crossover (bad), that looks like it has gone through the cuisinart (also bad). It looks like the tailgate has been blunted, and it has a fusion of  Nissan Juke and C-Max. It has stacked grilles and double headlights. It isn't cool if you don't cut-and-paste another fascia on your car!

Apparently it was way too expensive for the Gen X buyers it was targeted at. I found out there was a picture of the Aztek on the door of Rich Wagoner, captioned, "Never Again".

Do you have any thoughts about cats? What drives you crazy? I welcome all respectful comments, so keep it clean. One post a week, so stay tuned!