I know our SH-awd system is great for handling but how bout on snow? This will be my first winter with the RL and i am curious to know how good the AWD system works on snowy, icy, and wet surfaces. We had some icy conditions the past couple days but it was hard to tell cause when the entire roads are covered in ice nothing can handle well. Is our awd system the type of system that continues to put power to all the wheels even if one has lost traction or will it know to stop putting power to the wheel that has lost the traction and apply it to all the other wheels. While driving the 1 night we had bad weather i tried looking at the display that shows the power distribution and it seemed to apply the same amount of power equally. I think maybe once it applied a ratio of 3:1 to the front wheels but i wasn't sure if that was my RL being intelligent because of the conditions or if it was just applying the power normally.

 

The Acura's system is awesome, but as you said you can't beat the Laws of Physics, nor can the RL handle deep snow like a 4x4 SUV can.

 

Been through one winter with the RL and it's OK but not great in the snow. You're better off than most other passenger cars but expect your VSA to come into play pretty often if you maneuver or accelerate/ decelerate hard. Winter tires might make the RL do much better though - I've got the old all season MXM4's.

 

Hi

I think the RL is a very competent car in snow and my previous car was a Subaru WRX ! Of course the WRX is lighter and is more of a fun car but as far as handling in snow is concerned, the RL is just about as good ! (I know snow I live in Quebec)

See that link :

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...n19422595/pg_1

I should add that I am running Toyo Garrit KX on the stock 17" wheels for winter.

 

Here in Maryland we have a fresh 2" of snow....took the car out for a spin and was really impressed with the 4wd handling. I purposely put the car in a hard skid and was easily able to power my way out of it. Its a car feeling of total control...except its braking performance is no better than any other car. While i didn't actually time 0-50 it was amazingly quick and a lot was going on.

This is high quality snow, not ice or slush.

 

As reminder, now that it's snow season (we've gotten 8 inches this week) switch your wipers to "winter mode" by pulling up on both at the same time.

 

?????? winter mode????

 

It's in the owner's manual.

If you pull up on your wipers, they will rest higher on the windshield. This protects them from taking on the full weight of whatever snow falls on them. Great feature!

 

It also puts the wipers in range of the defroster to help loosen things up.

 

I am continually impressed by this car. Today I took an on-ramp pretty aggressively. I ended up getting 3-4 bars on one side with only one on the other.

I don't know how to explain it, but the car seems to set in or hunker down the harder you push it.

It's deceiving, especially with the stock suspension since you don't really feel like you can push it like that, but as I said, the harder you push it, the more it seems to dig in. I can only imagine how much better it is with the A-Spec setup.

It's kind of a shame since most people are never really going to push the cars enough to really understand how good this system is. Then again, most people buying BMWs aren't ever going to truly realize the benefit of those cars.

 

Had the same snow in Virginia, and probably the same sucky traffic!

Remember that in the end, you are running on four contact patches. AWD will help you accelerate faster in the snow, rain, ice than a FWD car or RWD car. That increased acceleration, because all four contact patches are accelerating making the most efficient use of the car's power and the available contact patch grip. The AWD car makes you feel pretty invincible in the snow. And the SH-AWD makes even better use of the available grip than conventional AWD.

But once you get moving, the four contact patches have the same amount of grip regardless of the type of drivetrain you have. I am not explaining this well, but once you are at speed, when asking these contact patches to turn and/or brake, AWD has no advantage over a FWD or RWD car.

Another way of saying it might be, 0-50 is great in AWD, but you can get into trouble a lot faster because 50-0 is no better in AWD than FWD or RWD, and you are probably going a lot faster than you would in either FWD or RWD when you find that out.

I hope I am not too preachy here.

 

chas2...your points are well taken...except performance in a turn. what i did when i put it into a hard skid broke traction on all 4 wheels. I gave it some power into the skid and gained total control and turned out of the skid. From my breif snow experience I am finding exceptional handling. Braking performance is limited to your four patches and grip of the tires. I will without a doubt drive this car more aggressively in snow condiitions, but will always maintain a safe distance behind the car in front of me.

 

agree that there is not much advantage in 50 to 0, but my understanding is that the SH-AWD applies equally well in deceleration as in acceleration. Thus, if you are braking in a cornering situation, SH-AWD will help control. Am I wrong on this?

 

Deaccleration leveraging engine braking will allow the SH-AWD to help maintain stability. Notice I said help maintain. It will not help when you're in full braking where you are on the verge of ABS engagement. At that point, any AWD vehicle is no better thqan a 2wd. In this situation is still comes down to the contact patches, and type of tire factors in more than anything else.

Laws of physics still apply.

 

You can see this behavior in the MID. Deceleration, going down an incline, however slight, and the torque is vectored to the rear wheels, one bar each side. Go down an inclined cloverleaf fast enough, and you will get one bar only on the outside rear wheel. In ANY of those situations or in between, touch the brakes, and torque vectoring seems to go bye-bye. SH-AWD does help while accelerating in a corner, rather out of. Don't want to accelerate into a corner. SH-AWD will work to a point to rotate you around, but you cannot ignore the laws of physics once available grip is used up. My two cents anyway.

 

Sorry excuse my ignorance but um i can't figure this out and i can't find my owners manual.

 

The car switches to winter mode on the wipers automatically if they are under a heavy snow load and never switch back on their own -- I see a lot of RLs here in MN that are on winter mode year round.

You can tell the one from the other because in "normal" mode the wipers rest below the glossy black trim piece that contains the sprayers. In winter mode they're up above it, looking sort of as if you turned the car off right before the wipers were all the way down.

To switch from normal to winter just grab both wipers with the car off and try to raise them a few inches in the plane of the windshield -- in the same direction and arc that they move when operating. You'll feel like you're forcing the motors to turn, but really you're depressing some spring-powered bump/detent retainer thing and suddenly they'll advance a few inches and stay there. To go from winter back to normal just push them (both at the same time) all the way down under the trim piece.

 

Here is an excerpt. During our first snow of the season, when I was clearing the snow from the windshield, I noticed the wipers were already in winter position, and I did not remember pulling it up into winter position as I had to on my 1G and 2G Legends.

Another great little convenience feature for the RL. You wonder what sensors are built into the car, and what inputs are programmed into to the car to auto lift it as the snow falls?

Wiper Arm Positions

The windshield wiper arms have two
parked positions: winter and summer.
In the winter position, the arms sit
slightly above the edge of the hood.
This reduces the possibility of
damage to the wiper arms or
windshield wiper motor by a build-up
of snow and ice.

Adjust the wiper arms to the winter
position by holding both arms as
shown in the illustration at the same
time. Pull on the arm, parallel to the
windshield, until it locks in the
higher position.

A heavy build-up of snow or ice on
the wiper arms will cause them to
automatically park in the winter
position.

To return to the summer position,
push the same area of both arms the
other direction.

 

I don't think it's anything that sophisticated. My impression is that the car "automatically" switch to winter mode if they're trying to come down and can't because the base of the windshield is packed with snow. Rather than snapping off or straining the motors the pressure pops the wipers up in to the higher notch, exactly like pulling up on them does.

 

It appears that the folks at Motor Trend agree with you; here's an extract from their winter driving test:

"Enough techno talk, how'd the SH-AWD do? Quite well. Actually, every all-wheel-drive system tested did a good job on the traction-limited surfaces during slow and steady driving. However, when traction was pushed (such as in hard acceleration or during spirited cornering), the SH-AWD system was more predictable and recovered more quickly than the competitive AWD systems. With that said, the course was so slippery and treacherous that any major mishap would've been game over in any of the vehicles. When pushed, the SH-AWD did cover each of the traction-limited courses (a 2.1-kilometer icy road course, a 2.5-kilometer snow-packed road course, and a snow/ice 200-foot-diameter skidpad) in the shortest time with the fewest sweaty palms. Moreover, the SH-AWD system did its work with less intrusiveness, whereas many of the other systems delivered odd noises, suspension shuttering, and some kickback in the wheel. Again, all the competitive systems worked well, but proved more active whereas the SH-AWD was more seamless."

And the link: http://www.motortrend.com/features/...conclusion.html

 

This is entertaining but its says a lot about SHAWD.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...LM_9SsCw&hl=en

On the ice the RL / LEGEND is the Kristi Yamaguchi of cars.

 

2 years with the RL in Cleveland and I can say that the SH-AWD is great in the snow. The best advice I can give you is to get better tires like the Michelin A/S pilots. AWD is only as good as the traction the rubber provides, and the Michelins are great short of going to dedicated snows. My 08 MDX SH-AWD is also better than the VTM-4 system on my previous 05 MDX.

 

SH-AWD won't make up for bad driving or poor winter tires.

 

The RL with the OEM michelins is meh in snow with the AWD helping to partly mask the uselessness of those tires. With good winter tires the car is AMAZING in snow.

My advice to anyone else living in an area where it snows- buy a set of winter tires for this car and get the best performance/handling it offers. Seriously, it is night and day with winter tires compared to the OEMs.

 

We have the VTM-4 system on our Pilot (e.g. part-time 4WD) and my RL is better in the snow. With even good A/S rubber, the RL is a monster in the snow.