hobster

We had our first snowfall in the past week. I enjoyed easily parking in my garage and then going over to help my neighbor push his BMW 3 up his less inclined driveway. I had to take my snowblower over and let him use it so his wife could come home safely.

I have yet to ever race any car I have owned on a track or take on a slalom course, but I do very often face snowfall. IMO, the TL is a great balance of performance and reality. I live in a world where is snows much more often then I need to take a hairpin corner at high speeds. Just my thoughts.

kinggeorge

I like the way FWD cars handle....they feel very responsive.

blufox

I love fwd due to the control in all types of weather , but under hard turns while accelerating u literally have to go to war with the car to straighten out

rets

Lots of ppl complained how bad the FWD is... but it's cheaper for manufacturers to build and safer for drivers to control. Torque Steer is a typical sin by FWD, but I think Acura has minimized it to the smallest.

Enjoy your car...

brahtw8

I think some folks are are taking the C&D review and the defense of the TL's relatively minor torque steer too seriously.

The TL is a FWD car. That has pros and cons. Great in the snow and rain, not so great at the track.

If you were looking for the best sports sedan, you failed. If you were looking for the best value in a sports sedan, you have chosen wisely.

samkws

oh yea
RWD gave me a nightmare last winter

as i was driving the caddy catera on 17s WITHOUT snow tires...

i spun out of the road when i was turning on a light

samkws

and also u gotta love the Intergra Type R, it even has 50:50 weight distribution ratio and it beats a BMW 328i on the circuit

the King of the FWD

neuronbob

Bingo. I totally agree. Besides, no amount of electronic gimmickery will replace sandbags in the trunk of a RWD car on a frozen, snowy, unsalted, early morning Cleveland street in December.

rets

For me, I don't care C D reviews... I enjoy TL... don't care it's FWD or RWD... don't mind its Torque Steer at all... I feel it before ppl talk about that... But, that minimal Torque Steer is for sure.

tallrussian

You are right on the money!

For me, I would not have bought a TL if it were a RWD. That's another reason why I don't even look twice at BMW. A friend of mine has a 530 and he took it up to Tahoe (mountains = snow) once. :wow: After that, we have been taking my car whenever him and I go skiing together. I've had my share of RWD cars in my life, too, and if you ask me today, I will say, "never ever again".

I'm not a just out of high school night street racer who likes to spin wildly and to thrash about with little control on icy or wet roads. My values are safety, comfort, reliability, dependability, and then fun.

No RWD for me, please.

samkws

who's gonna bring ur TL to the track????

forget it...hahaha

i would want to buy a car that won't sit in my garage for the whole winter!! that's y FWD is my first choice...

AWD cars are gd, but they are more expensive to maintain and poor fuel econmy, a couple friends of mine got the Audi A4 1.8T quattro and they get worse MPG than me!!! this is not so acceptable...

if i have to choose one car for my daily driver, i would go for the S4....no worries on the snow, bye bye M3...haha

rets

Sorry, go off the topic for a while. I thought A4 1.8T Tiptronic Quattro has 20/28 MPG. I'm really surprised it's actually worse.

Thanks for your info...

paddiwakk

Great topic - I agree with all these points. I was wandering why no one had made these points before. It seems obvious that for reality (snow etc) driving, FWD is an advance over RWD. I too would never go back to RWD. C&D and the other reviewers seem to always qualify their great love for RWD by saying that no one would really drive wildly enough to have the benefit of RWD. (At least not on a regular basis). Which always leaves me asking: well then what is their point?

Turbowhat2

fwd is good for practicality, but performance is limited. All depends on your preferences tho. I have a vtec acceleration about 10 times a day in my TL and its fun, but an M3 or Cobra = rowrrr... I live in texas, so what was i smoking when i got the tl?? i guess the interior and sound system was just really good .

samkws

u may achieve that if u drive like a corlloa does...

but to keep up the normal traffic, it zips a lot more fuel as it has to work so hard to keep up the traffic...

one of the reason to teh 1.8T engine is their turbo doesn't turn off even u off thottle, so it doesn't have much turbo lag, but at the same time it consumes more fuel...and it's a 5-valve design...it's a gd and modern design, but it certainly breaths more air = more fuel

not only A4, the Jetta 1.8T has a bad fuel econ too...and they need premimum...

samkws

u may achieve that if u drive like a corlloa does...

but to keep up the normal traffic, it zips a lot more fuel as it has to work so hard to keep up the traffic...

one of the reason to teh 1.8T engine is their turbo doesn't turn off even u off thottle, so it doesn't have much turbo lag, but at the same time it consumes more fuel...and it's a 5-valve design...it's a gd and modern design, but it certainly breaths more air = more fuel

not only A4, the Jetta 1.8T has a bad fuel econ too...and they need premimum...

hobster

Glad to see the consensus on the value of FWD. TL gives the ability for great acceleration for the class, more than adequate sport handling for real world, and the ability to traverse winter weather.

C&D test folks don't live in the real world. I mean they have their tracks, etc to test drive vehicles and get to drive Ferraris, etc on the closed roads. That is NOT the real world for people shopping in the intro sport/lux category. I think Acura should keep the FWD. Only potential option could be AWD for severe weather areas, but this is not an option I would pay for at all. That is why I have the Pilot.

vothsc

Just a general point about the FWD vs RWD debate - FWD is good in snow up to a point but when pushed - the front will break loose before the rear and it's much harder to recover from because you've basicly lost your steering. A rwd car will loose the rear before the front and this kind of a skid can be recovered from more easily (and in some cases is actually fun). I had a good lesson of this while following a Ford Escort in a Mustang GT through a curve and watching the Escort lose it and bounce off a snow bank while I maintained control at the same speed.

svtmike

The worst thing in any car, no matter the drive wheels, is bad tires. I suspect that Escort didn't have good tires.

You can't draw conclusions from watching one bozo bounce off a snowbank about the general merits of one platform vs. another in the winter.

The most dangerous thing about FWD in the winter, in my opinion, is braking while going downhill and/or around a curve. If you don't have good traction in the back, and happen to lose it, there isn't a thing you can do about it; the back end will come around and you will spin. There is no power you can apply to try and recover from the skid.

C/D did a column on this a few years back, basically asking which pair of wheels to put the deeper treads on in a FWD car for winter (if you have uneven wear between front and back, pretty typical unless you rotate frequently). Their conclusion was put the better tires on the back, since on FWD understeer is easier to deal with than oversteer.

Mike

neuronbob

Actually, they often do tests on the nasty, slick roads of southeastern Michigan and in Ohio. But I agree that they don't live in the real world, where most people in regions that see snow value FWD.

SergeyM

FWD is better. That’s why all rich people buy FWD cars. All Benzes, BMWs, RRs and Bentlys are FWD. Way to go. Let's leave RWD for plebeian Hondas and Toyotas.

rets

What you said? All bimmers are FWD... R u sure? My father's is not.

brahtw8

Apparently we need a sarcasm smiley?

svtmike

Gosh, I better rethink my preferences because rich people buy cars with a different basic drivetrain than I buy.

If you really really prefer to have a RWD/AWD car, then Honda/Acura isn't your brand.

Mike

jdone

People who think rwd cars are great have never spent a lot of time driving them in all weather conditions. I'm older than most of you here. I grew up driving cars with big V8 engines with lots of torque and rear wheel drive. Forget about trouble in the snow, these puppies would break the rear end loose if someone had just spit on the road-dangerous in the rain and impossible in snow. Someone is going to say that modern traction control, yaw control and so forth negate this problem. As a former BMW owner I say BS in advance.

brahtw8

FWD is clearly superior in the snow and the rain.

That said, RWD is not a death trap in the snow. I drive 27k miles a year or more. For the last 2.5 years, my daily driver has been a tastefully modified BMW 325i with about 205-210 hp, and no traction conrol or yaw control.

A good set of snow tires on a RWD car will give you better traction in the snow than a crappy set of all-season tires on a FWD car. I ran Pilot Alpins and had no problems. I live in a land with real winter, and drove that car without incident through major snow storms of 8" or more.