Most of us love to drive. We doesn’t care about the internals of the vehicle in general. Sometimes its worth understanding some of the internal components of the vehicle.
What is drivetrain?
Drivetrain is the actually a collection of components in the vehicle. These components together takes care of transferring the rotational power produced by the engine to the wheels. The reason why I’m going to explaining about drivetrain is, it is a major factor for power delivery mechanism. And there are 4 major drivetrain types are available. (Although there are few other types are available I’m not going to talk about that here. Because its not common.)
- Front wheel drive — FWD
- Rear wheel drive — RWD
- Four wheel drive — 4WD
- All wheel drive — AWD
The reason why there are different type drivetrain is, each type is designed for various kinds of driving conditions. So its worth understanding them.
Front wheel drive — FWD
In this type the engine transmits its rotation power to the front wheels. In FWD, the front wheels are pulling the vehicle, the rear wheel doesn’t receive any power. The pros of FWD is fuel efficiency & manufacturing cost. One main advantage of FWD is it provides better stability in a slippery road condition when compared to RWD. The reason is, engine weight sits in front on top of the front wheels, which helps the car get a grip.
Rear wheel drive — RWD
This was the standard drivetrain until a point of time. In RWD, the engine transmits its rotation power to the rear wheels. In RWD, the rear wheels are pushing the vehicle, the front wheel job is to only steer the vehicle. The pros of RWD is it gives better balance because of front/rear weight distribution.
Four wheel drive — 4WD
Also referred as 4x4. The engine transmits its rotation power to all the four wheels. These type vehicles are typically used in off-roading. In 4WD each wheel gets equal amount of power.
There are two main types of four-wheel drive. Part-time and full-time. In part-time 4WD, the vehicle has an option to perform in 4WD but normally operates in 2 wheel drive (generally RWD) where as in Full-time 4WD there is no 2 wheel drive option.
All wheel drive — AWD
Compare above 3, All Wheel Drive is a recent innovation. Though the words 4WD & AWD gives similar meaning. They have different mechanism. Roughly speaking, 4WD drive vehicles are meant for off-roading where as AWD is meant for performance and handling. In AWD vehicles, all four wheels are getting power all the time, though not in equal amounts. Some all-wheel drive systems send more power to the front wheels, some send more to the rear.
