What is All Wheel Drive(AWD) and Four Wheel Drive(4WD) cars? ~ Vehicle Tech, An Informative Source For All Automobile Concepts.

ALL WHEEL DRIVE (AWD) CARS

Simply an AWD or All-wheel drive vehicles may be defined as a vehicle gets power to run by all of its wheels. All wheels of that vehicle get drive power from the engine.

All Wheel Drive (also referred to as Symmetrical AWD or SAWD) may be a full-time four-wheel drive system developed by Japanese automobile manufacturer Subaru. The AWD system consists of a lengthways mounted boxer engine coupled to a symmetrical drivetrain with equal length half-axles. the mix of the symmetrical layout with a flat engine and transmission balanced over the front shaft provides optimum weight distribution with an occasional center of gravity, up automotive handling characteristics. Since 1996, most international market Subaru vehicles embrace SAWD as a normal instrumentality, with the rear wheel drive BRZ and Kei cars because of the exceptions.

Four Wheel Drive(4WD) jeep.

Four Wheel Drive(4WD) Cars

The four-wheel drive system may be referred to as 4×4 ("four by four") or 4WD, refers to a two-axle vehicle drivetrain capable of providing torsion to any or all of its wheels at the same time. it's going to be regular or on-demand and is usually coupled via a transfer case providing an extra output drive-shaft and, in several instances, extra gear ranges.

A machine vehicle with torque provided to each axle is described as "all-wheel drive" (AWD). However, "four-wheel drive" usually refers to a collection of specific parts and functions, and meant cross-country application, that usually complies with trendy use of the terminology.

4WD systems were developed in many various markets and utilized in many various vehicle platforms. there's no universally accepted set of nomenclature to explain the assorted architectures and functions. The terms employed by varied makers typically mirror promoting instead of engineering issues or important technical variations between systems. SAE International's commonplace J1952 recommends solely the term All-Wheel-Drive with extra sub-classifications that cowl every type of AWD/4WD/4x4 systems found on production vehicles.

AWD/4WD/4x4 systems

4x4

Four-by-four or 4x4 is often wont to see a category of vehicles generally. Syntactically, the primary figure indicates the overall range of wheels (or a lot of precisely: shaft ends), and also the second indicates the amount that ar high-powered. therefore 4x2 suggests that a four-wheeled vehicle that transmits engine torsion to solely 2 axle-ends: the front 2 in front-wheel drive or the rear 2 in rear-wheel drive. equally, a 6×4 vehicle has 3 axles, 2 of which offer torsion to 2 wheel ends every. If this vehicle were a truck with twin rear wheels on 2 rear axles, therefore truly having 10 wheels, its configuration would still be developed as 6x4. throughout war II, the U.S. military would usually use areas and a capital 'X' – like "4 X 2" or "6 X 4".

Center transfer case sending power from the transmission to the rear shaft (right) and front shaft (left).

All Wheel Drive(AWD) and Four Wheel Drive(4WD) jeep.

4WD

Four-wheel drive (4WD) refers to vehicles with 2 shafts providing torsion to four axle ends. within the North Yankee market, the term usually refers to a system that's optimized for cross-country driving conditions. The term "4WD" is usually selected for vehicles equipped with a transfer case that switches between 2WD and 4WD operational modes, either manually or mechanically.

References:

All-Trac- a 4WD system from Toyota.
4Matic- a 4WD system from Mercedes-Benz.
4motion- Volkswagen's 4WD system.
ATTESA- a 4WD system from Nisan.
Quattro- Audi branded 4WD system.
S-AWC- a torsion vectoring 4WD system from Mitsubishi Motors.
SH-AWD- a 4WD system from Honda.
xDrive- a 4WD system from BMW.
HTRAC- a 4WD system from Hyundai.
AllGRIP- a 4WD system from Suzuki.

To know the difference between AWD and 4WD vehicles watch the video below:

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