Technically, a Subbie is a 4 wheel drive vehicle as it has "symmetrical all wheel drive" which means all 4 wheels get power.
They do. They clearly say it is AWD that can take on ANY terrain, the worst blizzards, and that if you buy one, you pretty much can drive from here through Bering Strait and Siberia to have coffee at Stephansplatz in Vienna.Subaru very clearly markets their vehicles as all-wheel drive. People are ignorant on the difference between awd and 4wd.
Some national parks have a clear warning that you should not try trails without genuine A/T tires because of punctures. That Sequoia has a LOT of sidewalls on its tires. It is 4WD, regardless of the weaknesses you mention. You will go through.And then you can you can blur more with things like my '03 Sequoia. It was RWD, AWD and 4WD depending what you picked. There was a locking center differential that when open was fine to use on dry ground as AWD. There was also a transfer case that had low range.
The caveat is that front and rear diffs were open and used the brakes to limit wheel spin (until the ABS pump overheats). They didn't even offer factory limited slip or lockers. You could get them through Eaton/TRD if you wanted to go through that afterward. When you locked the center diff it also disabled the ESC so it wouldn't kill throttle.
It did have good ground clearance though, metal skid plates, towed great and I never got stuck in the places I went. I did try one snowy hill my neighborhood in RWD with General Altimax Arctic iirc. Got stuck, lots of clicking and buzzing sliding sideways. Had to use at least AWD to get up it. I went home and grabbed my dads Chevy Express conversion van on Altimax Arctic. RWD with GM LSD, same hill, same spot, both tires spun, rear end hung out and left 2 rooster tails all the way up the hill.
Good. Something the article doesn’t mention and IMO is the biggest part, is AWD doesn’t have a low range.
AWD cars faced with an obstacle where you can’t get a run at it, you can have your foot to the floor and have no power at all, overheating the transmission and going nowhere. No amount of ground clearance or rugged tires will help that.
Yes. But, problem often are tires. In the West it is super easy to puncture tire on roads like that. And vehicles like RAV4 or Cx-3 have usually low profile AS tires.I don’t know. I’ve been to 16 national parks over the past four years. I’ve seen 4WD/High Clearance Only roads that definitely required a proper setup (like around Moab especially) while others were labeled as such and were easily passable with my RAV4 hybrid or a rental Mazda CX-3.
Easily $3-5000. Depends where you get stuck.I love watching Matt's Off-road Recovery on YouTube. He has mentioned alot how a lot of the vehicles were rentals from California, people would take regular cars in soft sand or get stuck on a rock. I can't imagine the tow prices!
Easily $3-5000. Depends where you get stuck.
Bear Pass in CO? Get ready to take a loan.
Completely irrelevant. If you want some metric, figure crawl ratio which is 1st gear ratio x t-case ratio x differential ratio.I don't even have AWD but the first gear is very low, like 3.5 mph at 1000 rpm. 2nd gear is slightly taller than e regular car's 1st gear
If that's what Subie claims, they're dead wrong. The only way 4wd gets truly equal power to each wheel is front and rear diff lockers engaged. A true, part-time t-case goes without saying.Not according to Subbie. Here's a link from them that explains the differences... What’s the Difference Between 4WD and AWD?
And here's a little snippet from that link...
"While AWD automatically varies among front, rear, and center differentials depending on needs, 4WD is typically paired with locked differentials. This means that both wheels on an axle are locked together, and all wheels receive power equally. All wheels in 4WD rotate at the same speed, regardless of which one requires extra traction. This can be useful when drivers find themselves stuck in snow, mud, or rocky terrain and need an extra jolt to free their vehicle. This is also true of AWD, which offers added traction by sending power to all wheels in muddy, sandy, or icy conditions."
I personally still have a hard time wrapping my head around the real-world differences. Subaru is known to have the gold standard of AWD systems, and many other vehicle manufactures are quickly catching up. If an AWD system is able to send power to all wheels at the same time and/or can almost instantaneously monitor slip and send more power to the wheels that have the traction, isn't this just as good (or maybe even better)?
I have a 2018 Honda CRV which in my opinion has a very good AWD system, and I believe the newest versions are even better. I have driven mine on top of a frozen lake with snow on it that was higher than the front bumper. The wheels just chewed right through it. I did have to keep moving in order to keep the car from sinking into the snow and getting stuck, but even so I was pretty impressed. I think with a good AWD system (just like in my example) it's way more about ground clearance than it is about having a locked transfer case.
One more thing that I don't completely buy about true 4 wheel drives being better... In the above quote from Subaru it says "All wheels in 4WD rotate at the same speed, regardless of which one requires extra traction". That's just not true. At least not if you don't have a limited slip or full lock-up rear differential. Besides the CRV, I also own an old 4WD Ford Ranger. In 2WD mode, just one wheel will spin if it looses traction. I'm pretty sure in 4WD you will have 3 wheels that have power, but the rear wheel that's in the snow or mud will just spin and be almost useless, while the other rear wheel that actually might be on solid ground will get nothing. This makes it worse than a good AWD system, no?
It is 4WD.Pondering on this topic, would the HMMWV meet the definition of 4wd as used by the National Park Service? I think “no” in the strictest legalese due to the TorSen front and rear differentials that never “lock” (the center differential/transfer case can be locked).
It is not just about lockers. Anyone with center locker and low range would be in most of these areas OK when it comes to actual capability.If that's what Subie claims, they're dead wrong. The only way 4wd gets truly equal power to each wheel is front and rear diff lockers engaged. A true, part-time t-case goes without saying.
4wd is not "typically paired with locked differentials."
Very few vehicles come stock with driver selectable lockers, and I'd argue something like a GovLok doesn't count because you can't really predictably and repeatedly control when it locks.
Limited slips can be good but they're NOT lockers.
And while driver selectable REAR lockers have grown in popularity the last ~15 years (Tacoma, Nissan, H3s, SuperDuty FX4 and others), OEMs REALLY shy from true front lockers because inexperienced drivers just don't get it.
By Subaru's definition, there's only 3 or 4 very specific models sold that are 4wd. The Wrangler Rubicon, some of the old H3 models.....what else got OEM front and rear lockers? Not brake-based chattering traction control, but lockers? Maybe a G-wagen? Unimogs? H1 Torsens are a gray area.
Thanks.It is 4WD
I think it still counts with NPS. The reason for 4WD I think is sum of all things: Tires, suspension, transmission etc. Toyota Sequoia 1st gen would not have an issue with NPS, although it is sketchy with some models.Thanks.
I’d think so, too.
However, if locking axle differentials is a criteria, a TorSen never locks and fails by definition. Hence my question.
The number of ways to distribute torque to driven wheels brings its own complexities to this topic. I suppose the park service needs some criterion and has chosen “4wd” even if there is not an agreed upon definition.