This is so wrong, I can't even brain

"aquila121" (aquila121) 12/19/2013 at 00:40 • Filed to: None

7

25

So, with the snowy weather where I am, the usual before-work-chatter about road conditions abounds. One of my friends mentions his car getting all kinds of sideways turning through some intersections, fine. But then he gets to the "...and since my car's rear-wheel-drive—" Wait , I interrupt, you mean the Sunfire?

"Yeah, that..."

nopenopenopenopenope.

Your car is front-wheel-drive. I tell him this.

"No, I'm pretty sure it's rear..." Asshole, I will give you $1,000 to find me a driveshaft that goes from the engine to the rear wheels on that car. Then he remarks that maybe he felt the wheels spinning because his front tires are bald.

Because I lack any sort of tact, I laugh my ass off. I take jabs throughout the day—"Hey, we should go drifting later in your Sunfire."

"When the clutch goes out on your car, are you gonna replace it yourself?" "It's an automatic, douche." "You sure?"

"What do you do when you replace the spark plugs in your engine—do you just throw the extra two away?"

"One more: your car's pretty efficient on fuel—how much diesel do you go through in a week?"

I'm going to hell. Fortunately, he's a friend of mine, and we were both grinning about it over the course of the day. I formally apologize to the world for being a dick, and I'll buy him a beer as recompense for being a good sport about it. But this was an example of how I am unable to keep my mouth shut.

Mathias Rios > aquila121 12/19/2013 at 00:43

0

Lolololol

ddavidn > aquila121 12/19/2013 at 00:47

3

I had a similar experience when my aunt told me last winter that she puts a sandbag in the trunk of her Pontiac G6 so that she can get traction on hills and things.

aquila121 > ddavidn 12/19/2013 at 00:50

5

Did you tell her to put it on the engine block?

Satoshi "Zipang" Katsura > ddavidn 12/19/2013 at 00:54

0

My mother did the same thing to my ES300 - it took me a while to realize I had more than 75 lbs of cat litter until I stopped at the Shell station down in Fife, opened up the trunk and started laughing.

The Transporter > aquila121 12/19/2013 at 00:55

0

My brother - who isn't exactly an idiot when it comes to cars - insists that RWD is better than FWD for driving in the snow. How he hasn't wound up upside down in a snowy ditch, I'll never know.

lonestranger > aquila121 12/19/2013 at 01:02

0

Reminds me of a dude I met at a party many moons ago.

He had a then-new Corrado VR6 with ...apparently... 24 valves. I could not convince him that a VR6 at that time had only 2 valves per cylinder, 12 in total. "But it says VR6 DOHC right on it. Dual Over Head Cams. That means it has 24 valves, dude." I explained that yes, it did have dual overhead cams in a sense, i.e. 2 cams in each cylinder head, but that it only had one head. "No, dude, it's a V6. It has 2 heads". I let it go at that point, regardless of the fact that I worked at a VW dealer tat the time and had seen a few VR6s torn apart. He wouldn't have been convinced, anyway, even if we had the internet to prove ourselves right.

O, there was the drunk-passenger-buddy of a dude that pulled me out of the mud once. "Yea, it's got a 360 double-pumper 440 wedge head on propane 340 with blah, blah, blah... and he did it in two-wheel drive."

To his credit, it was a Dodge. At least he got his displacements correct.

MtrRider Just Wants Doritos > The Transporter 12/19/2013 at 01:20

3

It is better if you want to dorifto around corners like a fucking boss.

Milky > The Transporter 12/19/2013 at 01:25

1

….. But it is better.

offroadkarter > The Transporter 12/19/2013 at 01:38

1

FWD is for people who don't know how to handle a RWD car, period.

Making the front wheels handle power, steering, and braking, is not a good thing.

One of my friends just tapped a guard rail the other night with his jetta, he's since gone back to driving his explorer in the snow and said he'll never take his jetta out in the snow again. We also got his PT cruiser stuck in 6" of snow a couple of years ago, my Marauder, even on summer performance tires rated for 50F or above, has never once been stuck in any amount of snow.

Unwound > aquila121 12/19/2013 at 01:44

0

My neighbor growing up owned a sunfire, we gave him immense shit for simply owning such a thing. So I think you're more than entitled in your mockery.

The clutch joke made me laugh because he said when he got the money he was going to replace the tranny and put a 5 speed in it. That always gave us a good laugh, putting good money into something to make it marginally less terrible.

Full Disclosure: I once owned a 95 Grand Am(joke was on me the entire time)

Collin > aquila121 12/19/2013 at 02:10

1

My brother's dream car in elementary school was a Sunfire. I still give him a hard time about that one, but considering that I lusted after a Ford Taurus at that age, I don't really have much room to talk.

nafsucof > offroadkarter 12/19/2013 at 03:24

0

Boy if that isn't a generalization. You my friend are wrong, period. I dd a fwd but can drive the shit out of any drivetrain layout. I just prefer fwd for my area and needs. I'm starting a family and want a fast efficient turbo hatchback. What are my rwd options for under 30k. Exactly. Answer is focus st for me.
Fwd, rwd, awd. Go to a track day, you'll see all three there having fun. You aren't god because you sit next to your driveshaft. My fwd spends plenty of time in OPPO too...

Oh one thing fwd is for is efficiency in packaging and consumption. And your friend should slow down and/or get proper tires. Never getting stuck and tapping a guard rail are two different things. My grandpa lives in ri and has a grand marquis as well. It gets stuck in snow, with all seasons. so maybe you have extra dead bodies in your trunk for traction? Big trunks...

Hoccy > aquila121 12/19/2013 at 03:39

0

No, you're fine, he could get a better car.

A friend of mine owns a rusty (red) Hyundai Coupe and thinks it's the coolest car in the world. Sitting in the back of that might be the worst thing ever. Another friend has a spaceship-styled FWD Mitsubishi Eclipse that has a "DRIFT OR DIE" sticker on it. Yeah.

offroadkarter > nafsucof 12/19/2013 at 03:46

0

congrats on being a minority, would you like a cookie?

nafsucof > offroadkarter 12/19/2013 at 03:48

0

Please! I do love mauraders, is yours black or silver? Any work?

offroadkarter > nafsucof 12/19/2013 at 03:56

0

Its red

it just has some shiny bits under the hood

and a focus ST is certainly better than what Consumer Reports is suggesting as a great value for money right now

nafsucof > offroadkarter 12/19/2013 at 04:03

0

Ha, consumer reports.
Very nice example, I forgot about the red.

Axel-Ripper > The Transporter 12/19/2013 at 07:29

0

I personally agree with him. I greatly dislike the handling of FWD in the snow. I find it much easier to control a RWD car if things start getting out of hand. Namely, if your RWD car starts chronically understeering, it can be solved by simply letting off the gas. If you do that in a FWD car you're going to understeer some more. Also, if you know how to control a car in a drift and you start to drift accidentally, you can, well, control it. Frankly, in terms of on-snow controlability of cars I've driven on snow at their limits I'd go e28 BMW, Ford Focus (both on snow tires) and then C6 Z06 (not on snow tires).

Jayhawk Jake > offroadkarter 12/19/2013 at 08:30

0

Whoah whoah whoah there bub, I don't like the cut of your jib.

FWD is cheaper to make and better for stuffing crap into a car. Because of that, many, many, many cars are FWD.

Is it easier to handle in bad conditions? A bit, but honestly handling any car in bad conditions isn't exactly fucking rocket science.

Don't insist that FWD is only for people who can't drive. It's a drive layout that many of us own because that happens to be what the car we bought has. If someone would make a RWD hatch in America I'd consider it, but as of now my best options are FWD. That certainly doesn't mean I can't handle RWD.

Lars_M > The Transporter 12/19/2013 at 10:46

0

I just isn't very Jalop to say that. But I think he is right - rwd is more fun in the snow, but if I positively absolutely need to get from a to b in a snowstorm, I'll pick fwd over rwd any day. Sure it isn't all drift-doritos, but because fwd cars have the engine and tranny right above/by the front axels, they often have a lot more weight on the front wheels. This means lame handling characteristics, but it also means that it won't get stuck as easy - especially when going slow. Where I live (eurocountry), almost all cars are fwd, the biggest exceptions being taxis (primarily merc e-class and similar) and they all have big sandbags in the trunk to get a bit of extra traction in the snow... anyway.. I don't know where I was headed?... Uh - oh yea, fwd is better in the snow, but less fun. But a manual e-brake can remedy that.

JEM > aquila121 12/19/2013 at 11:23

1

I laughed throughout this whole post but especially this bit:

Asshole, I will give you $1,000 to find me a driveshaft that goes from the engine to the rear wheels on that car.

A+. Would read again

loveableterror blows turbo seals with aplomb! > aquila121 12/20/2013 at 02:39

0

I'll do you one better/worse...

Precursor to this: I do most of my own work to every car I own, Unfortunatle heavy lifting is out due to a serious back inury from combat in Afghanistan. Otherwise this never would have happened.

So I have bought my first rear wheel drive car. It's a Pontiac. It is the last of a dying breed (at the time they still lived, and hint: it's a Solstice N/A with the track pack), and while it wasn't quite as hardcore as my last car (an SRT-4 built with DD in mind but still owning 400hp on tap when I wanted) it is a ton of fun. My (now) ex-girlfriend is borrowing it for the day, a few weeks after we bought it, she tells me that when getting on to Rt. 1 she spun out and nearly wrecked it. I checked the tires. Thye are nearly bald, and not the same brand from when I purchased it and left it for final service (a "courtesy" of the dealer... fucker swapped the tires, I am sure). I decide to see if a temporary rotation would work (the fronts were okay, but not great, and would hold for a few weeks while I found new tires to put on). I go to the Sears auto center near me (small town) and ask for just a rotation and a balance check. Told I was going to be in line for a few minutes so I go get coffee at the little coffee shop in books-a-million and wait. I get a call, told it is ready and go to pick it up. The HEAD mechanic tells me they didn't even need to move the wheels because the drive tires were fine... I look at the car and note that the tires are not moved and ask why they didnt rotate the fronts to the rear... "Because it's front wheel drive sir... why change out the good ones where you need them most?" ... I proceed to explain it is rear wheel drive, point out that the "alignment" machine printout they handed me says RWD and basically lambast the guy... he sticks to the belief that it is FWD, and that I am a "sucker" for believing the dealer that it is RWD... I hand built the motor on my SRT... I worked on my dad's Z06 and his Volvo growing up... I'm pretty familiar with the drave of a car... and the driveshaft to the REAR DIFFERENTIAL is a dead giveaway! But nope... I'm a dumb yankee in this cousin fucking southern gentleman's eyes... according to him, no 4-pot is RWD, especially from pontiac... My neurologist,and osteo docs be damned... no one in this town works on my car again unless im fucking paralyzed...

UltravioletThunder > aquila121 12/21/2013 at 12:17

0

I live in MI, where winter driving is serious. FWD vs RWD is a matter of taste, and car-to-car differences are more than just drive configuration. My '87 Integra: crummy in snow FWD. My '88 Volvo 740: brilliant RWD. See what I did there?

aquila121 > UltravioletThunder 12/21/2013 at 20:02

0

Noted, and wonderful.

Philbert/Phartnagle > ddavidn 12/26/2013 at 16:26

1

Even so, a bag of sand or cat litter can be opened and spread under the front tires to help gain some traction, so all is not for naught.