Front or rear drive?

[leopard]

From experience and opinion of friends in this forum which one has more relative advantage or easier maintenance practicability between front or rear drive car?

[Mark]

I'd have to guess from a maintenance point of view FWD would be superior as everything is contained in the front of the car, no drivetrain etc. But then you do have CVJ's to think about.

[leopard]

True, we can't simplify drive shafting, sometimes we can't identify the real problem why the car makes noise when passing holed road.

Differential gear train, could be something isn't less complicated thing than CVJ. it's a series of system that help the engine's work better than FWD instead, and hence it should last longer.

[Magnus]

I have been working with gearboxes and shafts etc in both RWDs and FWDs and i must say that RWDs are much simpler when it comes to maintenance.

[Daniel]

I'd have to guess from a maintenance point of view FWD would be superior as everything is contained in the front of the car, no drivetrain etc. But then you do have CVJ's to think about.
Thing is though RWD cars that don't have live axles will typically have CV joints as well :)

[Rollo]

What do you want the car to do?

Front wheel drive cars generally have more interior space because of the lack of intrusion by the transmission tunnel, which means less weight and in turn marginally better fuel consumption and hence the reason why most small cars are front wheel drive.

BUT

Due to mass shifting, towing is more difficult and FWD cars tend to suffer more torque steer.

[leopard]

correct, a 1500 cc FWD consumes less fuel significantly than a 1400 cc RWD, besides FWD requires another lubricant for the drive train. It looks RWD has more expensive maintenance

The bigger car which also means have weigher loadability usually use RWD.

We want come to conclusion for average use of a car, say with maximum 300 kg of load, which one have the simpler maintenance?

[Rollo]

How many people do you intend to cart around in it? Do you have kids? Do you need to cart around either a booster seat or a baby carriage?

In my somewhat informed opinion, most cars produced by most reputable car makers provided the log book services are kept up to them, all pretty well much run like clockwork for extended periods.

Japanese Toyotas in general have the highest reliability ratings around the world, but their American counterparts don't measure up. Actually American cars generally don't have as good reliability statistics as the rest of the world, because cars are a consumer product and therefore build quality tends to be lower. This is certainly true for the Cobalt/Astra, Focus & Camry.

[rah]

If you are maintaining it yourself I have always found RWD easier. Mostly because of more space under the bonnet. However most modern cars have no space no matter what.

I say pick the car you want, not the drivetrain you want.

[leopard]

How many people do you intend to cart around in it? Do you have kids? Do you need to cart around either a booster seat or a baby carriage?

He has a small family with two children. But sometimes he carts some compact merchandise and the family all together to make total maximum of weight not exceed 300 kg.

[leopard]

If you are maintaining it yourself I have always found RWD easier. Mostly because of more space under the bonnet. However most modern cars have no space no matter what.

I say pick the car you want, not the drivetrain you want.

I think so, RWD has simpler engine configuration that enable self basic maintenance like put the clutch on and off, etc. While as long as the gear train are periodically maintained it rarely cause a problem.

[Daniel]

If you are maintaining it yourself I have always found RWD easier. Mostly because of more space under the bonnet. However most modern cars have no space no matter what.

I say pick the car you want, not the drivetrain you want.
Rather. I mean how often are you going to need to do work on the clutch? :mark:

[leopard]

I think both of them have their own plus and minus.

How often we work on the clutch may vary depend on air and fuel ratio in the combustion chamber. The more rich fuel on the ratio will give more black carbon into the clutch which need to sandpaper it or replace it with the new one. To adjust the ideal air-fuel ratio would be preferable to avoid the burnt clutch, but it sometimes happens before the the air-fuel problem fixed.

Provided the FWD and RWD have the same treatment, FWD have the bigger risk of engine problem as it reins the whole car and its load with work of mechanical force directly to the front wheel. It has bigger potency to need to work with clutch as the leakage of lubricant into the clutch when the ring piston already had a problem :s

[leopard]

Despite clutch system of the FWD relatively complicated, the air-fuel ratio obviously is something related to sparkplug, and not to the clutch. :D