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Originally Posted by AutoIndian If the car comes to a complete hault and if the front wheels are powered, there is a likelihood of front wheels slipping due to poor traction and all that power not delivered to the road. Now this situation would get aggravated if the car is loaded with 4-5 passengers and luggage. If you release the clutch slowly the car would start rolling back. If you release it abruptly, you run the risk of stalling the engine. Only way you can get out of it this situation is put the handbrake (to prevent the car from rolling back), slowly build the revs, as soon as the car shows eagerness to move forward, release the handbrake. You may experience a slight jerk, but at least the car would get going.
Against the above with a RWD configuration, you can easily start from a dead stop on an incline without engaging the handbrake and burning the clutch. Since the whole weight of the car is transferred to the rear wheels and also these are the wheels that are powered, they get good traction and can easily push the vehicle weight when going uphill. Most of the RWD configuration cars are meant to carry heavy loads and have shorter gear ratios. This gives them good low end torque and greater pulling power at low revs. That is the reason why we see so many Boleros, Innovas, Scorpios etc in the hilly regions. Heck even the Omnis and Eccos of the world (having RWD) would perform better in the ghats. Rather they would perform even better, having the light weight and RWD combo. |
I wouldn't be as general in this statement. Front wheel drive cars which are inherently lightweight in nature like the Maruti 800 do perform extremely well with passengers and luggage in the hills.
Yes it is true that if the tyres are wet or moist on account of rain, the chances of slippage when on an extremely steep incline, are definitely possible and indeed, do happen. But this is not to say that the similar thing does not happen to RWD vehicles!
When ascending extremely steep inclines even fully laden RWD vehicles do feel the strain and indeed, in the 1970's and 1980's when in the hills, I have seen many "plains" cars (Ambys and Fiats) sitting there with broken axles caused on account of too much strain being put on them - both in wet and dry conditions.
Many a time have I seen even these RWD vehicles roll back and reverse all the way down and then slowly gather enough momentum and then take a particularly steep hairpin curve!
In 1998 I was driving a brand new Ford Escort with a friend up the Sigur Ghats. That vehicle absolutely could not take the strain of climbing the last few hairpin bends even in First Gear because it was inherently so heavy and its gear ratios weren't the best! I remember that in 1999-2000 Ford India actually revamped the gear ratios of the Ford Escort to enable it to manage the steeper inclines.(A couple of my friends used to work for Ford and they gave me this information.)
On that same day, around the last 2-3 hairpin bends, we saw a Maruti 1000 also struggling terribly because it just didn't have the juice to climb up. It would keep rolling back. Poor thing. And there was only an elderly couple sitting in that car at the time!
By contrast, there were also a few Esteems on the road that day and they were climbing with less of a problem, because of their inherent light weight and more powerful engine. But the engines were straining. One could hear them at the top end of their rev cycle on many of those curves!
I have taken my old 970cc Soft Top and Hard Top Gypsy's up the same ghats with absolutely no problem, though I had to regularly use 1st gear.
The Bolero and Scorpio also had no problem negotiating that ghat, again, in many places, to get sufficient power up, one has to use 1st gear.
An interesting comparo here - on the same Sigur Ghats,certain steep uphill sections could easily be handled by the old gen Chain Drive Scorpio 2.6 in second gear because of its inherent luggability and torque. These same sections, when attempted in the Turbo 2.6 Scorpio, necessitated the use of First Gear and this was mainly because the Turbo needed to spool up a bit in order to give that little extra Zest, to the climb!
The above facts are true for my Yeti too, though most of the time, its inherent torque can allow it to chug up in second gear as compared to many other vehicles.
But it is all about momentum and being in the right gear and following the principle of anticipatory gear shifting and right level of acceleration. Always.