Quote:
Originally Posted by Kolyan2k
Its not in my book, it how cars are made. Some cars start with FWD and become AWD, X-Drive is RWD which with addition of some components became AWD, other cars are designed as AWD from ground up.
Its obviously more expensive to design AWD car from ground up, so car manufactures "convert" FWD/RWD to AWD with relatively cheap Haldex or Haldex-like systems. VW, Volvo, BMW use pretty much the same system, whereas Audi, Subaru, and Mitsu use something different.
edit: now torque vectoring and electronically controlled center diffs. is something different and is more advanced. Currently Audi, Mitsu, Subby, and Acura use those.
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My point being that saying "dedicated mechanical platform" is kind of disingenuous - it's not as if one is mechanical and the other is purely electronic, like the Focus ST having brake actuation rather than a limited slip diff.
Which, to be fair, xdrive does do, but only for the sake of individual wheel control. Which is completely fair, having an additional clutch for each wheel would be pretty silly.
It's still not really clear what you're suggesting is a more advantageous system, simply saying "designed with AWD in mind from the get-go vs a tacked-on afterthought" isn't really descriptive enough. And I'd argue that xDrive or another haldex-like drivetrain isn't any more of an afterthought than any other AWD system vs 4WD system.
Maybe that's what you mean, that you think a 4WD system (with a proper transfer case and two LSDs, a la Jeep Wrangler) is more ideal - in some situations for sure, but I'd happily make the argument that it makes no sense in a BMW, or really any car that you don't plan to do rock and hill climbs in. xdrive accomplishes all the engineering goals BMW set out for with few compromises, where a true 4WD system ticks off very few of them.
Please don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to argue with you one way or the other (yet, maybe we can start a new thread
), I'm just not really clear on exactly what your point is.