there used to be a Golf 4 motion, there is an Octavia Scout. I would have thought there would be a market for more of these, esp Polo, Fiesta sized ? Chaeapish to buy, reasonably economical, bit more surefooted in poor weather, more versatile ?

Panda? Subaru justy? I do agree though. Guess a 4×4 system not only costs more but is less efficint? (correct if I’m wrong…)

Because they’d have to more or less redesign 75% of the car to do it for something that they’d only sell very small numbers of.

because winter tires on a regular little car will get you 99% of the places a 4×4 will get you in winter. I used to think this too and still like the idea but its not really needed, suzuki also have the little 4×4.

If you live in Switzerland you can get loads of cars in 4×4…

http://www.bmw.ch/ch/de/insights/technology/xdrive_2010/phase_2/models.html

increased weight, reduced economy, increased complexity, reduced cabin space ( transmission tunnel to the rear ), increased purchase price, increased servicing costs, only marginal improvement in handling from a well balanced 4wd system for 99.99% of normal driving situations for folk not driving at ten tenths on the public highway. if you’re thinking current weather conditions then snow tyres go a very, very long way.

yeah, that all makes sense. I still think there would be a market for them, but can see that it would be a pretty costly step for the car manufacturers. Wonder if the whole winter tyre thing will gain momentum with what appears to be worsening winters ?

Loads of normal cars come with 4×4 options?

Loads of normal cars come with 4×4 options?

do they – I am thinking new price sub 15K. Only one I can think of is the Suzuki sx4 ?

you used to be able to get 4wd Mondeo’s – you dont now….they did not sell

That’s like asking for gold plated cars for sub 15k, it’s an added cost, it won’t be put on budget vehicles.

ok, maybe a daft idea. Quite fancy that wee SX4 thing for the wife when we change next yr though, but pound for pound a Polo is a better car…..guess I have answered my own question !

because you would have to engineer a new body, tcase, prop, centre diff or haldex type unit, rear diff, rear driveshafts, driven rear hubs and run a whole new calibration for emissions just for a budget car that you are probably selling at a minor loss, and that no-one will buy. the tooling bill alone could literally be 100s of millions.

the likes of vw share platforms with many brands, so they are conceived to be awd to start with, so it is easy to make a vw awd, because there is already an audi version, for example.

New Panda 4×4 is about 11k i think. Odd looking thing though… lacks the charm of the original.

A second set of wheels with snow tyres on would be far far cheaper and better in snow too.

Friends north of Inverness just bought a wee Fiat Panda 4×4, came with M+S tyres and is great on the track up to their house where they have to leave the normal car at the bottom of the road.

Light enough to push too. Sure it would be under 15K.

[/url] Tonka toy by brucewaddell, on Flickr[/img]

To the op – I’m guessing this is to do with the recent weather and I dont know if this helps at all but we live at the top of a hill (currently – albeit unusually- 12″ melting snow) and my SO’s folks live on a bigger hill in what seems like permafrost from Nov – April.

We have to run a second car just for the winter. It’s to do with her gentle nature. She cant get herself to risk/push/maintain momentum in a new/expensive car or 4×4 up her folks lane. Over the years its changed from screaming when things get slidy to giggling nowadays.

So we’ve got a car (whose make should not be mentioned on stw) for the nice weather and a crappy nissan with winter tyres for the slidy stuff. She’s now happ(ish) letting it drift sideways in the snow – once she’s learnt to keep it slow but always moving. She’s never been stuck yet – even on slopes that defeat ‘gentle’ offroaders.

Of course even a gentle 4×4 with winter tyres would be even better – but then she’d get nervous again.

csw – I have a BMW too !! (or is yours maybe an Audi ? 😛 ). It’s our main car and my company car, so our second car needs to be relatively inexpensive, safe for running the kids to school and wife to work, and reliable. If there was an option to have this as a handy snowy car (we live in hilly East Kilbride and get a fair amount of difficult conditions, particularly the last bit getting to the house). Her car at presnt is a 3yr old CMax, which is in line to get replaced in a yr by a Polo or Scenic, but if there was a wee cheap safe 4×4 alternative, like the Suzuki or similar it would be a serious contender.

That Panda is pretty cool looking !

That said, the idea of winter tyres is growing on me, particularly as storage options are being offered too for the normal 4 (or is it just the driven 2) tyres

ianc – Yep its a BMW. Our criteria for the second car is simple: fwd. Biggish.ISOfix child seats. Towbar (for the bikes so I can use it the odd time in the summer). Steel wheels (or at least 15 or 16 alloys). Normal sized spare (learnt from experiece). I went looking for a mondeo but couldnt find one that didnt look it was clocked. So I got a one owner primera from a local retired chap for peanuts.

Winter tyres went on – and it’s nickname is now SNOWCAT (has to be shouted!) Gets up every hill we come across.

I did run it last year with winters on the front only but this winter we had a real scare having to brake coming down hill in snow. The fronts got lots more traction than the back – so the the back swung around. We couldnt get more winters in stock anywhere so I got some all weather “mud and snow” Bridgestone A001’s. They are possibly 80% as good.

Anyway’s the key thing for us is confidence. Mrs is a really safe driver but cheap means the difference for her in the snow. If she power slides into the ditch she wont be too worried – she’d get a bigger bollocking for not keeping moving 😉 Dont worry – if she sees someone walking etc she slows and beeps before she hits the gas!

4x4ising a car isn’t often that difficult – car designers aren’t daft, so there’s often enough room to squeeze in a propshaft and diff with relatively few alterations, on the off chance that someone will want to build a 4×4 vehicle on the same platform.

At the really extreme end of the spectrum there’s stuff like the Rover 75 – started out as a FWD car with a transverse engine, then they did the V8 version which had RWD and a longitudinal engine. Then they sold approximately 6 of them.

The issue is that there’s not really a market for “ordinary” 4×4 cars in the UK.

I’d personally go for winter tyres for winter over a 4×4 for winter. 4x4s are a big compromise and cost for the rest of year.

You can have Quattro on any Audi can’t you?

You do not have to have fiddly transmission tunnels, diffs, propshafts etc to make a small 4×4. There re other ways around this issue.

It’s the same reason there’s not many normal RWD cars. It’s way, way cheaper to make them FWD only.

Because people don’t actually want 4wd on an ordinary car that much. What they want is a nice big car which makes them look powerful and keeps little Annabel and Justin safe because it’s so big and strong.

i wondered why no-one has thought of using electric for the other pair of wheels, but obviously quite a few people have. Nissan have got e4wd

http://www.nissan-global.com/EN/TECHNOLOGY/INTRODUCTION/DETAILS/E-4WD/

If you go into europe or japan loads of normal cars can be had with 4×4.
Even cars like the Suzuki Swift have 4×4 option elsewhere. vw have always offerred a good selection.

BMW is also pushing 4×4 very hard in the States as a safety thing so it might start to catch on over here.

last time it happened was the late 80/early 90 when loads of people tried selling them in the uk, ford, peugeot, toyota come to mind. i think we were to worried about alloys and stereos to both.

Get friendly with the local Suzuki dealer, they are the only ones in it for the long run. Fiat and suzuki share the sx4, the fiat is called a sedici. Had a facelift last year and they then decided to stop selling it due to lack of sales.

Subaru are common, perfectly ordinary cars, and they are all all-wheel-drive, or all we’ll drive if you prefer. Now the diesels are available, what’s there not to like?

I had one of the Mondeo 4WD in the 90s. Yes, it was a great car, but the added weight, cost, running costs, additional tyre wear etc weren’t worth it. Ironically, the only car I’ve ever written off driving (very sedately) in bad weather.

I’ve got a impreza sti and while yes they do have a little more traction to get you going. They skid and slide just like any other car when you want to slow down probably more because of the sporty tyres and big brakes. So I have to pootle round when the weather is like it has been, just like everyone else. Winter tyres are the answer not 4wd, but it costs and we may not get a winter like this for another ten years.

They used to, in the late ’80s / early ’90s. Didn’t sell many. You can still get a few more 4WD variants in LHD but there isn’t the financial incentive for doing RHD as well. Note that most 4WDs are sold because they’re tall, not because they have 4WD – sadly those buying them don’t realise that a high centre of gravity is never a good thing on the road – as an unfortunate Grand Cherokee owner discovered yesterday when their inverted car closed two lanes of the A27.

Surpised that Ford don’t offer a 4wd focus. Especially for the ST and RS it would make a lot of sense. Plus I gather that the Kuga 4WD shares the same floorplan.

Or just buy an old 4*4 and only use it for the bad weather/runabout etc.

Loads of Discos on autotrader for less than a grand – and as it will be limited miles, get the V8 8)

Amazed that no-one’s selling winter 4×4 kits that you could bolt on in November then take off come the spring. Surely it would be easy enough to do and sell really, really well. And it would be a lot cheaper than buying a full-time 4×4. Best of both worlds really, though I suppose storing the bits could be problematic for some. It’s really amazing that no-one’s done that.

retro83 – Member
Surpised that Ford don’t offer a 4wd focus. Especially for the ST and RS it would make a lot of sense. Plus I gather that the Kuga 4WD shares the same floorplan.

exactly – that was kind of where I was coming from on the OP. I’d have thought at a 1.8d Zetec Focus with 4WD would be a seller

Amazed that no-one’s selling winter 4×4 kits that you could bolt on in November then take off come the spring. Surely it would be easy enough to do and sell really, really well. And it would be a lot cheaper than buying a full-time 4×4. Best of both worlds really, though I suppose storing the bits could be problematic for some. It’s really amazing that no-one’s done that.

Many 4wd cars are like that these days, including the Suzuki Sx4. It is FWD the majority of the time, it only engages the rear wheels if the front wheels loose traction. I think the Ford Kuga 4WD version is the same.

Surpised that Ford don’t offer a 4wd focus. Especially for the ST and RS

the original press releases said that the RS would be – it was a real shame when it was FWD because of price!

Many 4wd cars are like that these days, including the Suzuki Sx4. It is FWD the majority of the time, it only engages the rear wheels if the front wheels loose traction. I think the Ford Kuga 4WD version is the same.

Where do you store the surplus bits over summer? Are they bulky or designed to be easily stowable, say in a cupboard under the stairs?

EDIT: sorry, I’m being a bit dim, I guess they stow in the boot for rapid access when needed?

You can get 4WD focus’s here quite reasonable 😯 with one previous careful owner.

retro83 – Member
Surpised that Ford don’t offer a 4wd focus. Especially for the ST and RS it would make a lot of sense.

We Built a proper 4wd Focus RS, the bean counters said no.
Then they resurrected it using a Volvo XC90 Transmission…..got further towards approval but the end result was the same 🙁

On the continent there are a lot of ordinary vehicles available with 4wd.
Renault do a Kangoo 4wd, over here you can get the scenic 4wd which is the same running gear but jazzed up with all the heavy fancy baubles….
In france you can get a Basic Kangoo but with 4wd, which is designed for exactly what the OP was after really…

But having experienced both…….in various alpine seasons, for 90% of the conditions you are talking about, proper snow tyres will suffice, chains on top will get you through most stuff.
4wd (even simple systems like the Golf Syncro) + snow tyres is in another league though 😀

I never got to try it, but a decent handling, lightweight FWD car, on snow tyres, but with a Limited Slip Diff, would be the best comprimise and had i still been doing seasons, thats what I would have built next 😀

As others have said – big 4x4s are completely a fashion thing. Standard cars in 4×4 versions used to be really common in ski resorts but the majority of people who didn’t actually live in the resorts got by fine with a second set of wheels with snow tyres and chains in the boot for when needed. Garages (even shared ones) are built big enough to store your winter wheels.