Whats the difference between “all-wheel drive” and “four-wheel drive”?
That’s an excellent question. They sound like the same thing, don’t they? We typed the phrase “all-wheel drive vs. four-wheel drive” in the Yahoo! search box and clicked on the first web page listed in the results. The page happened to be an exhaustive treatise on the subject, called Introduction to All Wheel Drive Systems, by Eliot Lim. As it turns out, “all-wheel drive” refers to vehicles that have permanently engaged or automatically engaging four-wheel-drive capability. “Four-wheel drive” implies the vehicle has manually engaging, temporary four-wheel drive. Your confusion is justified — the auto industry, in their infinite wisdom, created these seemingly interchangeable terms. What is four-wheel drive, exactly? According to a helpful 4X4 glossary* we jumped to from a link on Eliot’s page, a four-wheel-drive vehicle has the ability to
