Dear Tom and Ray:
Hi, guys! I've always wondered why there aren't any front-wheel-drive pickups. I would think they'd be a nice alternative to more-expensive four-wheel-drive pickups, and a lot easier to handle than rear-wheel-drive pickups on slippery roads. Got any insights to offer on this?
— Rick
Ray: It's been done, Rick. Volkswagen made a pickup version of its front-wheel-drive Rabbit from 1979 to 1982. You can tell what a smashing success that was by all the Rabbit Pickups you see on the road these days!
Tom: It can be done, of course. Toyota even has a prototype of a hybrid front-wheel-drive pickup that's been floating around for a few years. So someone probably will do it at some point, especially as the demand for better fuel economy increases, and pickup-truck sizes decrease.
Ray: Such a truck might be useful for "light-duty picking up," but there are two design issues that make it somewhat undesirable as a traditional work truck.
Tom: First, there's very little weight in the back of a pickup, even with rear-wheel drive. And if you remove the drive shaft and rear differential, you leave almost no weight back there. That means when the pickup bed is empty, there's no weight to keep the rear wheels pushed down to the ground.
Ray: That would make the rear end of the pickup vulnerable to sliding around — which would cause you to lose control of the vehicle.
Tom: And while electronic stability control can help, it's got to start with something to stabilize! You can deal with that by increasing the size of the passenger cabin and adding a real back seat and/or rear doors. But then you leave less room for the bed.
Ray: The other problem is that when you load up the bed with heavy materials, you weigh down the rear axle and "lift weight" off the front axle. So, if you had a heavy load in a front-wheel-drive pickup truck, you could find yourself in a situation where you'd have a tough time getting traction from the front wheels.
Tom: So we may yet see a front-wheel-drive pickup truck at some point. But it's going to be a "lifestyle" vehicle (i.e., designed to help you look cool), not a real work truck.
(Car Talk is a nationally syndicated column by automotive experts (and brothers) Tom and Ray Magliozzi. Write to them at the Car Talk website.)
5 Comments
By Mike M. on December 5, 2011 11:52 AM
Honda Ridgeline.....
By ted on December 5, 2011 4:20 PM
saw a fwd suv the other day. there was a big gap where the rear diff should have been. think it was some kind of nissan
By amsnare on December 7, 2011 5:50 AM
Having owned several VW pick up trucks ( two Diesels, one gas) I'd say that the laughing brothers, Tom and Ray know NOT of what they speak.Having owned several VW pick up trucks ( two Diesels, one gas) I'd say that the laughing brothers, Tom and Ray know NOT of what they speak.
The front drive is simply superior, the bed is lower and this helps in the loading of a half ton of compost.
With the compost in place, I drive carefully, as any real truck drive does, when overloaded..The true "safe weight" is , IMO, 500 lbs.
Look around, how many so-called "full sized" pick ups do you see loaded with anything, much less
500 lbs..
The defect in the VW truck was that the cab was too small, even for me, at 5'6" it was too small.
By SoupDawgs on December 7, 2011 9:58 AM
"Look around, how many so-called "full sized" pick ups do you see loaded with anything, much less
500 lbs.."
It's more about having a big truck versus actually needing a big truck.
Just like SUVs that see nothing but asphalt.
By Littlerocker on December 9, 2011 8:07 PM
The obvious solution to the weight distribution problem is mating a rear engine with front wheel drive for pickups. The engine would take up most of the cargo area, but as already stated, most consumers don't carry a payload anyway.