Four-wheel drive, 4WD, 4x4 ("four by four"), or AWD ("all wheel drive") is a four-wheeled vehicle with a drivetrain that allows all four wheels to receive torque from the engine simultaneously. While many people associate the term with off-road vehicles and Sport utility vehicles, powering all four wheels provides better control in normal road cars on many surfaces, and is an important part of rally racing.
In abbreviations such as 4x4, the first...
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Four-wheel drive, 4WD, 4x4 ("four by four"), or AWD ("all wheel drive") is a four-wheeled vehicle with a drivetrain that allows all four wheels to receive torque from the engine simultaneously. While many people associate the term with off-road vehicles and Sport utility vehicles, powering all four wheels provides better control in normal road cars on many surfaces, and is an important part of rally racing.
In abbreviations such as 4x4, the first figure is normally taken as the total number of wheels and the second is normally taken as the number of powered wheels (the numbers are actually axle-ends to allow for more than one wheel on each end of an axle). 4x2 means a four-wheel vehicle in which engine power is transmitted to only two axle-ends: the front two in front-wheel drive or the rear two in rear-wheel drive.
The term four-wheel drive describes truck-like vehicles that may allow the driver to manually switch (sometimes with an automatic option) between two-wheel drive mode (if...
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