Question: Cars only driven by one wheel?
 

I never new this but my friend was telling me that all cars actually only get driven by one wheel (torque/power transfered to only one wheel). Is this true?

Do muscle cars work like this as well? I am familiar with slip differential but I am kind of dissapointed to think that even muscle cars, and our Camaro, will only be driven by one wheel. 400hp+ to one wheel?

Anyway can someone please enlighten me on the subject.

Unless it's a motorcycle;)....um no. Cars are driven by at least two wheels.

What the slip differencial does is allocate more power to one wheel than the other when necessary, like wheel slip or off roading: but to get ALL the power to one wheel....that would require some extreme conditions.

Dragon is right.

It just occurred to me though...

Maybe you're talking about the way a non-limited slip rear drive car will light up (spin) the right rear tire.

I had a 69 Camaro like that until I changed the differential. That poor right rear tire! I used to fog the entire neighborhood - good times :)

The famous Mustang chase scene in Bullitt shows this situation clearly.

He lights up the right rear while the left just sits there.

The 2010 Camaro will definitely have Limited-Slip available. Be sure yours is so equipped when ordering or purchasing.

:rolling5thgen:

FWD = all power to Right front wheel. At least in my eclipse and my saturn it is.

my monte carlo will every now and then leave a pair of black stripes, but most of the power is on the right front like mindz....thought i'd throw that out there....

But put the car in a situation where the right wheel has better traction and the left one will spin, I guarantee. I'm not proud of it, but I have had a few FWD cars on the track. :/

I know of only 2 cars that are driven by 1 wheel:

• the T-Rex. It has a motorcycle type rear end, and the front looks like blunt F1 car without a spoiler. http://www.go-t-rex.com/
• go karts.

I think the problem being reffered to is torque steer. I think (could be wrong) that in front wheel drive cars the enginie powers the right front axle half which then transfers power to the left front. This, combined with less than perfect suspension and driveline setups allows for the right front to get more power than the left. When that happens, the car feels like its being driven by the right front. This doesn't happen in rear drive cars because everthing is symetrical.

Nah, your friend is misunderstanding the situation...

If both tires have equal traction (ie going straight down a road) then they both contribute to forward motion.

If you bias one wheel with more traction (ie shift more weight onto it, either by turning or by sitting on that side of the car) then the other wheel will slip first under heavy load.

So, if you SIT in your car, you add XXXlbs to that side, and in the USofA this is the left side of the car, so that tire will have more traction, and the result of this is the right wheel will slip first.

Both wheels contribute to forward motion no matter what, but under the WORST conditions the WORST happens.... the wheel that has the MOST grip usually gets the LEAST torque (as a result of 'differential drive' action).

This is why you need either a limited slip diff or a good traction control system (like the new Dynamic Traction Control on the new Caddilac CTS-V). These systems detect when the Unloaded wheel (ie least traction) spins, and reproportions torque to the Loaded wheel (and it does this by clamping down on the Unloaded wheel, redirecting the torque to the other side).

So basically your friend is wrong, but its not a simple yes/no question anyway.

~LSx

In some way the guy is right... all power delivered to one wheel.... it's called The "Fly Wheel".:sm0:

All I know is a few years back when I had an 84 Z28 we had a really bad ice storm. There was at least 1 1/2" of ice on the street. Lucklily, the car was parked before the ice hit so all four tires were still on pavement. I got the car moving but I got stuck trying to make a 3 point turn. I gave it a little thottle, then some more, then alot and the car never moved. When I got out and walked around the car, both front wheels and the rear left were firmly planted. However, the right rear wheel had burned down in to the ice coating the road and was just sorta hanging out. I could run my hand under the tire without touching it or the ice.

Luckliy since the ice was so bad, I put it in neutral, and pushed it back into its parking space. Then I went back inside, called in to work and went back to bed.

My '02 Monte does the same thing, it will even jump to the right a little, like the right wheel is just spinning, but the left is actually getting traction. I think it might have something to do with the extra 250lbs. on the left side of the vehicle...:bonk:

yes and no. it mainly has to do with the drivetrain itself. tho weight/traction does have its part to play. imagine a simple rear-wheel-drive vehicle, with one rear wheel on asphalt with good grip, and the other on a patch of slippery ice. With the load, gradient, etc., the vehicle requires, say, 2000 Nm of torque to move forward (i.e. the threshold torque). Let us further assume that the non-spinning traction on the ice equates to 400 Nm, and the asphalt to 3000 Nm.

If the two wheels were driven without a differential, each wheel would push against the ground as hard as possible. The wheel on ice would quickly reach the limit of traction (400 Nm), but would be unable to spin because the other wheel has good traction. The traction of the asphalt plus the small extra traction from the ice exceeds the threshold requirement, so the vehicle will be propelled forward.

With a differential, however, as soon as the "ice wheel" reaches 400 Nm, it will start to spin, and then develop less traction ~300Nm. The planetary gears inside the differential carrier will start to rotate because the "asphalt wheel" encounters greater resistance. Instead of driving the asphalt wheel with more force, the differential will allow the ice wheel to spin faster, and the asphalt wheel to remain stationary, compensating for the stopped wheel by extra speed of the spinning ice wheel. The torque on both wheels will be the same - limited to the lesser traction of 300 Nm each. Since 600 Nm is less than the required threshold torque of 2000 Nm, the vehicle will not be able to move.

An observer will simply see one stationary wheel and one spinning wheel. It will not be obvious that both wheels are generating the same torque (i.e. both wheels are in fact pushing equally, despite the difference in rotational speed). This has led to a widely held misconception that a vehicle with a differential is really only "one-wheel-drive". In fact, a normal differential always provides equal torque to both driven wheels (unless it is a locking, torque-biasing, or limited slip type).


plus how many of you have ever seen someone do a burnout on the LEFT side only of a rwd car?

the reason the right side does it is because it actually recieves more power than the left side of the axle due to the rotational force applied from the driveshaft.

Plus, to further illustrate your point, you'll always see cars pivot to the right rear on a hard launch. The left front always comes up first due to the engine's rotation.

That was a good point about traction control too.

It's a whole new ball game now - better game.


New info - here's a new car driven by one wheel!


The times, they are a changing. We've been seeing all kinds of craziness on the roads of Detroit these days in response to the insanity of expensive gas. We saw our second Detroit area Smart ForTwo last night and are wondering if the taste for hulking behemoths is being usurped by the compact and efficient. This was followed up by the shock we felt when we snapped this little bugger parked outside a local bank. The "Scoot Coupe" is a two person runabout featuring engines ranging in size from 50cc up to 150cc, and have an MSRP starting at $6,199. That seems like a lot to pay for something that tops out at only 45 MPH. For that money we'd rather have an old El Camino with a surplus golf cart in the bed.


http://jalopnik.com/381523/scoot-cou...-world-pending
:thumbup: