GM HD Trucks Many with AWD instead of 4WD
Where snow and mud isn't an issue, you can have a 4X2 truck as your tow vehicle, but here in the Northeast, 4X4 trucks are the norm. Now GM is offering AWD instead of 4WD in many of their HD trucks. A...
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I personally am not a fan of AWD. Yes the system will detect well slippage, then send power to the other wheels, but the way I understand it is the system is engaged all the time thus creating more wear and tear. My tire gurus told me once of this system and their thoughts, so here is what they said. While the system works most of the time as intended, say now you have 20K miles on the tires and one goes flat or shot altogether. When you go to replace it, now you can either replace just the bad one or get 4 new ones cuz the cars transferase cannot compensate for the mismatched tread depths. In that sense, makes sense as to their theory and that's why I've shed away from AWD cars (easier to replace 2 tires VS 4. Now however, Subaru has nothing but AWD cars and most mfr's sell AWD's and it seems finding just a FWD car is getting harder and harder to come by.
I would rather be in control of which 4WD method I want and think a non AWD truck would have less wear and tear. In the days of old when Ford, GM and Dodge/Ram had what they called full time 4WD, power went to both axles all the time and 9/10 times only 1 wheel on each axle got power (usually opposites) and unless you had a locking rear (GM had the best), you really only had a 2 wheel drive truck and the wheels w/ least amount of traction would spin the most. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's how I remembered them. If you had a truck w/ lock out hubs no power to front axle at all. As the case w/ all 4x4's tho (even today), unless you have a locking rear axle of some sort, really only end up w/ 1 wheel on each pulling .
I would rather be in control of which 4WD method I want and think a non AWD truck would have less wear and tear. In the days of old when Ford, GM and Dodge/Ram had what they called full time 4WD, power went to both axles all the time and 9/10 times only 1 wheel on each axle got power (usually opposites) and unless you had a locking rear (GM had the best), you really only had a 2 wheel drive truck and the wheels w/ least amount of traction would spin the most. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's how I remembered them. If you had a truck w/ lock out hubs no power to front axle at all. As the case w/ all 4x4's tho (even today), unless you have a locking rear axle of some sort, really only end up w/ 1 wheel on each pulling .
