I live in a warm climate that almost never sees snow. However, I watched this entire video because I know if I ever move to a snowy climate this channel posts the best tire information on the internet.

I think the reason why BMW was better on the hill start might be due to weight distribution. Standing on a hill some weight of a car goes into the rear, which means that BMWs 50/50 becomes something like 45 /55 (front/rear), thus giving rear wheels better traction. In case of Audi, which has weight distribution something like 55/45 (front/rear) on flat surface, becomes 50/50 on the hill, which means that front wheels get less grip and cannot pull the car effectively. The numbers I present are just for example, but the idea should be clear. The reason I come to this conclusion is because Porsche 911s are extremally good when it comes to acceleration and can smoke cars that have 100+ hp more - all thanks to the engine far in the rear, which gives them weight distribution 40/60 (front/rear), which means better traction for rear tires.

The 2 most important things I got out of this video: 1. Get good winter tyres and you're almost always good to go, no matter what your car is. 2. I want to take my Type R on such a snow test track and have some fun.

I can tell you as an "Alpine person" - one situation where RWD falls flat on its face vs FWD - regardless of the tires. The deep, semi-wet snow. So for example - there was a snow plough or just heavy amount of snowfall on your parking lot - FWD will wiggle its way if you play with the steering wheel, but with RWD just pushing or pulling the car forward or backward - you will be stuck as hell. Therefore - lesson learned - I Only had RWD BMW once in my life - since then only Xdrive is bought.

Reversing up the hill would be a good test, biggest weakness of rwd. I've been stuck in sloped driveways before because of that

The biggest difference comes when you have to drive through relatively deep snow. Where the front-wheel drive moves out on its own, the rear-wheel drive gets stuck. Whether you drive through a snow-covered yard yourself, or whether you have to call someone for help - that is the decisive difference in winter, and not a couple of seconds during acceleration.

I was waiting for such test in years. Dazzling! Keep on doing your best

I am actually surprised at the RWD pipping FWD on the acceleration tests. Good content

Only one winner.........fitting the right tyres for the conditions.

One advantage that you didn’t mention with front wheel drive I have found is in deep snow often sawing the steering side to side you can maintain progress where otherwise you would be stuck? This often works!

Wow! Fantastic job of delivering real evidence that we need to know! Thank you, keep up the great job!

I live in Canada and have driven AWD, 4X4, FWD and RWD in the most insane weather conditions imaginable for decades long before traction control existed. I'm fascinated by your results because my real world experience tells me FWD over RWD in bad snowy weather, especially on hills. I've seen FWD with all season tires get up hills RWD vehicles with snow tires couldn't get up. Last winter I was driving in a storm on my way to work and came across a woman in a Nissan Altima 3.5 v6 with winter tires who was hung up in deep snow at an intersection where a snow plow left a bank of snow. I pulled over to help her and I could see her wheels were barely spinning. "Traction Control" was the cause. I showed her how to turn off the traction control and gave her a small push by myself. She had full power and her tires spun hard, she hooked up and took off no problem. You said traction control was turned off but in my experience some cars don't really let you ever turn it off fully. That could have been the problem in this instance with the FWD Audi.

In my experience, the gearbox also plays a considerable role, or maybe the gearbox-traction control combo. I got stuck on snow and gravel with a pre facelift audi A4 B9 2.0 TDI S-tronic way more than I did with any of the manual diesel Golfs and Ford Focus I previously owned. The traction control drops the revs while the gearbox pushes the clutch in just when you are about to get a move on! I have since switched to an xDrive diesel F10 with that creamy ZF 8HP gearbox and I never looked back!

I know a lot of people commenting on wanting to see deeper snow, but seriously you'd have to be crazy to take either of these cars, or any sedan, out in deep snow conditions. Thanks for the real world type test with a "normal" snow covered road.

Very happy that you included hill start mate! Kudos 👍🙏

Great test!! 🎉❄️ Always great job!

As a rwd BMW owner in Minnesota running winter tires, 100% smiles all winter long with traction control OFF!

Very good and informative video! My only comments on it are this: as someone from one of the major snow bands in the US Midwest and drives a FWD vehicle, there are a couple things I noticed that you missed: 1) For the incline test, I noticed that the FWD car just kept trying to go in a straight line up the hill even though that was shown to get them nowhere 2 out of 3 times. That's because in that situation, you shouldn't be trying to go straight up. The way to get moving forward again when stuck going uphill in FWD is to first, turn off traction control and if in a manual, put in 1st or 2nd gear, second, get the wheels spinning fast, and third, turn the wheels from side-to-side so that the car is zig-zagging it's way up. Doing this often helps get your car moving again when everyone else around you is getting stuck. 2) FWD is more stable than RWD in snow and is much harder to have fun in, yes, but you can still get it drifting around corners if you have an e-brake/hand brake and the skill to have fun in it correctly...also, turning off traction control will make fun come slightly easier, but that should go without saying. You need to pay attention to your gas and brake pedals. Time the gas and braking just right when you are going to turn and you can easily get that car sideways. Then pulling that e-brake/hand brake, while holding in the lock button so it doesn't stay engaged, will get those rear tires to immediately go to the side. Time the e-brake/hand brake right, and you can do some real passable drifting in a FWD car. Won't hold up to a RWD car in a race, of course, but the object here is to have fun on *empty* country roads and road courses, not to race. Have fun out there, guys! And most importantly, drive safe!!

Good video and interesting results. Looking forward to the next one! :)

You're the best. Thanks for all your hard work.

I’m surprised at the results as well. But these are test results at the hands of an experienced race driver who understands oversteer and understeer and how to counteract them. Put average drivers behind the wheels and I suspect RWD will result in more snap oversteers and accidents.

Conclusion, in the hands of a highly skilled driver who can comfortably continuously drift a car on public roads the RWD BMW is quicker with stability systems turned off than the FWD Audi with systems turned off. Yawn. In the real world having FWD would be safer for your average driver. You only have to watch Dash Cams of Australia (or similar) to see the number of times RWD heroes loose control of the rear of their car and crash on public roads.

Great content and really not what I expected in terms of results!

Thank you for you’re great videos ! 🎉

Excellent test! Really sucks how brands like Audi keep nannying things even with ESC "turned off". I think these cars are aimed at slightly different people. The BMW is for people who enjoy the driving experience and aren't afraid to get a little sideways sometimes. The Audi is for people who mostly want to be primarily comfortable, but also want to have the illusion of being a "fast driver" once in a while without actually getting too risky.

I put a set of Bridgestone Blizzaks on my MX5. It’s one of the best 2WD cars I have ever driven in snow. So much grip, but you can easily go sideways everywhere if you want to. So much fun, fantastic tyre

Great video, great content, well presented & made me smile being a BMW owner! Thank you & have a Great Xmas & Prosperous New Year.

I LOVE your videos. Have been watching them for years.

FWD cars are focused on safety and comfort. And they are more idiot proof. You don't get a FWD car if you want to have fun. Bottom line, they are more safe to drive, even by idiots. And to be honest, if you are driving carefully in snow (as you should) there should be no difference between the two. The small differences come out when you push them to the limit. Which again, you shouldn't on a snow covered road, with traffic around you. Unless you're a WRC champion from Finland. Then you can do whatever you want with the car 🙂 Great video, as always.

Some of this difference may be in fact gearbox related. The DSG in the audi uses a clutch and the BMW a torque converter ZF. Having to slip a clutch to set off causes more wheel spin. The 8 speed zf is clearly better suited to this task as it can pull from idle revs rather than the equivalent of about 1500-2000rpm with the DSG before the clutch is fully released. DSG can do faster changes and uses less fuel but that counts for little here and the ZF is also smoother too again helping snow progress. Is the audi always starting in first gear as it would stall if it set off in second? I seem to remember BMW's autos can set off in second. Often we were taught to set off in 2nd in snow. Not sure DSG let's you. My golf DSG will select first. And it's a very short first before going into second.

Amazing comparison and great presentation ❤

Great video, very entertaining 👏👏

🎉 I am extremely grateful for this video after waiting and asking for it for years. The content on your channel this month has been truly delightful. As a BMW owner, I can confidently say that people's fear of these cars is completely unfounded. In fact, BMW should be thanking you for this video!

never thought RWD would be better on snowy hill starts, I've always heard the opposite

Great video Manny thanks for your work. Perfect vidéos i’m looking at. Clear, fair and professional. Would have appreciated a break test also.

I wish I could go onto such a test track, your job seems amazing!

I am so surprised with you fidings as I have a FWD car and a RWD car. My Focus ST totally outperform my 130i in the snow conditions as I have been stuck a countless times with the BMW. For info, the Focus is having Micheling Cross Climate 2 and the BMW is having Continental WinterContact TS 860 S. The 130i being my daily car in Switzerland, I ended up fitting a quaife LSD (for fun purposes also :) ). The BMW is now more capable in the snow. Thanks for the great video guys.

Driving in snow is, most of the time, not about having fun, it's about getting where you're going and back again safely. This was a test on having fun in snow not "The Ultimate Test on Snow!"

Another excellent review, thanks JB 👌

You know we wanted a Quatro thrown in there! Great vid as always!

RWD is always the best ! 🎉

Great video but I really would have liked to see the test done with an AWD version of these cars too. I just wanted to see how much better the AWD version would have been.

I have the goodyear in the front of my Skoda Roomster (winterset). Even with the +-10°C now in BE they provid excelent grip and very responsive handeling. Rears will be swapped after this season. Always like seeing your videos because they are fun and get to the point. Also providing much needed answers to questions floating around. Love your work and I'll always recommened the top 3 or5 tyres you recommend because from my experience, you're always pretty much bang on the money.

Great content!

Good job for the video, i liked it. You haven't tested a killer situation for RWD, trying to back up a small incline. You go to the mountains in the winter on a narrow road and try to turn around, your front goes down a small ditch aaaaaand you're stuck 😂. Or even more ofter I've seen them stuck on tracks-small ditches left by cars driving in snow, the snow melts a tiny bit during daytime and freezes over the night and it forms small ditches ice solid, you drop both front tyres in that "ditch" aaaaand you're stuck 😂.

I've had plenty of RWD and FWD and when I lived with snow I had a lot more frightening experiences in RWD. I prefer AWD. Better in the winter and puts down big HP from a standstill better in the summer :)

I was wishing one day you did this video. And I'm glad you did it !

Great video as always, I was thinking about both cars, I decided to go for a Audi A4 Avant 45 2.0 TFSI Quattro, it worked amazingly for me in the deep snow & wet conditions.

I've always believed that there were very limited advantages to FWD in the snow. Specifically they seem to do a little better than RWD at getting moving in deeper snow, my assumption being turning the front wheels allows them to climb up out of their rut somewhat, compacting snow underneath rather than just getting pushed against an obstacle, then once you've moved a vehicle length the rear wheels have a rut to roll through instead of the non-driven wheels continuing to push through an obstacle. But for actual driving dynamics, it seems like the ability to transfer weight onto the driven axle while accelerating forwards is big. And yes, winter tires over all else. I got over a foot of snow in September a few years back and by a happy accident had winter tires on my very light one-tire-fire RWD truck. Nothing fancy either, just some older mid-range tires that came with a different vehicle I bought. It was pretty entertaining cruising around happily and seeing much heavier 4x4's on AT's getting stuck all over.

Thing is, here in the nordics back before you got all the electronics, you mainly saw bmw and mercedes in the ditch during snow storms. Audi wins, because no one drives with esc off. That said my own car is Subaru, that would most likely win by a landslide.

Interesting test suite. Thanks! As a BMW owner that will NEVER see snow, it's not applicable to my daily driving but it brings back memories of "puttin' one in the ditch" every year.

Hitting like button early because you know it's gonna be a good video from him.

Thank you! That has always been on my mind regarding RWD especially many new EV comes with it on base model. Important parts I learned would be: make sure to have good 3PMSF tires in the snow and when choosing RWD in the snow, it needs to be a 50/50 weight balanced vehicle to be safe & fun.👍

It would be great if there was some test, info, grip levels when playing with tyre pressures in winter tyres according to manufacturers. Does it make a difference, what to look for, safety... Great video as always. 👌🏼🔝

It was great to do Such a comparison:)

I always tell to anybody who asks me about my opinion of buying an Audi - if you really want an Audi, get a quattro; otherwise simply get a Passat, call it a day and you won't regret it. If i was the head of the company ALL of the cars would've been coming out of the factory with quattro AWD. There is absolutely no point of buying a FWD Audi. You really are better with a simple Passat or Golf. As for the "smiling" and "having fun" in the BMW - this "having fun" is what keeps the rest of us on nails while driving calmly. Because we know we are about to meet a BMW driver, who suddenly decides to have fun right in front of us.

Have some road markings on that snow circuit of yours (and keep on your side of it!) and some hard railings on the near sides of it that would utterly destroy your car if you touch them (looks more like a B road now doesn't it?) and then tell us which is more "fun" to drive, maybe coming home from work in dim light... YES, rwd is more sporty and fun on a CIRCUIT, where you don't have to worry about 90% of what driving on the road is mostly about. For REAL life driving on public roads, especially in slippery conditions, go for AWD if possible, FWD as second option and RWD only if you don't have any other choice, but ALWAYS spend as much as you can afford on tyres!

Your videos are fantastic! What if you tried backing the Audi up the hill climb to see if the weight transfer made a difference?

Enjoyable video. Good job

In snow, gravel, ice, mud, over steer is easier to correct than under steer. This is where my hatred of FWD comes from, because of the nature of FWD to cause front wheel slippage, which can lead to nearly uncontrollable under steer, and a very difficult fight to get it back under control again. It is far easier to rely on steer wheels to keep steering when there is no power to cause them to slip. Especially in town driving, where lower speeds, and very sharp turns can lead to many a fender bender, or a good old curb bump. I would reckon that many FWD's need that traction control to prevent this. Not merely an annoying feature, but almost a necessary one. A RWD can let the wheels, even the tail end, slip and correct in many conditions. Once the FWD slips, you might simply be coasting into the ditch/curb/neighbor/edge of the track. All the claims that "FWD will pull you out of a slide" fails on the fact that front wheels sledding on snow don't pull you out of anything. This is where 4x4 can even be problematic. "Bind" between the direction of the front and rear wheels can lead to a severe under steer condition. The power to the front wheels can help; cause under steer. With good traction controls and skill you can get a lot of good icy/snowy driving out of them, but once again the driver needs to understand the dynamics of his drive system, not assume it magically does better in rough conditions. And I suppose no good discussion on RWD snow/ice is complete without considerations of individual vehicle. Long wheel base like the BMW, or my classic full size American land yachts, leads to superior RWD slip condition driving. Shorter wheel base RWD often do worse. Also, we are given a stock vehicle with its factory weight and distribution. A little bit of sand bag here and there, or dead weight in a seat here or there, we can modify this easily to our advantage. Putting extra desired weight on a rear axle is easy for us. Adding weight to a FWD for advantage is often not even possible. Finally, we should think about gears. My 79 Lincoln Mark V has three tall gears in its C6 automatic transmission, along with a sky high 2.42 rear gear ratio! This does not make for a quick accelerating car, and we should respect the amount of loading the engine suffers every time it drives.... but it has the unintended benefit of excellent snow/gravel drive traction. Big torque applied to a slow, big transmission with high gears leads to stable, even power that does not want to slip and cause slide. Modern cars, with their low geared 6 to 10 gear transmissions, need traction controls because of how much instant power they can put down. Starting off in 2nd gear to gain traction in snow is a tactic as old as the car. The steeper the gears get, the more problems you might have on gravel/snow/ice/mud. Some muscle/sports car configurations, along with RWD light trucks and vans, can suffer from bad traction due to lack of weight on rear axle, as well as being short geared for acceleration or work. In this, we see a lot of bad rep for the RWD in snow. Short wheel base, low rear weight, low gears are not a winning combination for RWD on snow.

And I would also guess that different cars handle snow differently. So the real conclution is that the tires are really the most important bit. I run GoodYear UltraGrip Arctic 2 for winters, and they stick to the road like nothing I've ever had in the past. Great fit on my very front-heavy Saab.

With an awd BMW, I will switch the stability system to traction (MDM) mode to allow the car to slide and bite into the snow when trying to get out of side streets or on roads with a huge build up of snow. This way the computers are not braking the wheels and limiting the power. I can use the push and pull at both ends to get me and keep me going

I had two E90 3 series RWD back to back, doing 100k miles in each. I ran winter tyres and had no issues in snow at all. I live in the countryside and my commute involved about a mile or so of virgin snow, not driven on; and about 4 miles on compacted snow (the rest being dual carriageway and urban roads that were salted and cleared). The tyres were just magic. They made a noticeable difference in rain and generally cold conditions too. What's more, for the times of the year when it doesn't snow, you're in a nicely balanced rear drive car, not a dreary understeerey box like the Audi.

My 2011 Camry with some General studded tires with deep snow tread pattern were amazing to drive in the snow. Of course you are little slower off the line as a awd with winter tires but once up to 40mph in snow it was very connected as jeeps and big trucks were going 20mph and seeing them spin out in ditches.

All cars are good straight ahead, it is when the road starts twisting you can tell who's a good driver or not. Being brought up with rwd cars, and Volvo in particular from PV to 200 series, I totally agree a rwd car is more fun in snow and even on wet roads. Would be fun to see how an old Volvo 200 or a 700 would behave in a test like this compared to a BMW.

As it seems Europe has known for decades upon decades, and the U.S. doesn't seem to be able to wrap their heads around, proper tires are way more important than which wheels are driven. I think the better test would be which drivetrain layout wins with the average person in the driver's seat. I don't think enough people know how to handle a RWD car, because understeer is more familiar. So I'd like to see that comparison.

cool to see how often these two drivetrains tied! i always use snow tires on my cars in the winter, even though theyre all AWD. it makes a difference to me

NGL, I was craving a new Tyre Review video yesterday!

Rwd is better on snow on hills because all weight goes to the back. Its even better in steering because if you goes into curve fast fwd going straight whatever you doing with steering wheel.

Not surprised at all. One important factor to consider: the driving skills ! Get your average Jane or Joe in any of these great vehicles and the results would be rather sad, but it would guaranty great entertainment. Here in Canada when RWD were the norm 150 pounds of sand bags in the trunk was normal to have. As the years passed I did end up with a couple of FWD and I found them terrible in snow. I was also given a small FWD van for work (Rural setting) and it was just useless and of course we switched back to large RWD vans . The RWD van with the weight of our equipment in the back over the drive wheels gave it a distinct advantage over the FWD van. While working with the FWD van I often had to reverse on hills to get anywhere (This would shift the weight distribution to the drive wheels in reverse). I also for the past 50 years, have had a 4x4 or AWD vehicle as second car (SUV). I personally prefer RWD over FWD for all road and weather conditions. Enjoy these videos and with Christmas just around the corner have a safe holiday and great health to all.

Good content 🎉

This is satisfying

Great video as always. Both fwd and rwd has their + and -, the awd had the best from both. The fwd cats are usually easier to drive and safer by most drivers where the rwd cars although a lit more fun they requires a really good driver’s technique and they are more difficult to control, less safe. The reason why uphills are easier on rwd are simple physic’s. Just do the test in revers and bmw rwd will lose to Audi fwd, it’s like the mad of the car shifts and add or remove weight over driving axle

Jon, to be fair though .. the Audi looked under control the whole time during the acceleration test while the BMW was squirming .. put a bang average driver in both (not someone with your skills) and that driver may have gone clear across the road in the BMW while the Audi remained controlled. Depending on how you look at it .. a win for the Audi .. As always .. incredible vid sir !

Really interesting as I'm toying with an ev next and a lot of them on the longlist are rwd. I've only ever driven fwd with 1 car which had awd (Audi S3 so fwd biased) so this test was really instructive. As I run all season hankook on my current car was thinking I'd opt for the equivalent regardless of the car but this test has calmed my rwd anxiety. Thanks👍🏻

Last time I drove a BMW was around 2004 or 2005, it was a cheap E36 1993 316 my workplace had (really cheap - with drum brakes on rear axle), and before that for some months in 2000 I got a 1984 BMW 528i (E28). Now I drive an old front wheel drive AUDI A6 C6, and we got some serious snow (always got a shovel during winters in the boot just in case), once this week I even got stuck and needed some assistance from other people to get out. Because so much time has passed, I can't really compare them, but loved all of those cars.

Brilliant thanks 🙏🏻 I’d like to add a thought…. I think RWD will be worse on a normal road hill start. Roads typically have a crown, in the UK at least. Any spin at all, moves the rear towards the curb. The FWD can vector thrust a little and the rear follows.

Great test! As much as I like the outcome, I think the electronic nannies have skewed the result, making it not a real drivetrain comparison. Then again it's more representative of what to expect in modern cars. Nice to see that it's not that much of a huge difference in any case.

Astonishing result and, in my case, very unexpected. Looks like you really enjoyed your comparative test! I've never run a RWD car in snow and have either had FWD or 4WD/AWD vehicles, all until recently all fitted with summer tyres all year round - with predictably mixed results on snow or ice covered roads. Agree about tyres making a difference. Our FWD car now runs on all season Goodyear Vectors all round, which are very impressive in winter conditions. Our other car, a BMW X5, which is permanent 4WD, is on winter tyres, which are BMW star marked, runflat, Pirelli Scorpion in 255/55/18 size. The X5's unstoppable in snow and defies those who opinion that BMW 4x4 systems are vastly inferior to comparable Jaguar Land Rover models.

I love that 3-series. It's an amazing vehicle! Specially love the 330e version with almost 300hp.

wondering if keeping both tidy would give the same result in the handling test :D also hill climb kinda amazed me... if anything thought that rwd would struggle but i guess it makes sense since more weight is on the back in that situation

I enjoy watching these videos but always come to the same conclusion for my own car: Tyres make more difference, the real world difference is marginal at best, and I'm always going to prefer AWD with winter tyres

For a straight hill climb, where you start on the middle of the hill, RWD does have an advantage. Two things to remember is that with FWD you can steer left-right to “look for grip” and in situations where you can get your front wheels on the top of the hill FWD is a huge advantage.

RWD gives you more control, as you control your rear with the throttle and the front with the steering , with FWD you lose steering the moment you lose traction. Results make perfect sense, I've always found it weird when people prefer FWD over RWD for snow. The video was really entertaining. 👌🏻👌🏻

That was some beautiful driving in the BMW. Winter tires really do make all the difference and the rear wheel drive does help in climbing. I remember in old days we would put our FWD cars in reverse to climb up snowy road because we couldn't do it just with FWD.

Those fake exhausts on the Audi are something to behold.

Love to hear it.

Brilliant. Very impressed. The conventional wisdom is that FWD is better but the reality is that the average RWD car has about twice the power of the average FWD car and that reveals the central issue to lay alongside your statements about tyre equality. Powerful cars break traction more easily and are more of a handful on ice and snow. Well done for getting such well-matched vehicles. My own approach is to buy the lowest power BMW I can lay my hands on so I am currently looking for my 4th 316/318 since 2000.

the bmw really suprised me

Great video, good comparison! 💯 But in reality, I’ve seen alot of RWD cars struggling in the snow and not so many FWD.. I wanted to see the cars in some more snow. RWD really need very good winter tyres and preferably some weight in the back, and you’re good to go. By the way , RWD definitely is more fun but not for anyone.. especially beginners. For a light/small car (hatchback), I think FWD has more traction in the snow, because of the weight of the engine at the front wheels.

Where is the video taken ? Awsome :) !

Great test - as always. Next test please compare RWD cars, one with mechanical LSD and the other without

As mentioned in the comments, the advantage of the FWD is that you can turn the wheels get more grip when you're stuck, which you didn't do And as also mentioned in these comments and those of your other snow test videos, very cold and hard snow isn't the same as half melted fresh snow, where the AWD would have an advantage thanks to the steering

Fantastic video... one thing to note is Audi managed to have one of the best weight distributions for an FWD platform in it's latest cars. Any other brand would have even more front bias. RWD cars tend to all be pretty sorted around 50/50. Also the Audi did not manage to climb the hill at all in the bad lane, BMW was slower there but still made it to the top.

It's nice that such material has appeared now because I just bought an old BMW E46 to have some fun in the snow. Faster isn't always better.

Thank you!

Love this test. For the average driver FWD is obviously safer, but for any driver who watches your channel, RWD is the clear choice.

A test like this in 3 different Polestar 2s would be very interesting; FWD, RWD and AWD

This video was very helpful! I was undecided between buying my favorite sport car a RWD Camaro SS MT or the alternative of a FWD Hyndai Elantra N. Thinking that the FWD was going to be safer while driving in snow/ice condition. But the video proved that I was wrong.👍

This is great content. One thing from real world is downhill braking distance. Most of the times you can clime a hill with good snow tyre, but for me more important thing is how long would the car need to stop going on snowy downhill. I would like to see that result also. Keep up with good work 👍