My brother was once telling me about how much his van sucked in the snow. I said “dude, that’s not your van. It’s the tires.”
Anyway, not directly relevant as it was a Ford Transit FWD. I was just saying what dave said.
As for the OP question, If there was snow and/or if there’s frequent-enough heavy rain I’d take the AWD for my daughter. Otherwise, FWD for reasons stated.
Either way, the first thing to do is to make sure that your kids understand driving under questionable traction conditions. I made it through many upstate NY winters in RWD and FWD vehicles without incident. Bad weather driving was a normal part of instruction. These days people seem to think the vehicle is supposed to handle adverse conditions. Au contraire. The biggest variable is generally the nut behind the wheel.
Better reliability, less complexity, lower repair costs.
Better fuel economy and performance.
Ability to replace tires two at a time. With AWD/4WD, all four tires MUST be identical (brand, style, and tread wear). With a 2WD vehicle, tires must only be identical on the same axle, i.e. both front tires must be the same, and both rear tires must be the same, but the front and rear can be different. If one tire becomes damaged (a common occurrence), you only need to buy two new tires.
Similarly, on a FWD vehicle, it is actually not necessary to rotate the tires. You simply drive until the front tires are worn out, then you buy two new tires, which go on the rear, and the rear tires (which will likely have minimal wear) then go on the front.
Easier maintenance and servicing. Need to take off the engine oil pan or transmission pan? Easy to do on most FWD vehicles. Much harder on a 4WD/AWD vehicle.
Sorry but That is simply not true in many AWD cases, on the at least the Acura MDX, you can replace 2 at a time, Most if not all staggered wheel/tire AWD vehicles can do 2 at a time,
on KIA/Hyundai’s you can do 1 at a time with out damage to the vehicle in any way, One of the Nissan Murano’s (I don’t remember the sub model) you can do 2 at a time, but most Murano’s require all 4, The FWD based AWD Explorers can have 2 at a time, but the AWD in the rear end will not engage if all 4 are not the same, but no damage… You have to read the owners manual to find out for sure… You absolutely can not make a blanket statement like that…
On a FWD or RWD vehicle that does not have a performance like package with a Posi type differential, you can replace 1 tire at a time all day long with zero damage to any part of the drive line… It is best to replace 2 at a time but NOT required at all…
On a GM fulltime 4WD transfer case SUV (and probably other SUV’s with the same design) you can do, for a short time anyway, 2 tires at a time, but the LF & RR have to match, and the RF & LR have to match, but not real good long term due to the diff side & spider gears spinning like you are driving in a circle all the time…
I did my time (17 Years) working for the largest automotive tire manufacture company in the world, on the retail operations side of it, I had to learn all that crap… I also learned a lot from dealing with National Account company’s that took care of thousands of vehicles, trust me, they did minimal tire replacements, and we loved the AWD’s, they knew what could have 2 at a time or what had to have all 4 at a time, if they screwed up, they had to pay for the damaged driveline… Same with Enterprise, The service manager that ran the ERAC in my area had all that info also, and rentals wear out tires and get damaged tires more than about anybody else and we could see 5-10 cars from them a day in some shops…
That is caused by not knowing how to drive in adverse weather.
My wife has never owned an AWD vehicle and has zero problems getting around here in New England with her FWD vehicles. We do take the 4wd and AWD vehicles I’ve owned up north skiing. But driving around in southern NH - FWD is fine.
UM…Wrong. Some older AWD systems you needed to replace all 4 tires. Also on SOME Fulltime 4wd systems. I’ve owned several 4wd vehicles over the years and replacing 2 tires at a time was never an issue. Most modern AWD systems now - you can replace 2 tires at a time with no issues.
I’m new here however, I’ve had 2 Nissan Rogues and loved them both. The first was a 2020 that had 54k on the odo. This one was AWD and it worked amazing when starting from a stopsign or parking space then at 27 mph it automatically kicks out the rear axel.
I now have a 2023 Rogue AWD. This one has the oprltion of full time AWD. We havent used the AWD feature yet. If I was to purchase a Rogue now based on my experience is now I would buy the AWD all over again. I got between 35-40 mpg on the 2020 and on the 2023 I average 37-44 mpg on the highway. They were/are both great SUV’s.
+1
When I got my second Outback (2001 MY), it came from the factory with Bridgestone Re-92 tires. A few weeks later, I had to drive in light snow, and I (wrongfully) assumed that the new vehicle would handle snow as well as my '97 Outback. Boy, was I wrong, because even with traction control, ABS, and vehicle stability control, driving in even light snow was absolutely treacherous.
That experience caused me to buy my first set of winter tires, and the difference was like night and day. And, I decided to dump those crappy Bridgestones when they wore down to 5/32, because their traction on rainy roads was also bad. I replaced them with a set of BF Goodrich tires, and even though the BF Goodys were a bit noisy, they were superior to the Bridgestones on both wet and dry roads.
The quality of one’s tires can make a HUGE difference in snow.
The members have given you many Good Reasons to get the FWD and also many Good Reasons to get the AWD; equally, at the same time, they have given you many Good Reasons to Not get the FWD and also many Good Reasons Not to get the AWD.
It’s now for you to consider all the rational reasons they have offered and finally make your decision and the buy the RED one because that is your daughter’s favorite color… L L . . .
Yeah the Potenza line, including the Potenza RE-92s are more for sports cars and high performance, not good in snow… It was not so much the B’stones as it was the Potenza line of high performance tires… I’m no tire engineer by any means of the word, but I have driven and tested and heard enough customer feed back to know what a good wet weather and snow tire looks like for the most part, and the RE92s was not a very good design… The much older Potenza G009 and G019 were great tires , but tended to cup up… If you would have had the Turanza line or the really old SE200’s on there you would have a different story to tell…
My sense from the discussions here is Nissan’s seem to have had a problem with their CVT’s, but if you can find one, their manual transmission cars seem to be pretty reliable. Not sure about their multi-speed (normal) auto trans. Other than that, the ease of doing DIY’er repairs seems to be the main compromise in return for a slightly lower purchase cost. I’d have no issues with buying a manual trans equipped Sentra for example.
As others have said, be sure to read up on Nissan’s CVT issues so you can make an informed decision. I have a 2018 Nissan with a manual transmission but would have bought a different car if it was only available with the CVT.
I presume you mean if your Nissan only was configured w/a CVT, you’d have deep sixed that idea & instead bought a different brand that offered a similar manual-trans equipped vehicle. Makes sense. I think some recent news reports have said Nissan is having some profit problems. hmmm … wondering, have they stopped selling manual trans equipped cars?
L . . .