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quick car question


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hi,

in a two wheel drive car, TWO wheels receive power from the engine, and if the car were to be picked off the ground by a giant magnet, and given gas while in gear, you would see two wheels moving and if it were in four wheel drive you would see all four moving, correct? im in a huge fight with some friends about this, does anyone know for sure or have a dependable website that states this?

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hi,

in a two wheel drive car, TWO wheels receive power from the engine, and if the car were to be picked off the ground by a giant magnet, and given gas while in gear, you would see two wheels moving and if it were in four wheel drive you would see all four moving, correct? im in a huge fight with some friends about this, does anyone know for sure or have a dependable website that states this?

 

 

yes this is correct. which 2 depends on if it is rear wheel drive or frontwheel drive.

 

i don't know what the argument is exactly, but there are grey areas in your example if one is thinking of all wheel drive or differentials

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no... heres the thing. hes saying that any car that is two wheel drive, that only one wheel would be turning, and if it was four wheel drive only two would be turning. i said then, what is the point of a differential(i know that power is shifted, but that if youre just driving straight or whatever that all four wheels are powered equally, he says hes 100% right. i really want a dependable site or something that 100% proves him wrong

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i don't know what the argument is exactly, but there are grey areas in your example if one is thinking of all wheel drive or differentials

I was gonna say... :thu:

 

As long as we're talking two-wheel vs. four-wheel you are 100% correct. If anyone goes dragging all-wheel into this (and most folks are hard pressed to know the difference between all-wheel and four-wheel) then the ballgame changes a bit.

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he keeps saying hse 100% i REALLY need to put him in his place hes always making these false statements and neve rbacking up, the worse part is its these TWO KIDS against me. he always talks {censored} baout my love for wikipedia because anyone can write anything on there so i cant use that, and howstuffworks.com apparently isnt good enough. its gonna feel so good to stick this in his face

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he keeps saying hse 100% i REALLY need to put him in his place hes always making these false statements and neve rbacking up, the worse part is its these TWO KIDS against me. he always talks {censored} baout my love for wikipedia because anyone can write anything on there so i cant use that, and howstuffworks.com apparently isnt good enough. its gonna feel so good to stick this in his face


I hate to break it to you, but if they won't accept those sources I don't have high hopes for "well, so then I asked a bunch of guitar players."

:D

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Would it be more logical to make a car that only provides power to one tire, or two in a row? Wouldn't the the tire wear out a lot quicker if all the power only went to one, instead of being evenly distributed?

 

 

his friends are thinking of the differential, just not thinking about it correctly. the differential applies drive to the left or the right side of the axle depending how difficult it is to turn the tires. whichever side of the axle has less friction will receive more drive. this is a necessary part of cars, because as they turn corners, the left side and the right side of the car will travel different distances. if you are taking a left turn, the right side of the car travels a longer distance around the corner than the left side. the differential turns your right tires faster than your left tires to make up for that.

 

this is why when you one of your tires stuck in the mud or snow, all of the drive will go to the tire that is not stuck, because there is the least amount of friction on that tire, and the other one will just sit there in the mud.

 

there are limited-slip differentials that some trucks have, and police cars, where is will only do this to a point and then apply drive equally on both sides. very useful, but not necessary for most vehicles.

 

i think possibly your friends think that because of the fact that when you get stuck in the snow or mud, the tire that is in the air or is not stuck in the mud is the only one that will spin, they think that if you picked a car completely up only one would spin. i'm pretty sure they are wrong. if a car is completely off the ground, i would think that the differential would equally send drive to both the left and right sides.

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DADGAD, is correct, although technically it might get funky if you put a car on a lift and let it run. One side may be spinning faster than the other, but it should be about the same. The differential mechanically ties the output shaft and two rear wheels together at a fixed ratio. You could fix the one wheel and the other wheel would then spin twice as fast (similar to being stuck in the mud or on ice). The limited slip diff uses mechanical or electronic clutches to prevent this although I'm not sure how that would work if the car was suspended.

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