Growing up in MI, I often drove RWD vehicles including Caprice with a 350. The folks that had 4 wheel drive were often the ones that were stuck somewhere, why? Because they thought they could get through anything. All it did was get them stuck further an worse than they would have without it. My only 4x4 was almost always driven in 2wd, and if the need arose, then I would put it into 4x4 to get out of that situation. Its unfortunate that the MMH only comes in AWD, its not an option that I needed, but if I wanted the Mariner, I had no choice...

 

I have a 4wd Mariner Hybrid.

I live in the Cleveland (Ohio) area. I am a Pharmacist at a nursing home. I do not have the luxury of staying home if the roads are bad. I also work weekends. Sometimes the plows have not cleared the streets on Saturday or Sunday morning until after I have arrived at work.

When the temperature gets down in the teens and below, the salt does not melt the snow. Then I am driving on ice.

If I could stay home when the weather is very bad, the 2wd is the way to go, but if you have to go out in very bad weather, the 4wd seems best.
As a side note, I tried to get my Mariner stuck in the driveway after a 16 inch snow. I couldn’t.
Rick

 

I would agree. My "day-to-day" wheels are actually an F-250 with a 460. I'm in rear wheel drive only almost 90% of the time. But there are those odd times and places where you have to have it. It can be dramatic like deep snow or slick ice on the highway, or trivial like a little rise as you are trying to leave some iced-over parking lot. I went to manual hubs after my automatic ones automatically dissasembled itself, and they stay locked 7 months out of the year.

 

I live in the Detroit area and have a steep driveway. I get a new car every year and usually drove a 4x4 Explorer, but switched to Escape FWD about 4 years ago and have had no issues with adequate traction. When I went to a hybrid, I chose the FWD for the improved fuel economy and the better tax credit. I choose to drive a SUV for the package - high seating position, flexible hauling capability, roof rack for the kayak, etc.

 

I have an SUV mostly for the winter months. Well, also for trips to the Home Depot.

Since it is primarily a winter vehicle, four wheel drive is a requirement of mine. For the nice weather, I drive my Mustang GT convertible.

After my first winter with the MMH, I think I loose more MPG due to the cold, than due to the AWD.

As to the tax credit, I peaked out (darn AMT) and couldn't even get the full AWD credit. So, the extra credit available for the 2WD, would have been wasted.

 

So 90% of the time your driving a RWD with no weight over the wheels and doing fine. Thats an excellent example of 4WD for an FEH not being *absolutely* essential, especially since in its case all the weight is over the drive wheels. Nothing wrong with 4WD on the FEH (after all mine is so it must be OK ) but its a preference thing most of the time.

 

There's only one engine type for the FEH. It's an 'Atkinson' cycle 4 cylinder engine (most all gasoline engines in cars use the 'Otto' cycle -- you can Google these if you want to see the difference) -- so it's not the same engine as the 4 cyl non-hybrid Escape. Atkinson cycle engines put out a little less horsepower than an Otto cycle engine (assume all things are equal except the valve cycle) but they use a lot less fuel. They are much more efficient.

The electric motor more than makes up for the horsepower loss from the combustion engine. Considering the FEH's Atkinson cycle engine isn't even as powerful the the 4-cyl non-hybrid Escape, not only does the FEH have substantially better performance than the 4 cyl Escape, it actually is nearly equal to the V6 Escape (in some areas of performance testing the FEH actually outperforms the V6).

Keep in mind, however, that if you're thinking of buying a hybrid, then you're probably doing it for fuel savings & environmental reasons -- and if that's the case, then "performance" shouldn't exactly be a priority -- since "high performance" and "high fuel efficiency" are basically polar opposites. Even if a car is capable of higher performance, full hybrids do better with slow acceleration off the line (to maximize bringing the car up to speed using the much more efficient torque of the electric motor and not require the boost off the less-efficient combustion engine) and long slow stopping distances (to maximize energy capture off the regnerative brakes while minimizing the need for disk brakes (which simply converts the kenetic energy into heat which then disappates into the air never to be re-captured again.))

As for 4WD vs. FWD in Detroit... I've lived in Detroit my whole life. We only get the sort of winters in which you'd really wish you owned a 4WD maybe once every 10 years or so. The towns & counties tend to be pretty fast getting salt trucks and snow plows on the roads. They're generally pretty clear within a few hours after a storm, storms are not frequent, and the terrain doesn't have challenging hills. A FWD is generally more than adequate for this area. I do recall a few years when he had weeks in which we were getting pounded with significant daily accumulations of new snow -- to the point where owning a 4WD would come in handy. If I lived in northern Michigan or western Michigan where lake-effect is a problem and there are more rural roads then I'd go with 4WD.

I own a 4WD -- but really only at the insistence of my other half who wanted to make sure we owned one 4WD vehicle for winter travel (my other car is a Prius). If it weren't for my other half, I personally would have just gone with the FWD for the better fuel economy.

 

I could be wrong, but from what I could tell the AWD has a slightly stiffer and more responsive suspension than the FWD version. So even though I won't take advantage of the drivetrain's capabilities often, I liked the handling.

 

Technically from what I've seen PHYSICALLY its pretty much the same engine. They create an atkinson cycle by changing the valve timing rather than the extra linkages shown on most atkinson cycle diagrams you'll see on the internet. During the compression cycle the intake valves are left open part of the way changing the ratio of compression to expansion and giving you MOST of the benefits of an atkinson cycle, without the extra linkages.

 

I got an AWD FEH to replace an '88 Chevy S10 Blazer 4wd truck. My mileage has more than doubled over the Blazer. Although I still haven't parted with the Blazer I'm not driving it. I do use 4wd for traveling very rough and rutted dirt roads to get to remote trailheads so I rationalized that I needed AWD in the FEH. And a friend of mine who bought a V6 FE and drives some of those same roads was regretting not getting the AWD. Had I not gotten the AWD, I feared I would regret it and compromise my longterm enjoyment of the FEH.

However, I have found the lure of high mileage to be so seductive that the 31mpg I'm averaging from the FEH isn't enough and I need more. So I'm currently watching for a well used Honda Insight with manual trans as a second vehicle.