Skip to content
Trimslate
SavedHelp

Rear-wheel drive (RWD)

The engine powers the rear wheels. Favored for handling balance and towing.

Rear-wheel drive sends power to the rear wheels, leaving the fronts to steer. Separating those jobs gives the balanced handling that sports cars and luxury sedans are built around.

It also suits towing and hauling, since a load over the rear axle improves traction. The classic weakness is snow: with little weight over the driven wheels, an unloaded RWD vehicle needs winter tires to stay sure-footed.

From the data: Of the 19,491 trims in the Trimslate dataset, 5,215 are rear-wheel drive.