Thank you. Yes that's a nice outline of Mazda's overall system. My question was directed at the systems response to hill/incline and delivery of drive to the rear axel. One of the parameters that the car's intelligent system responds to is hill incline angle so I was asking about that.
They’ve improved it a lot with the later models that have an off road mode. It’s a simple device that locks a spinning wheel but at the end of the day, it’s a soft road vehicle and in that respect it’s quite good.The other day I was driving up my steep back entrance dirt road and found my self pretty well blocked at the top by a parked vehicle visiting a neighbor. I thought maybe I could squeeze by just barely while avoiding scratching the car with the heavy shrubbery on the other side. I almost made it past but then three wheels started to spin, two front and one rear. I tried turning off the TCS but still no drive to the one rear wheel on the driest part of the road surface. Ended up having to back down all the way on a narrow steep stretch. This reminded me of many, many years ago when I had a '74 Ford F 250 4x4 with the Full-time Four wheel Drive transfer case. As long as you were on a surface where all wheels had similar traction i.e. snow, sand, mud you had four wheel drive but if you parked with one wheel on an ice patch and the others on dry pavement all drive would go to the wheel on the ice patch. Wish Mazda could use it's "jimba-ittai" to send drive traction to the wheel with traction when the others don't have it as in the above example.
I assume you mean part-time four wheel drive system in the '74 Ford, aka, you shift the transfer case from 2wd to 4wd, thus connecting both front and rear drive shafts to run at the same speed. In that system, if only 1 wheel was on an ice patch, it would not deliver all the power to that one wheel. Only the power going to that axle (50%) could all go to a single wheel and as long as the other axle (which also got 50% of the power) had traction, you'd be fine. If one or both wheels at both axles had zero traction, then you'd have both those spinning and no drive to the wheel(s) with traction. Usually trucks have a limited slip differential in the rear that will provide some power to the other side when one side starts to slip.The other day I was driving up my steep back entrance dirt road and found my self pretty well blocked at the top by a parked vehicle visiting a neighbor. I thought maybe I could squeeze by just barely while avoiding scratching the car with the heavy shrubbery on the other side. I almost made it past but then three wheels started to spin, two front and one rear. I tried turning off the TCS but still no drive to the one rear wheel on the driest part of the road surface. Ended up having to back down all the way on a narrow steep stretch. This reminded me of many, many years ago when I had a '74 Ford F 250 4x4 with the Full-time Four wheel Drive transfer case. As long as you were on a surface where all wheels had similar traction i.e. snow, sand, mud you had four wheel drive but if you parked with one wheel on an ice patch and the others on dry pavement all drive would go to the wheel on the ice patch. Wish Mazda could use it's "jimba-ittai" to send drive traction to the wheel with traction when the others don't have it as in the above example.
This was a complaint of mine. It is slip-grip. I have a 27% incline driveway, and it didn't fully engage until the front slipped. This is part of what got it traded.Regarding incline at what point/percent grade is rear drive engaged? Also is it progressive and if so at what point is it fully engaged?
I hope the Rav4 Prime in your signature wasn’t your chosen replacement for that reason. It looks to be as bad or worse than the CX-5 in AWD tests. RAV4 Prime Roller TestThis was a complaint of mine. It is slip-grip. I have a 27% incline driveway, and it didn't fully engage until the front slipped. This is part of what got it traded.
*2019 GTR, tried with wipers on/TC off, all the tricks.
It does better than my CX5 did, is all I can tell you. Power to all tires. Works great! No slippy slip on my hill.I hope the Rav4 Prime in your signature wasn’t your chosen replacement for that reason. It looks to be as bad or worse than the CX-5 in AWD tests. RAV4 Prime Roller Test