Getting a grip
Published Mar 15, 2018 04:05 pm
Text and photos by Chris Van Hoven
“Is all-wheel drive really worth it?”
It’s a question I get asked quite a bit from people in the market for a car. Admittedly, it’s also a question that I could never give a straight answer to. All-wheel drive systems on crossovers have always straddled a fine line between being a useful feature and being a premium add-on that’s just “nice to have when you need it”.
Part of my indecisiveness stems from the fact that I’ve never been put in a situation where I felt all-wheel drive was a necessary feature. As a motoring journalist, we’re exposed to polar ends of the automotive spectrum, from high speed track tests to serious 4x4 off-roading in shin-deep mud, river crossings and 50-degree inclines. Pushing the all-wheel drive capabilities of your everyday crossover isn’t really something most manufacturers besides Subaru usually highlight. So when the opportunity came to put Mazda’s i-Activ all-wheel drive system through its paces, I was more than ready to satisfy my curiosity and finally put the question to bed.
Snow, and lots of it
The Kenbuchi Proving Ground nestled deep in the Kamikawa region of Hokkaido, Japan is a massive 1,161-acre facility where Mazda conducts cold-weather testing on their all-wheel drive, ABS, traction control and stability control systems. As one of two cold-weather testing facilities in Hokkaido – a region where it snows approximately 148 times a year – Kenbuchi features extreme driving conditions, including low visibility blizzards, zero-grip ice roads, mountain paths and steep embankments. It’s here that we get to test Mazda’s latest crossovers, the CX-8 (Mazda doesn’t sell the CX-9 in Japan), the CX-5 and the CX-3, with an all-wheel drive Mazda3 thrown in for good measure.
Zero-grip performance
The ice-covered roads prove to be an excellent test of Mazda’s i-Activ system. Measuring grip as a coefficient of friction, with perfect grip signified by a coefficient of 1.0, icy roads have the least grip possible, with a coefficient of 0.1. Snow-covered roads have a coefficient of 0.1-0.2, water running on asphalt receives a coefficient of 0.3-0.4, with sand on asphalt, gravel dirt courses, and wet asphalt receiving a range of 0.4 – 0.7 respectively.
Driving around the course at a nerve-wracking-in-the-snow 40 km/h pace already reveals a lot of insight as to how the rear tires compensate for grip when the front tires start to slip. Mazda’s all-wheel drive system boasts of the world’s first slip prediction detection system, which, as the name implies, predicts a slippery road situation before it’s felt by the driver. It does this with the use of 27 sensors that measure everything from outside temperature and your throttle operation, to brake fluid pressure and if your wipers are on, to gauge what kind of driving situation you’re in. In short, Mazda’s i-Activ system is engineered to do all of the thinking for you, with dozens of these operations continuously measured at 200 times per second.
Real-world benefits
Looking at specs on paper is one thing, but feeling the system work during real world applications really puts things into perspective. We were given two Mazda3s to drive around a tight gymkhana course with our lap times recorded. The first Mazda3 used a standard front-wheel drive powertrain, and the other was equipped with Mazda’s i-Activ all-wheel drive system. The difference is immediately apparent from the moment I’m flagged off. The front-wheel drive Mazda3 stays helplessly in place even with a moderate amount of throttle, with its tires begging for any kind of grip to get the car moving.
The all-wheel drive Mazda3 doesn’t have this problem, with up to 50-percent of the car’s available torque being sent to the rear wheels as it works in conjunction with the traction control system to launch from the starting line effortlessly. The rest of the course showed similar results. Each turn in the front-wheel drive car resulted in massive understeer, with the car’s nose going straight forward even with the wheel turned towards the direction you want to go. The i-Activ AWD equipped car had a much easier time negotiating the course, with no perceptible lag between the times the car loses grip, to when the rear wheels power up to help point you towards your intended direction.
Is AWD worth it?
My eyes have been opened to the worth of an all-wheel drive system on a car. Testing on snow and ice means that Mazda’s i-Activ all-wheel drive system is more than capable of improving traction on road conditions we’re more familiar with – rain and mud. Sudden changes in road surfaces is something we encounter on a usual basis, and an AWD system contributes not only to how your car performs on slippery roads, but exponentially increases the safety of you and your passengers as well.
“Is all-wheel drive really worth it?”
It’s a question I get asked quite a bit from people in the market for a car. Admittedly, it’s also a question that I could never give a straight answer to. All-wheel drive systems on crossovers have always straddled a fine line between being a useful feature and being a premium add-on that’s just “nice to have when you need it”.
Part of my indecisiveness stems from the fact that I’ve never been put in a situation where I felt all-wheel drive was a necessary feature. As a motoring journalist, we’re exposed to polar ends of the automotive spectrum, from high speed track tests to serious 4x4 off-roading in shin-deep mud, river crossings and 50-degree inclines. Pushing the all-wheel drive capabilities of your everyday crossover isn’t really something most manufacturers besides Subaru usually highlight. So when the opportunity came to put Mazda’s i-Activ all-wheel drive system through its paces, I was more than ready to satisfy my curiosity and finally put the question to bed.
Snow, and lots of it
The Kenbuchi Proving Ground nestled deep in the Kamikawa region of Hokkaido, Japan is a massive 1,161-acre facility where Mazda conducts cold-weather testing on their all-wheel drive, ABS, traction control and stability control systems. As one of two cold-weather testing facilities in Hokkaido – a region where it snows approximately 148 times a year – Kenbuchi features extreme driving conditions, including low visibility blizzards, zero-grip ice roads, mountain paths and steep embankments. It’s here that we get to test Mazda’s latest crossovers, the CX-8 (Mazda doesn’t sell the CX-9 in Japan), the CX-5 and the CX-3, with an all-wheel drive Mazda3 thrown in for good measure.
Zero-grip performance
The ice-covered roads prove to be an excellent test of Mazda’s i-Activ system. Measuring grip as a coefficient of friction, with perfect grip signified by a coefficient of 1.0, icy roads have the least grip possible, with a coefficient of 0.1. Snow-covered roads have a coefficient of 0.1-0.2, water running on asphalt receives a coefficient of 0.3-0.4, with sand on asphalt, gravel dirt courses, and wet asphalt receiving a range of 0.4 – 0.7 respectively.
Driving around the course at a nerve-wracking-in-the-snow 40 km/h pace already reveals a lot of insight as to how the rear tires compensate for grip when the front tires start to slip. Mazda’s all-wheel drive system boasts of the world’s first slip prediction detection system, which, as the name implies, predicts a slippery road situation before it’s felt by the driver. It does this with the use of 27 sensors that measure everything from outside temperature and your throttle operation, to brake fluid pressure and if your wipers are on, to gauge what kind of driving situation you’re in. In short, Mazda’s i-Activ system is engineered to do all of the thinking for you, with dozens of these operations continuously measured at 200 times per second.
Real-world benefits
Looking at specs on paper is one thing, but feeling the system work during real world applications really puts things into perspective. We were given two Mazda3s to drive around a tight gymkhana course with our lap times recorded. The first Mazda3 used a standard front-wheel drive powertrain, and the other was equipped with Mazda’s i-Activ all-wheel drive system. The difference is immediately apparent from the moment I’m flagged off. The front-wheel drive Mazda3 stays helplessly in place even with a moderate amount of throttle, with its tires begging for any kind of grip to get the car moving.
The all-wheel drive Mazda3 doesn’t have this problem, with up to 50-percent of the car’s available torque being sent to the rear wheels as it works in conjunction with the traction control system to launch from the starting line effortlessly. The rest of the course showed similar results. Each turn in the front-wheel drive car resulted in massive understeer, with the car’s nose going straight forward even with the wheel turned towards the direction you want to go. The i-Activ AWD equipped car had a much easier time negotiating the course, with no perceptible lag between the times the car loses grip, to when the rear wheels power up to help point you towards your intended direction.
Is AWD worth it?
My eyes have been opened to the worth of an all-wheel drive system on a car. Testing on snow and ice means that Mazda’s i-Activ all-wheel drive system is more than capable of improving traction on road conditions we’re more familiar with – rain and mud. Sudden changes in road surfaces is something we encounter on a usual basis, and an AWD system contributes not only to how your car performs on slippery roads, but exponentially increases the safety of you and your passengers as well.