Why is Rear Wheel Drive Better than Front Wheel Drive?

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It really depends on your driving style, experience, and if you’re looking for performance. A front wheel driven car is generally considered safer because it is much harder to have oversteer since the rear wheels won’t swing the back end out and start spinning if they break traction. And if you experience oversteer you can just give it gas and the car will straighten out because the front end will just pull the rest of the car until the back end follows.

This creates a safer driving experience, especially for newer drivers. FWD cars also are easier to do a handbrake turn in. If the car is a manual trans car, you can stay in gear while pulling the handbrake and not stall because the rear wheels will be locked, but the front (driven) wheels will still be free to move. If you simply pull the handbrake on a RWD car without dipping the clutch, you’ll stall out and look like a buffoon. However, FWD has its downsides, which is where you can really see RWD make a difference, especially in a performance setting.

Because the front wheels of a FWD car are receiving power and doing the steering, and there is so much weight up front with the engine and drivetrain, it is much easier to experience understeer. This can create problems in a track day because you’d have to slow down a lot more than the other guy to go through the corner and not continue straight (this applies to AWD cars as well, but an AWD car can accelerate out of a turn faster than other drivetrains so it makes up for it).

However, since the steering and driven wheels are separate in a RWD car, each component can do its job to the fullest extent without having to do anything else, giving a more responsive ride. This also translates to less understeer in corners generally. If you’re a proper hoonigan, you can take your RWD car out for some drifting fun. So there isn’t a clear “better” drivetrain, it really comes down to what you want and need the car to do. Both have their pros and cons in both daily and performance driving. (Source: Quora)