The front wheels drive cars becoming prominent these days with Mercedes-Benz and BMW have actually pulled out all the excitement of owning them. The rear-wheel drive almost has its upper hand on the FWD. But simultaneously, those smart engineers working at the backend of such prestigious German car brands have cracked out a mid-way to settle the dispute between the FWD and RWD. Instead, the new solution could also ploy a one more option in the list for making the advertisement campaign more engaging than before. And, it’s none other than the deployment of “AWD” system to all the front-wheel drive cars!
The BMW last word to penetrate the world of luxury and masses both at the same time under the skin of value-for-money utilitarian, 2-Series Active Tourer is a direct competitor to the BMW B-Class, where Audi had nothing to offer against it in the segment.
So, in the effort to make the Active Tourer more lucrative than before BMW will ploy xDrive on it soon. We know, the xDrive is already bolstered on the X-Series SUVs, but it is the first time this German carmaker is employing AWD system on a front wheel drive car.
Learning in detail about it, engineers designed the overall equation to make the handling dynamic like the RWD and lesser concentrated on the rate of hitting some extreme rough terrain at the most for the upcoming AWD variants.
The weight of xDrive for the car is 61kg. Traction from the front axle to rear is passed to an angular gear and the gear is connected to two-part cardan shaft called as “Power Take-Off”. Angular gear sits on the front axle – behind the engine above the automatic transmission & crank case. The main task doer in this whole process is an electro-hydraulic multiple disk clutch (called as Hang-On) fitted inside the rear-axle drive. The clutch sitting inside the rear axle nook distributes the torque between the front and rear axle via the help of a ‘hydraulic pump’.
The Hang-On is responsible of sending even 100% torque to one axle at a time. The hydraulic pump which controls all these function in this hydraulic disc clutch works on the basis of pulse-width-modulated signal from ECU.
The only difference than the BMW x-Drive system and those used by others are the working style of aforesaid hydraulic pump. Other pumps work by the means of sensors and take the decision particularly. The case with this BMW tech is voltage and power alignment pushes it to work further.
This BMW 2-Series Active Tourer is also going to be efficient at the same time while deployed with the AWD.
Hence, the system works only when needed and for the rest of the time it remains a FWD car. It’s all because the spring-loaded valve opens and closes in milliseconds, and when all-wheel drive needed it builds up the pressure in the clutch and transfers traction to the rear wheels as well. When not needed, the valve closes itself and reduces oil level in the clutch, chopping down the friction and in return the car runs more economically. All these shifts take place in the technical zone without the notice of driver and passengers.
BMW 2-Series Active Tourer is braced with electronic gremlins like Performance Control, DTC, DSC and EDLC (Electronic Differential Lock Control). The new xDrive system will be only available on 225i and 220d models.
