There's a lot of people in the UK that believe having a four wheel drive (4x4) or all wheel drive (AWD) type vehicle means you don't need to worry about fitting winter tyres.

If we ignore the fact 4x4 type vehicles only have a traction advantage over two wheel drive vehicles, and that they have exactly the same steering and braking capability as their lesser driven counterparts, does having all four wheels driven really give you a performance advantage when compared to a front wheel drive (FWD) vehicle with the correct tyres for the condtitions on?

The tyres used in this test are the excellent Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 3 for the summer tyred FWD BMW X1, and the Goodyear UltraGrip Performance Gen-1 for the front wheel drive winter tyred version of the X1. Both sets of wheels and tyres are the same size and load rating, and both are inflated to the same, stock BMW tyre pressure. All testing was conducted in North Finland, at Goodyears arctic test facility.

As always, any questions or comments can be asked below or the YouTube comment sections.