An SUV without a 4 wheel drive is NO SUV: 5 examples!

The term “Sports Utility Vehicle” or SUV is being widely misused in the market to promote big looking cars. However, a true-blue SUV is a vehicle that can conquer most kinds of terrain can come out of sticky situations like snow or mud without struggling too much. The major features of an SUV include a full-fledged 4X4 system with a low-ratio transfer case. There are many who do not even consider big cars with AWD system as an SUV. In India, many believe that only the size of the vehicle matter and if the car looks imposing enough and has a high ground clearance, it can be called an SUV. But how do these 4X2 vehicles do in tricky situations? Here are five examples that show 4X2 vehicles falling miserably where a 4X4 SUV could have easily gone through.

Toyota Fortuner

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The mighty Toyota Fortuner is known to conquer the off-roading events and can reach some of the most difficult places with its A-Trac system. However, the 4X2 variant of the SUV can be tricky to handle difficult situations. Here is a 4X2 Fortuner on the snow. The RWD 4X2 Fortuner is struggling to find a way out of the snow and in a few cases, this can turn out to be really dangerous too.

Tata Harrier

Tata has phased out all the AWD and 4X4 vehicles in the Indian market due to the extremely low sales. At the time of the launch of the Harrier, Tata Motors said that only 1% of the total sales of their vehicles make up for AWD and 4X4 vehicles. Tata has developed traction control based terrain response system. It might be quite useful when you see a thin layer of snow or mud but this video shows how unusable the system is during hardcore off-roading.

Force One

Force One was an intimidating looking vehicle and was endorsed by Mr Bachchan himself. The Force One was available in both 4X2 and 4X4 drive set-ups but as always, the 4X2 variants were more popular in the market. Here is a Force One 4X2 showing off SUV skills on muddy terrain. The result is something that may surprise you.

Mahindra Scorpio

The Scorpio has remained one of the most successful cars from the brand in the Indian market. The SUV has also been around for years now. Well, Mahindra currently offers only a single variant with the 4X4 system due to the low demand. Here is a video from North-Eastern part of the country showing a Scorpio really struggling to avow its SUV tag.

Mahindra XUV500

The XUV500 is an extremely popular vehicle in the Indian market. Since it is also aimed at the travellers, Mahindra offers an AWD version of the car in the market too but there are not many takers of the version. Instead, they test the limits of the 4X2 XUV500 The result? Not quite great.

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