Correct. The "all wheel drive" is just a Yank term!
Interesting you should say yank as its mostly on the jap cars that I see the word AWD. So basically they just say all wheel drive to make the car sound different? Interesting...
True, the Japs do use "AWD", but then think about it - with particular reference to WW2. After WW2 ended, particularly afer VJ, the yanks moved into a lot of the Jap army and air bases, as part of the cease-fire agreement, and the yanks still have a very large presence in Japan today. The "American" culture therefore infultrated <sp?> a lot into Japanese society, particularly with educating the Japs in the English Language - which explains why the Japs follow the yanks when using "English" phrases.
Not quite correct. The Haldex system is an "on-demand" automated four wheel drive.
Yeah.. I didnt really pay a lot of attention in that thread... My bad.
Go and stand at the back of the classroom facing the wall!

There are differences in the actual mechanics of how you get drive to the four wheels, but irrespective of how the drive is achieved, if four wheels are driven, then it is classed as a "four wheel drive", and can correctly be abbreviated to 4x4. The Yanks will still use "all wheel drive" or "AWD", though this is not supported in any automotive text books. Get down to your library and read "Hillier's Fundamentals of Motor Vehicle Technology".
I win
And I will take a look for that book. Maybe force my dad to order it 
ISBN 0-7487-8082-3
It's on Amazon. Order book 2 as well, as it has DSG info.

Thanks for the reply. I will be honest I dont always trust what I read. An example. Before I created this thread my little farmer friend did a google image search for "All Wheel Drive" and then "Four wheel drive" and the same pictures came up for both searches. I always take Wikepedia with a pinch of salt.
Mike
That's the crucial thing with Wikipedia - use it only as a starting point for info, and never take it as "gospel" truth, because many of their items are blatantly wrong!
