I had a Rendezvous with AWD and loved it. However, it was a 6-cyl and when the gas prices went up, I couldn’t bare filling the tank worth of $50 of gas once a week. I traded it in for a car that gets 35 mpg avg versus my Rendezvous that got 16 mpg avg. Unfortunately, last winter I found how much I missed the Rendezvous.

In comparison, I had a GMC Jimmy 4×4. It spun out often on wet roads, especially when I had to pull out into fast moving traffic on a local highway, which happened to be on an incline. I hated it and felt having to put it into 4WD when I think I needed it versus the Rendevous doing it for me when I didn’t know I needed it was awsome. I knew right away I made the right choice when I had to pull out onto the crazy highway in the rain and had no problem what so ever.

The last year I had my Rendezvous, we had a snow storm that dumped 2 ft of snow. People were stuck trying to dig their cars out. I jumped in my Rendezous, put it in gear, and off I went. Mind you, I don’t drive like I am invicible either, I take precautions, but I will never go back to the standard 4×4.

However, I am considering my next vehicle to have either Intelligent 4WD or a 4-cyl AWD. I found many of the 4-cyl AWD get way better gas mileage (23 mpg avg) versus the 6-cyl AWD. I don’t know much about the i4WD, which is why I came to read this article.

I am wondering if there are any issues between a 4-cyl versus a 6-cyl AWD other then power. Will the difference in power effect me when driving in snow? Also, is the i4WD the same as full-time 4WD? I have had people try and tell me i4WD is the same as AWD. If so, why don’t they just call it that. All I know is that I really liked the AWD, but I didn’t like the gas mileage.