Are traction control and AWD the same?
All wheel drive (AWD) is the same thing as full time 4WD – without the “low range” transfer case setting. Traction control is part of a series of three braking technology developments that began appearing in vehicles in the mid-eighties. (Note: Many German vehicle manufacturers call traction control by its original German name: ASR traction control. ASR stands for “Acceleration Slip Regulation.” It’s the same technology we’re talking about here, but with a fancier name that most Americans have never heard of.) In chronological order, these developments are: anti-lock brakes, aka ABS (1978), traction control (1985), and stability control (1995). All three technologies come from the laboratories of Robert Bosch Company in Germany, and all address the issue of improving contact (traction) between your car’s tires and the road. Traction control works at the opposite end of the scale from ABS — dealing with acceleration rather than deceleration. Still, since many of the same principles appl