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In Reply to: What are you driving? posted by Eldragon on February 5, 2006 at 17:04:14:
I was a Mazda technician at Almaden Mazda in 1988 when these came out.If you wanted a 626 with four wheel steering it had to be white, it had to be an automatic, it had to be a turbo, and it couldn't have a sunroof, if other words they were all identical.
There's just five degrees of steering at the rear, the front and rear wheels steer opposite directions below 22 mph for 'forklift' like parking, and above 22 mph the front and rear wheels steer in the same direction for enhanced handling at speed.
Four wheel steering is a useful option on a front wheel drive car because with CV joints at the front, available steering angle is compromised, limited by the CV joints.
The funny thing is they couldn't give these cars away! People would say things like "I'd be afraid it'd screw up and get me killed" etc.
Honda and Mitsubishi also tried it at the time.
It's been a great car, has 180k miles and I intend to keep it going as long as possible.
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