Mitsubishi Outlander 2016 diagonal / roller test and S-AWC explained

This clip shows a real world scenario that many All Wheel Drives will fail. The car is on a steep and/or loose surface with twisted axles. In this situation only one front and the diagonal rear wheel have traction. You can see the left rear and right front wheel spinning freely. Many 4WD reviewers do a test like this and I tried it with the 2016 Mitsubishi Outlander with S-AWC. Mitsubishi's "Super All Wheel Control" is an advanced system with torque vectoring, a locking center differential and an electronic limited slip differential (ELSD) in the front axle. On the rear axle brake power is used to distribute torque to the wheel with more traction (a feature of "Traction Control"). The car was stopped at the worst possible position (even with a small rock in front of the right rear wheel) and it made it without problems - but only after the wheels were spinning quite a bit. The S-AWC selector was in LOCK mode (center differential locked = full 4WD). Electronic traction control needs some difference in wheel speeds to know which way torque needs to go and where to lock things. You can even hear the brakes engage (at 0:49 and 1:37). When wheels start to spin you need to keep your foot steady on the accelerator pedal! Traction control needs about 15km/h of wheel speed. Most manuals (certainly not Mitsubishi's) and most reviewers won't tell you this. Maybe most tester don't even know it... The golden rule of off road driving is to maintain momentum. Keep your foot steady on the gas and don't shift gears. If you turn off traction control (when you need the car to dig itself out of deep snow or mud) be aware that torque transfer between wheels of an axle via brake power will not work anymore. Serious 4WD vehicles have manual lockers for this, Mercedes G class for example: It is normally a rear driven vehicle. When you activate the center diff locker 4WD drive is engaged (with optional low gearing). The driver can also lock the rear and front differentials. All locks active meaning all 4 wheels turn at the same speed no matter what. The hints above apply to Subaru's Symmetrical AWD and other high end systems as well.