My husband and I are getting ready to " pull the trigger"-- I just love that phrase!--on a 2017 XJL Portfolio. Both have low mileage, one is black on black and the other is black on ivory. They have the necessary bells and whistles. However, one is AWD and the other is RWD. We live in Missouri where the winters can be bad, but if it's that bad out, we don't go anywhere. What do you think? My husband would be the principal driver, BTW. Thank you!

 

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The AWD is 90% rear wheel drive anyway unless you have wheel slip. There is also a snow mode (on my 14 anyway) that forces 50/50 AWD. All things being equal AWD is better.

 

Jag7, I think I can sum things up by having you answer two questions.

1) How much power do you want/need? The AWD car will only come with the 3.0L supercharged engine (makes a nice 340 HP). The RWD car has the option of coming with either the supercharged 3.0L engine or the supercharged 5.0L engine (makes 470, 510, or 575 HP depending on the version you get).

2) How critical is gas mileage for you. Adding the AWD will drop your mileage by about 1 MPG. This may or may not be a concern to you. For some it is.

I guess the other thing is that you may find that a few of the upper end cars are going to have a few options that will be hard to get in the "lower" cars (relatively speaking here). So, that may dictate the AWD or RWD.

I have the RWD XJ with the naturally aspirated V8 and my car before that was the AWD X-Type. While the X-Type was a little easier to drive in the snow, the XJ is a lot more fun because it is that much easier to put on the edge and test your skills.

 

Thanks everyone for the information. Very helpful!