fDriveBiasFront Explained: AWD, FWD and RWD in GTA V

fDriveBiasFront is the handling.meta field that decides which wheels a GTA V vehicle drives. It is the share of drive force sent to the front axle: 0.0 is rear-wheel drive (RWD), 1.0 is front-wheel drive (FWD), and any value in between is all-wheel drive (AWD). At 0.5 the force is split evenly. At 0.2, the stock Adder's value, 20% goes to the front wheels and 80% to the rear.

What fDriveBiasFront does

The field sits in the transmission part of each CHandlingData item, next to the gear count and drive force. In a file exported by the Handling Editor, the stock Adder's line looks like this:

<fDriveBiasFront value="0.200000" />

The GTA modding wiki sums it up: "0.0 is rear wheel drive, 1.0 is front wheel drive, and any value between 0.01 and 0.99 is four wheel drive", and 0.5 gives "both front and rear axles equal force, being perfect 4WD."

Here is what common values mean, with stock vehicles that use them:

fDriveBiasFront	Layout	Stock examples
0.0	RWD	futo, banshee, dominator, gauntlet, sentinel
0.2	AWD, mostly rear	adder, entityxf, infernus, nero
0.3	AWD, mostly rear	t20, zentorno, osiris, italigtb
0.4	AWD, mostly rear	sultan, fq2, patriot, landstalker
0.5	AWD, even split	neon, xa21, italirsx, paragon
0.6	AWD, mostly front	baller, granger, serrano, cavalcade
0.7	AWD, mostly front	vivanite, vivanite2
1.0	FWD	blista, asea, premier, kanjo, issi2

The bias only decides where the force goes. How much force there is comes from fInitialDriveForce, and how well the tires use it comes from the traction fields. Our handling.meta field guide covers those.

AWD, FWD and RWD in stock GTA V vehicles

We counted the values in the stock handling of 916 GTA V vehicles that the Handling Editor ships. Leaving out aircraft, boats, trains, trailers, motorcycles and bicycles leaves 692 land vehicles:

• RWD (0.0): 431 vehicles, 62%.
• AWD (between): 235 vehicles, 34%. Of these, 145 send less than half the force to the front, 63 split it evenly at exactly 0.5 and 27 send more than half to the front.
• FWD (1.0): 26 vehicles, 4%.

The most common AWD values are 0.5 (63 vehicles), 0.4 (30), 0.2 and 0.3 (27 each), 0.6 (23) and 0.25 (13). Motorcycles are almost all 0.0: 67 of the 68 stock motorcycles use it.

Here is the split by category in our GTA V vehicle list (a vehicle can sit in more than one category):

Category	Vehicles	RWD	AWD	FWD
Super	62	39	23	0
Sports	96	60	35	1
Muscle	105	96	9	0
Sedan	60	45	10	5
Compact	31	11	8	12
SUV	54	2	52	0
Off-Road	67	16	51	0
Drift	24	0	24	0

Compacts are the only category in the table where FWD is common: 12 of 31, almost half of the 26 FWD land vehicles. SUVs are almost all AWD, muscle cars almost all RWD, and most supercars are RWD too.

fDriveBiasFront vs fTractionBiasFront vs fBrakeBiasFront

Three handling fields end in BiasFront, and each splits something different between the front and rear axles. They are separate settings, so changing one doesn't change the others.

Field	What it splits	Allowed values	Stock land vehicles
fDriveBiasFront	Drive force	0.0 (RWD) to 1.0 (FWD)	0.0 on 431 of 692
fTractionBiasFront	Grip	0.01 to 0.99	All between 0.325 and 0.525
fBrakeBiasFront	Braking force	0.0 (rear only) to 1.0 (front only)	462 of 692 above 0.5

Traction bias is the one to handle with care. The wiki says "0.01 = only rear axle has traction. 0.99 = only front axle has traction", and that 0.0 or 1.0 leaves the vehicle with no traction ("the tires actually fail to spawn"). Don't set it to 1.0 thinking it makes a car FWD; that is the drive bias's job.

For brake bias, the wiki notes that real cars usually brake harder at the front (it gives 0.65 as an example), and most stock vehicles follow that. Three stock examples show how the fields mix:

• blista (FWD): drive 1.0, traction 0.487, brake 0.65.
• adder (AWD): drive 0.2, traction 0.485, brake 0.45.
• baller (AWD): drive 0.6, traction 0.5, brake 0.65.

Rockstar's drift cars: rear-biased AWD, not RWD

The stock data has 24 drift cars, such as driftfuto and drifttampa. All 24 use an fDriveBiasFront between 0.05 and 0.25, and 21 of the 23 that have a stock counterpart are built on a RWD car. So Rockstar's drift cars are rear-biased AWD, not pure RWD.

Stock car → drift version	Drive bias	Traction bias	Brake bias
futo → driftfuto	0.0 → 0.175	0.5 → 0.4585	0.55 → 0.2
sentinel → driftsentinel	0.0 → 0.15	0.487 → 0.462	0.425 → 0.22
zr350 → driftzr350	0.0 → 0.25	0.486 → 0.45975	0.533 → 0.29
tampa → drifttampa	0.0 → 0.22	0.5 → 0.4595	0.65 → 0.2
yosemite → driftyosemite	0.0 → 0.25	0.495 → 0.4525	0.7 → 0.12

The other biases move too: 21 of the 23 pairs shift traction bias slightly toward the rear, and 16 move brake bias toward the rear (none move it forward). The biases are only part of the change. All 24 drift versions also turn steering lock up to 68 to 80.5 degrees, set fTractionCurveMax to 1.53 and fTractionCurveMin to 1.52 or 1.525, and set fLowSpeedTractionLossMult to 0. Their drive force rises to 0.61 to 0.73, two to three times the stock value on most pairs, and 23 of the 24 set strHandlingFlags to 20000. Treat these as reference values and test any copy in game.

How to change fDriveBiasFront for FiveM

Make a car AWD, FWD or RWD in handling.meta

1. Find the vehicle's CHandlingData item. Its handlingName must match the handlingId in the vehicle's vehicles.meta, which is not always the spawn name (the ambulance uses AMBULAN).
2. Set the value. Use 0.0 for RWD, 1.0 for FWD, or anything from 0.01 to 0.99 for AWD.
3. Load the file with a data_file 'HANDLING_FILE' line in fxmanifest.lua, ensure the resource in server.cfg and restart the server. Our fxmanifest.lua guide explains the manifest.

<!-- RWD -->
<fDriveBiasFront value="0.000000" />

<!-- AWD: 30% of the drive force to the front, 70% to the rear -->
<fDriveBiasFront value="0.300000" />

<!-- FWD -->
<fDriveBiasFront value="1.000000" />

In the Handling Editor

The Drivetrain switch writes exact values: Front Wheel Drive is 1.0, All Wheel Drive is 0.5 and Rear Wheel Drive is 0.0. Bike projects hide the switch, and a preset or base change sets their bias to 0.

Some actions in the editor rewrite the value and others keep it:

• These set it to 0, 0.5 or 1.0: clicking a Drivetrain button, choosing a Style Override preset, picking a Base Handling and Load from file. They all use the switch's current setting. With Rear Wheel Drive selected, picking the Adder as a base gives you an Adder at 0.0, not its stock 0.2.
• Presets don't choose the drivetrain. Drift and Muscle list 0 and Off-road and Rally list 0.5, but the switch's value replaces them. Click Rear Wheel Drive yourself for a RWD drift build.
• These keep the exact value: creating a project from a stock spawn name, dropping a file on the project hub, reopening a project, and the Basic and Advanced sliders. The switch then only shows a label: Rear Wheel Drive for 0.05 and below, Front Wheel Drive for 0.95 and above, All Wheel Drive in between.

There is no slider for in-between values such as 0.3. Either put the value in your own file before you drop it on the project hub (the editor keeps it until one of the actions above rewrites it), or export and change the number by hand: in the "handling.meta only" file, or in meta/<name>_handling.meta inside the "FiveM Resource" zip.

From a script, for testing

A client script can change the value on a vehicle that already exists with the SetVehicleHandlingFloat native. The Handling Editor's Realtime Preview (beta) does this, and it also switches the powered wheels with SetVehicleWheelIsPowered. For AWD it powers every wheel:

-- client side: what the preview does for an AWD value, simplified
local vehicle = GetVehiclePedIsIn(PlayerPedId(), false)
SetVehicleHandlingFloat(vehicle, 'CHandlingData', 'fDriveBiasFront', 0.5)
for i = 0, GetVehicleNumberOfWheels(vehicle) - 1 do
  SetVehicleWheelIsPowered(vehicle, i, true)
end

Use this for quick tests and check the result in game. For a permanent change, edit the handling.meta. The preview itself is described on the Live Vehicle Handling Editor page.

Common fDriveBiasFront mistakes

• Editing the wrong handling entry. If your handlingName doesn't match the vehicle's handlingId, nothing changes. Some names are shared, too: an edit to BURRITO changes all five burrito vans.
• Mixing up the three biases. Only fDriveBiasFront changes the drivetrain. Setting fTractionBiasFront to 0.0 or 1.0 removes traction.
• Losing a stock split in the editor. Values like the Adder's 0.2 or the Sultan's 0.4 become 0.5 as soon as you click All Wheel Drive, a preset or a new base. Re-enter the stock number by hand after export if you want it back.

Frequently asked questions

What does fDriveBiasFront 0.5 mean?

It splits the drive force evenly: half goes to the front axle and half to the rear, so the vehicle is AWD. The GTA modding wiki calls 0.5 perfect 4WD. It is also the most common AWD value among stock GTA V land vehicles, used by 63 of them.

Is fDriveBiasFront 0 RWD or FWD?

A value of 0.0 is rear-wheel drive and 1.0 is front-wheel drive. The field is the share of drive force sent to the front axle, so 0.0 sends none of it to the front wheels.

How do I make a car AWD in GTA 5 or FiveM?

Set fDriveBiasFront to a value between 0.01 and 0.99 in the car's handling.meta: 0.5 for an even split, or a lower value such as the stock Adder's 0.2 to keep most of the drive at the rear. On FiveM, load the file with a data_file 'HANDLING_FILE' line in fxmanifest.lua and restart the server. In the Handling Editor, the All Wheel Drive button writes 0.5.

What is the difference between fDriveBiasFront and fTractionBiasFront?

fDriveBiasFront splits drive force between the axles. fTractionBiasFront splits grip, and it must stay between 0.01 and 0.99 because the GTA modding wiki says 0.0 or 1.0 leaves the vehicle with no traction. Every stock land vehicle keeps its traction bias between 0.325 and 0.525, whatever its drivetrain.

Why did changing fDriveBiasFront not change my car?

Check that the handlingName in your file matches the handlingId in the vehicle's vehicles.meta (stock names often differ, such as AMBULAN for the ambulance), that fxmanifest.lua loads the file with a data_file 'HANDLING_FILE' line, and that you restarted the server. In the Handling Editor, also check the Drivetrain switch, because a preset or a new base takes its value.