Maybe a stupid question, but I thought for some reason that the drive wheel was on the left, whereas I believe it was the right wheel for all of my former Chrysler products. I know it was the front left on both my '89 Chevy Cavalier and '86 Buick Century T-Type.

 

???
If I'm correct about what you are asking - if traction is the same for both tires, then both tires are driven equally. If you have what you consider the "drive" wheel on pavement and the other on ice, I guarantee you the "other" on ice will be getting all the power and spinning (unless of course you have a locker or limit slip in the diff).

 

do a burnout and see which wheel leaves a mark.

 

Most of the rear wheel drive vehicles I have ever had, the passenger side bore most of the torque no matter what type of rear end they had. Evidenced by the right rear tire wearing faster when I rotated tires.

 

It's a myth that open differential cars are one wheel drive. Both wheels get the exact same amount of power from the transmission. It is the torque of the car that causes the vehicle to twist so that one wheel gets more traction than the other. This usually manifests itself on solid axle cars. Independent rear suspension cars, like Dodge Chargers and Corvettes, frequently can lay down 2 strips of rubber even with open differentials.

 

On rear drive veichles the passenger side rear >>tries to lift weigtht off the road resulting in loss of traction and tire spin can result.
It is the normal torque reaction of the ring and pinion where the ring gear is trying to climb around the pinion at the center of the axle housing that caused the lift of the axle/weight off the road.
When both tires have equal traction, the body tries to roll toward the driver side as the oppisite reaction.
In both situations, the >axle housing twists upward< as the wheels tries to rotate the oppisite direction as part of the moving suspension and leaf springs, in it's reaction.
Traction bars and related performance parts can be added to limit all these reactions and provide increased traction.
Next time you see a tractor trailer begining to move from a stop; watch the reaction of the chassis to the engine torque applied.
Because of the weight on the multiple rear wheels, they cannot brake traction but axle try to rotate, the chassis responds to the applied torque through the suspension by both twisting and lifting.
In a PU, all these actions are more >divided< in all the areas such that you don't realize, but with the result the passenger side tire can lose traction.

 

Depends on traction available to each tire, weight transfer, and could be either side. I have spun either side and both sides at the same time with an open differential. KM

 

LOL. like said before short of a loss of traction both wheels will pull uniform. often one side loses traction first and like someone else said part of the issue on some platforms is which side of the ring gear as there is an up and down side.

but open differential is uniform driven or you'd always be fighting a pull to one side or the other.

ON those FWD cars you mentioned one other issue there was unequal length CV joints.

Also sadly I've never seen an open diff device lay 2 even stripes on pavement - The C7 corvette E-LSD is not the same thing as an open diff as it's both and electronically controlled with clutches that pull in electronically with commands from the stability augmentation system. This was torque vectoring and it's really impressive.

 

??? If you're rotating tires, you're not going to notice uneven drive tire wear.

I've never had uneven wear, front or rear wheel drive, either open, clutch LSD or Torque Bias LSD. There had to be something else going on. Bent driveshaft, worn suspension, bent control arm, etc. Even after day on the track, running through a good couple of mm's of rubber, no notable differences.

 

Yep same here. in addition when towing into a head wind the RR tire has a higher PSI reading than the other 3 caused by the tire experiencing the twisting forces to push the truck forward while the other 3 go for a ride. Drive tires always wear faster which is why you rotate so they hopefully all wear out at the same time (if they didn't why rotate?)