pontiac vibe awd/fwd, difference in appearance?

[bluneon]

i'm looking into possible purchasing a first gen awd vibe.

is there any way other than the 'all wheel drive' name plate on the rear hatch or running the VIN through carfax to tell if the vehicle truly is AWD? also the name plate on the hatch could be removed....

there seems to be a LOT of fwd vibes out there....

are there certain color, option combinations that are awd specific?

thanks.

[markpetersonii]

Not too sure, I guess I'd just run the VIN, I know the engines aren't any different... I think this type of question is a good one for the Vibe guys; notallthere and MTZvibe.

[[ChaosweaveR]]

From what I've seen...there isn't any. I've seen maybe three AWD Vibes, and they looked just like a FWD Vibe. Same goes for the Matrix sister car.

[notallthere]

The AWD Vibes sit about 1/2" higher in the rear than that of the Base and GT models. Also they were only available in Automatics for those years as well. The rear suspension is also independent and not solid axle like the GT and Base models. To check I would just look under the rear bumper if you see a drive axle then it is an AWD model.