My girlfriend recently aquired one of these vehicles. Because it came with no owners manual she would like to know the dos and donrs of operating a 4 wheel drive.
I think you engage and dis-engage only while standing still, right? Also I believe it is a no no to drive very far on dry pavement. Any other tips?
A couple that come to mind
-
Don’t use 4WD on dry or even wet pavement. Pavement doesn’t have enough “give” in it compared to snow/dirt/mud to prevent the drivetrain from binding up when you turn. Using 4WD on pavement is a good way to break a U-joint.
-
You can engage 4Hi whilst moving, however to engage 4Lo you must be stopped and you must put the transmission in neutral before it will engage.
-
4WD helps give you better traction, it doesn’t help you stop any better though.
-
Don’t wait until you are stuck to engage 4WD.
-
On some models, the hubs won’t disengage until you gone about 10-20 feet in the reverse direction you were traveling. For example, if you were moving forward, you would have to shift back into 2WD and then reverse a few feet in order for the auto-hubs to unlock.
no 4wd on dry pavement, you must be in neutral to shift to 4lo and stopped or at least under like 3 mph but i always stop going into 4 lo, you can shift from 2wd to 4wd hi while driving down the road. if you havent already done it i would have the ball joints checked out very common failure on these rigs i have changed a ton of them.