Usng 4 Wheel Drive on Dry Pavement

here you go. I was on my iPhone...

http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/2nd-gen-tacomas/74977-2010-tacoma-driveshaft-recall.html

 

I can't find a link. If you can send me one, or an e-mail address to one, I would appreciate it.

 

Thanks for the link

 

Hmm, what if you live in a snowy state and there's intervals of dry pavement on the road.. I don't want to have to keep switching from 2wd to 4wd or vice versa. Just leave it in 4wd?

 

I'd suggest just keeping it simple. 2WD, good tires and driving in a cautious manner. If you start to experience really bad conditions, then pop it into 4WD and slow down until it is safe to travel at speed in 2WD.

 

It's more complicated than that =\. I live in Alaska and the weather is pretty weird and harsh.

 

Personally I would probably be switching back and forth if I could rather than drive in 4WD on dry pavement. Kind of depends on what level of snow/dry pavement you're talking about.

 

Apparently it works fine for drag racing too! Go to thread #85.

http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/2nd-gen-tacomas/65341-tacoma-0-60-4-seconds-5.html

 

I live in northern British Columbia so I'm quite experienced with weird and harsh weather

Winter driving is all about slowing things down and raising the caution level. Even in 2WD your truck is very capable, especially if you have good tires. Not to say you won't need 4WD at some point, but the threshold for when you need it is probably much higher than you may think.

 

I agree with this. As long as you're not in a hurry, I think a lot of 4WD owners would be surprised what their vehicle can do in 2WD.

 

It will do a lot, true... but we pay extra for the traction abilities of four wheel drive, so why not use what we pay for? It is like night and day 2WD to 4WD.

 

I use it when I need it.

 

Anyone who wants to really see why 4WD is bad news on a dry road should try this:

Go find a flat spot with some relatively soft dirt, big enough to make u-turns on. Put the truck in 4WD Lo and start moving forward. Now turn the wheel full lock and make a complete circle or two.

Now, stop, get out, and look at the ground.

What you'll see (and those of you with lockers front and rear are REALLY gonna see this) is that the inside front tire isn't pointing at all in the direction the truck is moving. Look at the marks it's left and the ridge of dirt it's thrown up, and what you'll see is that it's skidding sideways the whole time, as it plows up a berm from the dirt.

It's taking a far shorter path than the other wheels, and yet it's turning just as fast. If you were on pavement it would want to be burning off rubber the whole time, which puts a HUGE strain on the whole vehicle.

In the dirt, however, it just churns up the dirt, and only puts a fraction of that strain on your truck.

I knew a guy that was breaking axles on his wagoneer, and after moaning that he couldn't figure out why, as he never drove it hard or fast, we figured out that his positraction was staying on full-time. It was stuck fast.

This was just on the rear axle, but since the inside wheel needs to go slower on a turn, and his wasn't, it was simply twisting the axles right off.