4 Wheel Drive Concern

Well we got some snow this wkend in NEPA and while out and about was having some slippage so threw it in 4x4. Everything seemed fine up until I arrived at Best Buy and went to park. As I turned the wheel a little more the truck started to jerk. This only happened when making a hard turn (parking - turns on side streets). Is this normal?? I owned a 2004 Taco prior to this and never experienced anything like this while in 4wd. Any ideas??

 

yup, hopefully you were in 4H? turn it off in the parking lot when your turning hard.

 

Ok - As long as it's normal. Yeah I was in 4H. Like I said never experienced this in the 2004 so definitely worried me. Didn't want to hurt anything.

 

If you drive on pavement in 4WD and make hard turns it will jerk and bind up. That's normal.

 

I would put it in 2 wheel drive if you need to make sharp turns on pavement. It's not good for the driveline to bind it up like that.

 

Normal

 

Normal, but not good to do a lot.

 

Normal. Welcome to the world of 4WD They all do that unless you drove an AWD which has a center differential

DON'T continue to drive on dry pavement in 4WD. You WILL break something.

 

As I understand it, that's caused by the different turning diameters of the L&R front tires causing the engaged 4wd gearing to bind. This bad.

 

Not true,


it's caused by the different turning radius of the front versous rear
ie: the rear tires travel a shorter distance than the front tires in a turn
in snow its ok to do
on wet pavement its not good (don't do it)
on dry pavement its a no no (could over stress parts and break sh*t)

 

wut

If that was the case , why wouldn't the truck bind up every time you turned the wheel in 2WD ?

 

Normal. I take it out of 4 wheel for sharp turns. Also if Im in a hard spot and I want it in 4wd. Ill just do a 3 point turn with micro turns.

 

Because the frontend is under power

 

Not just because it is under power, but because there is no differential between the front and rear axles. The front and rear wheels are locked together.

 

because the diffs are no longer connected through the transfer case which allows them to spin at different speeds in 2wd

 

The front and rear axles are not linked in 2WD. They can turn independently.

 

Huh. Never heard it explained this way. It has always been explained as left and right tires having a different turning radius. The above make sense for a sharp (practically locked)turn but on an average turn the radius front to rear is the same and different inside track to outside track. Both situations can cause binding on dry payment and 4H should be removed.

 

Sigh...

and

pavement was more then likely wet...

 

Rotational differences on inside track to outside track on the same axle don't matter because there is a differential on both the front and rear axles. The problem arises because there is no differential between front and rear axles when 4x4 is engaged. So the problem is not that left and right wheels on the same axle rotate different amounts or that front and rear wheels on the same side of the truck rotate different amounts (although in tight turns they do), but that front inside and rear outside (or vice-versa) wheels have rotational differences.

 

Thanks for the responses guys. This was not done on dry pavement. At the time there was a slight coating (1/2 inch or less) on the ground. I just wanted to make sure this was normal and also that nothing was already broken. But for future I will just pop it back in 2wd in this situation.