4WD 'Lurching' from dead stop.

I've followed the rules; Stop -> N -> H4 and gassed slowly. It's inconsistent though, after I got it going* it wouldn't do it from stop lights, but did it after startup both in forward and reverse and once slowing to turn into our slot at home.

I never gassed it a lot so the 'lurching' wasn't severe and would go forward slightly. The 4WD light only blinked as I was getting home and put it back in H2(then it stayed blinking until I put it in Park and restarted the engine). The rest of the time I'm pretty sure it was just on. It also never buzzed like the manual mentions)

Is this normal? i.e. the manual says if the light blinks(which it didn't each time) to simply stop and switch modes until it works, but doesn't mention any odd behaviors associated with it. I haven't yet tried to reproduce it to find any consistency, or tried in L4. Might go do that now unless the first few responses say "DON"T DO IT"!


*Maybe not the best thing to do, but the manual says to drive in 4WD at least 10 miles/month to keep the system lubed. I though it might be an issue with it not being used in a while(it was clearly a city truck with it's former owner)

 

Are you on dry pavement with the wheels in a L or R turn when this happens??

 

You don't have to stop or go into N to switch from 2HI to 4HI , that's only when switching from 4HI to 4LO

 

Pavement was wet, but pebbled type of blacktop once and smooth parking lot another time. Did it wheels turned or not, but mostly straight ahead. I was VERY light on the accelerator.

 

Sorry, brain fart!

This was going from 2WD into H4

 

If you were stopped , switched it from 2HI to 4HI while stopped , the lurch from take off could have just been the 4WD engaging as you started moving

 

Ok, I'm in it now and it's only when turning and definitely comes from the rear. It happens in both H4 as well as L4, but seems more pronounced in H4. I've tried it on some dry-ish pavement and wet with the same results. It's kind of a 'chshh-chshh' sound and a bystander I enlisted said that it looked like one of the rear wheels was trying to spin faster than the others. it seems to come primarily from the right rear wheel. And I feel a loss off power both in forward and reverse - meaning no movement at idle and a delay from gas to rolling.

Fyi - I've reviewed the procedure and am positive I'm engaging it in the right way.

So def not normal, eh? Guess we schedule some time at the shop. We have a drive-train warranty, so we're good to go, right?

 

Sounds like you're describing the 'tire-scrub' that is always going to happen in 4wd. It is 100% normal. When you are in 4H or 4L the front and rear axles are locked together and must spin at the same speed (unless something is broken). When you turn the front axle travels a much farther distance than the rear axle since the rear tracks inside the front.

The sound you are hearing is the tires breaking loose from the high friction surface. The short answer is, stop doing that! 4wd should only be used in low traction conditions for this exact reason. It puts a lot of stress on the drive train when the tires can't slip easily.

 

H4 and L4 are two different animals and are used and engaged/ disengaged differently.

Is the card in your visor, still? It is all there... H2 to H4 stopped or moving up to 60 mph... may take a little forward movement to engage once the dial is turned.

H4 to L4: STOP if an Auto. trans., put in N (neutral not park) to go in or out of L4.

 

Sounds like your binding up... you can't make sharp turns with part-time 4WD on high traction surfaces... you need slippage. Don't engage 4WD on pavement. Read the links below for more info...

 

If you can drive in 2WD, then don't be in 4WD... 4WD is when a 2WD tires spin and you can't move more... There must be a surface that allows some spin/ slip for 4WD since the front tires always rotate more than the back (because they steer)... and in 4WD the front and back driveshafts are locked together... if no slipping (from dirt, snow, mud, sand) then there is binding anytime you turn your wheel...

 

Very nice of you all to walk me through this! These are the things the manual doesn't say and I assumed if it says to drive >10 miles in 4wd 1x/month that I should do it even if I don't have dirt around. Never experienced this in our frontier because we were never told to use it monthly so we only used it on dirt.

 

Its no skin off our backs. I think I can speak for most of us when I say that we just love talking about our trucks and how they work.

 

Excersise your 4WD for short intervals on dry/paved roads, but on a STRAIGHT PATH, no turns!... Secondly, you don't have to go 10 miles per month.

Read OffRoadToy's links as he suggested... These 4WD Tacomas are much different than an SUV's 4WD system, so they are used differently.