HELP - Tacoma not moving while turning / SOLVED

Of course it happens while my wife is driving it, but the Taco stopped “going” for her while turning. There is a solid green drivetrain looking light on the dash (which appears to mean 4x4 is on?). It will go forward in 1st and 2nd, and reverse, while going straight. When she turns to pull into a parking spot or something it stops “going/moving”.

I recently had the dash apart working on a sound system install but I’ve driven the truck a couple times since putting it all back together with no issue. I was thinking maybe I forgot to plug the 4x4 switch back in, but I figure that would have been an immediate issue for me.

I’m at work but figured I’d see if y’all had any ideas before I get home and go try to get it fixed.

Thanks in advance
JP

 

I'd be making sure it's not in 4WD.
That light means it's in 4WD.

If you keep turning the wheels sharp on pavement, you'll bust your drivetrain.
CV axle best case scenario.
Worst case, the transfer case.
And possibly do damage to the transmission, if you keep "trying" to drive it.

 

Yea its in 4x4, sucky problem, its hard explain how to pull that panel off and check the connector.

 

If it’s just “in 4WD” wouldn’t it still drive fine just not as well on pavement?

 

I just had half the dash off working on the radio, I know how to get to it. But I’ve been driving it fine after putting it all back together. So I figure that would have been an issue from the jump and not a delayed issue.

 

No, it will bind

You can make wide turns ok-ish, tires scrub a bit, but turning a 90 it’s gonna fight until the tires slide or your break something

 

It's 4WD, not AWD, so you're binding the CV axles because you have too much traction. Assuming it was working fine previously, she should just be able to rotate the 4WD dial counter-clockwise to get it back into 2WD.

 

Ask the wife to send you a pic of the 4WD button, maybe she accidently turned on 4wd thinking that she was turning on something else?

 

...listen, you need to educate yourself on this yesterday, or you are going to have a heck of a repair bill.... if you have the Manual, read what pertains to that system now, and if you don't, look on line and research the heck out of the 'do's and 'don'ts'.

 

^ There should be a card explaining how the 4WD system operates on the driver-side sun visor.

 

...yeah, but I think that is pretty bare bones, where as if this dude is that unfamiliar with the system, responses from people who have blown stuff out might be helpful, for more perspective, or at least that was my angle....

 

I’m not unfamiliar with this system or 4WD systems in general. Just trying to diagnose some possibilities with shit info from the wife to try and anticipate tools I may need or things to try.

Thanks all for the thoughts. Crossing my fingers it’s just in 4X4 and the switch got bumped or turned somehow when she was driving it.

Won’t know until I can get to it in a couple hours.

 

If something is jacked up with the switch, is there something I can do mechanically to get it out of 4WD? This doesn’t make a ton of sense to me because that would be more of an issue of someone putting it in 4WD and it won’t come back out of 4WD. There should be no reason it was in 4WD to begin with.

 

I believe that there's a method described somewhere in here: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/4wd-system-operation-help-thread.742420/

edit: From that thread, it looks like the answer would actually be here: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...w-to-manually-shift-the-transfer-case.703240/

 

I’m going with the 4wd switch was turned on accident.

 

If the light is on solid and not flashing I'd really bet the switch is just in 4wd, if the switch is unplugged the system will remain in whatever state it was in prior to the switch being unplugged.

 

Tacoma driving privileges revoked!

 

I once let my kid's pretend to drive my truck. Next time I got in, every light on the dash was on. Thought for sure something had died...nope, they just pushed every switch, turned every knob, etc. Put it back to 2WD, turned off locker and all was good.

 

When I first got my 2013, I accidentally turned on 4H trying to turn up the fan without looking at the dial.

 

Easiest wat to see if it's on 4WD is to crawl under the truck with the engine off and in park, and see if the front driveshaft will turn.
You should be able to tun the front driveshaft if it's in 2WD.