- Dec 8, 2011
- 501
Last winter my 4WD would not always engage. The selector light would flash and never engage then the "Service 4WD" light would come on. This was intermittent. Winter ended and I more or less forgot about. But I did change the transfer case fluid recently. I bought it with 85k and it's got 110k on now. I have no idea if the fluid was changed by previous owner. So I've been "exercising" the selector switch by putting it in 4WD and back to 2WD, then AWD and back to 2WD while parked. For the first couple of days I had the same behavior as over last winter. Then it started working normally and has for the past month as I occasionally test it.
This morning I tried it and it didn't work right away. I shut the truck off and started it again. It seemed to reset and recognize that it was still in 2WD. Or so I thought. I drove to work (23 miles) and as I pulled in the parking lot I could feel the binding, it was in 4WD. I looked at the selector and there was no lights. I parked, shut it off, started it and lights came back. Drove it around the lot and no binding. I'm worried I'm going to be going down the freeway and the 4WD just engages by itself, but what I'm beginning to think is that the 4WD was actually engaged the whole time and I never turned sharp enough to notice it. I did some searches but didn't find any info about whether or not it can change modes if the switch or something else fails. It seems to me that it would stay in 2WD if that's the mode it's in.
Could this just be a bad selector switch? It's cheap so I ordered one this morning from Rock Auto. Or should I be looking at something else?
EDIT: One additional thing, I'm going to disconnect the battery tonight as I have read in several thread that this can reset the switch.
This morning I tried it and it didn't work right away. I shut the truck off and started it again. It seemed to reset and recognize that it was still in 2WD. Or so I thought. I drove to work (23 miles) and as I pulled in the parking lot I could feel the binding, it was in 4WD. I looked at the selector and there was no lights. I parked, shut it off, started it and lights came back. Drove it around the lot and no binding. I'm worried I'm going to be going down the freeway and the 4WD just engages by itself, but what I'm beginning to think is that the 4WD was actually engaged the whole time and I never turned sharp enough to notice it. I did some searches but didn't find any info about whether or not it can change modes if the switch or something else fails. It seems to me that it would stay in 2WD if that's the mode it's in.
Could this just be a bad selector switch? It's cheap so I ordered one this morning from Rock Auto. Or should I be looking at something else?
EDIT: One additional thing, I'm going to disconnect the battery tonight as I have read in several thread that this can reset the switch.
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