> From: "DAVID D. THEDE" <tnadoman@ix.netcom.com>
> All wheel drive is not the same as 4x4. All wheel drive, each tire
> turns independently of each other. 4x4 on dry pavement is hard on the
> drivetrain (try putting it 4x4 on a dry paved surface and try to turn
> the wheel).
Turning and straight are 2 different things: We're not talking about
oval racing a Dak, but 1/4 miling it.
Well put it this way: on my old Nissan it probably got over 1K
miles on dry roads in it's 200k of life (4wd still very healthy when
I gave it away). I bet I got over 50 miles on dry in the 8K so
far on my new '98 Dak. I make lots of trips to VT from W. NY in the
winter. Of the 600 miles round trip each time there may be say 10
miles of dry where the road goes from wet to dry and back again
(few miles here, few miles there, before I decide it's dry enough to
put it back in 2-HI under mixed conditions then it gets questionable
again so I'll put it back in 4-HI). I never notice any signs of
complaint from the driveline when doing this.
There is a BIG difference between driving straight and winding the
axles against one another (backing up making a sharp turn on dry
will show you). So even if I've only got 50 miles on dry so far
that's 200 1/4 mile runs! :-) :-)
No you don't want to leave it in 4-HI any more than necessary, but
I'll error on the side of safety (traction under changeable
conditions) vs being paranoid about my truck destorying itself for
leaving it in 4-HI for 200 feet more than necessary. Common sense
should rule. . I still contend that 4 tires of equal size going straight
is no big deal for the small distances we're talking. When they say
"don't leave it in 4-HI on dry" you can bet they are thinking about
covering their asses for some fool that will try to try to round a
corner on dry and plow into a car while fighting the steering.
-just my $.02. We'll see if the Dak 4WD holds up as well as the Nissan
over the next several winters (I'm sure it will! :-)
P.S. 4WD is great for launching across intersections in the rain.
Use it! It's what it's there for!
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:08:21 EDT