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I have a Jeep Patriot 2.0 crd 2007 with 4wd. I went fishing and used the 4wd when leaving. Once i hit the tarmac i forgot to switch it off and drive 10 miles to home doing a speed of 50MPH. Is this dangerous for the transmission in any way? Thank you!
No unusual sounds. Thank you for your reply. I only pushed the 4wd button and did not deactivate the ESP.
I'm assuming that model has a simple 4WD transfer case and not one with a front-to-rear differential. That means that there is no "slip" in the driveline. Generally you feel this when you try to turn at low speeds as a "binding" often accompanied by creaking or popping.
For a vehicle in normal condition, this causes no damage other than slipping the tires.
If the vehicle is damaged, however, the added stress of this may cause something to break but that's unusual in my experience. 4WD vehicles are designed to handle this, it's not a good practice because it causes difficulty in steering under some circumstances and hurts fuel-economy but should not cause any long-term damage to your driveline.
If the vehicle has a fancier transfer case, then there is slip allowed there and there is no issue at all. Often these vehicles say "Full Time 4WD" or similar.
No problems with that - the "4WD" button on the Patriot just locks the torque split at 50/50 between front and rear, normally the AWD system distributes power as slip is detected.
Driving on a dry highway at 50 you'll have used (slightly) more fuel with it engaged than not but that's about it.
To quote the operators manual:
This can be done on the fly, at any vehicle speed.
Thank you for all your answers. Called a Jeep dealer in my country and they said that above 35MPH the 4wd deactivates automatically and reactivates at lower speed. It continues to do so untill i pull the 4wd lock lever.
