March 24, 2011
would it hurt to turn 4wd on and off dozens of times in one trip?
i have a 00 gmc 1500 z71 with 5.3l. i was driving back from up north and kept disengaging and engaging 4wd only when needed. i was doing it to save on fuel but im not too sure if it saved that much.
so i dont know if it would hurt it or not. i have push button 4wd.
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Filed under Gas Conservation FAQ by on Mar 24th, 2011. Comment. 
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Comments on would it hurt to turn 4wd on and off dozens of times in one trip?
I wouldn’t, my wife would. But what is the switch for anyway. I say it won’t hurt it.
Having 4wd only hurts when your going more than 25MPH I’d say. Besides that it is ok to turn it on and off.
Why would you turn 4 wheel drive on to save fuel? Driving through snow for long periods of time?
Leaving your 4WD off will save you fuel and when you don’t need it, you should not use it, at all. For instance, driving down the highway more than (as stated already) 25 MPH or 30 MPH (depending on design and intentions) for too long of a period will damage you vehicle.
Turning it on and off may not be that serious at all, but if you were driving at highway speeds in 4WD, then you could cause a serious problem. Only cars and trucks that were built to be AWD (all wheel drive) all the time are intended to run at highway speeds like this, of course, they can not turn off AWD.
You don’t save any fuel by turning the 4WD off, you don’t have free wheeling hubs, so everything in the system still spins, all the switch does is disengage the power to the front drive shaft in the transfer case, but the front wheels spin the half shafts and the front drive shaft are still turning.
Engaging and disengaging the system constantly does cause some wear though, read the manual, there is a maximum safe speed for engaging the system and that is well below the highway speed.