Loving the GX (2006) in snow. But since we don't get a lot of deep snow in Southwest Missouri I do have a question.

In most snows I leave the traction control engaged since our county road crews are excellent in cleaning up the roads. Just sloppy intersections.

With this weeks super cold (-6 F) and heavy snow I went ahead and turned off traction control. Pressed the button and away I went. No issues. Drives great.

My question is this: is there a sipped I should stay under and is it safe to keep it disengaged for an extended period of time?

Thanks

 

How'd you turn the traction control off when there's no on / off button or switch?

Are you referring to the center diff lock switch?

 

And why would you want it off driving around???? I often drive in deep soft sand as well as snow and the truck performs marvelously. The traction control can help prevent excessive wheel slip and digging yourself in. I have only needed to put the trans into "low" once.

 

You cannot turn off VSC, however, what you are refering to is engaging the center lock differential, ie, full time 4WD. Works great in very deep snow. Never to be used on dry pavement because front tires turn at the same speed and that is harmful when turning on dry roads. No speed limit on full time 4 WD.

 

Even with the center diff unlocked our GX is still in full time 4wd HI / LO. With the center diff lock engaged it cuts the VSC and gives it a 50/50 power split between the front and rear tires.

 

It is the VSC switch I was referring to. The same as your avatar

I usually don't "engage" it. But with the deep snow we just had I was wondering. Once the roads get plowed it will go back to "normal" driving. I have not had a reason to shift into low.

So basically it is similar to what our Sequoia had. Just upgraded.

Thanks all

 

That's the center diff lock switch, notice the "X" in the middle. It also turns off the VSC if you lock the center diff but there's not a stand alone switch that will turn the VSC on or off. If you want to mod it check out the 4Runner forums. There's quite a few people that have wired in a switch to turn VSC on and off.

 

4wd lo is not for snow, keep it in 4wd hi anytime there is snow.

 

These trucks are normally AWD, not 4x4. Only with the center diff locked and 50/50 power to the front/rear axles would it be considered 4x4. From what I can tell 4wd is Toyota marketing speak for AWD.

That being said, the eaton electronic Center diff acts as an LSD, it's the same unit used in Audi's Quattro system, and it's very good.

 

This is getting too complicated, in easy terms:

Use the system normally unless the snow is so dreadfully deep that your traction control is constantly coming on.

If thats the case, lock the center diff. it should help.

If you are doing serious offroading/mudding, or trying to plow through snow that is about 5 feet deep, use 4 wheel low with the center differential locked.

 

id disagree about using 4 lo for anything other than offroading/rock crawling. if you have mud/snow, 4 lo isnt going to get you out of it. you need fast wheel rotation(4 hi) not high torque low speed(4 lo)

 

I agree. And 4 LO is also good for pulling another vehicle out that's stuck in mud, snow etc and pulling your boat out of the water.

 

You mean TORSEN center differential, not Eaton.

Audi (with the exception of only 2-3 models that use Haldex) all use Torsen center differential. The GX uses a very similar TORSEN setup.

 

Yup, brainfart on my part there.

 

I can tell you that in practice, that 4-lo works quite well for freeing yourself from just about anything.

Of course, the conditions I'm referring to is REALLY deep snow, like 3 - 4 feet, which is a rare thing for most people to deal with. With snow deeper than the hood, 4-hi will just inadvertently dig you in deeper and high center you, which in that case you are really stuck! 4-lo helps significantly in situations where you have to literally claw through those types of conditions. That and traversing very steep hills.

95% of the time, just leaving the truck in AWD mode is more than enough for snow.