4WD vs 2WD

[Magicbananas]

Can someone explain to me why the majority of cars are made 2wd instead of 4wd?

If I was to drive in 4wd hi on normal roads is there anything that is compromised?

Apologies if these are silly questions

[Moses]

depending on the transfer case, if for say you have a TJ with the command trak, you are in danger of axle binding and doing damage to drive shafts and such

if you have say an XJ with select trak, these have a full time option which is designed for driving on the road and can be great from what i have heard

hope that helps, can't make coment on other transfer cases tho

[Magicbananas]

I have a 2006 jeep wrangler if that helps?

[Moses]

if that is the case i think you will find you have the command trak (i may be wrong, if so somone chime in and correct me)

which means driving on the road in 4WHi is a bad idea and can cause damage to the drive line

[wildturkey]

Originally Posted by Magicbananas

Can someone explain to me why the majority of cars are made 2wd instead of 4wd?

Cost & weight mean most are 2wd. Having said that, all Subies these days are "all wheel drive". They keep the cost down by all being AWD (sharing components across the range). They justify the added weight, which means higher fuel consumption compared to rivals, by the added safety of awd.

I think that's what you were asking?

[Magicbananas]

I was trying to figure out if I was going to break something.

I have to drive along a road for 10 or 15 minutes every week, and part of it in the middle is dirt, lots of bumps around lots of corners. Rather than stopping at the start of the dirt part and putting it into 4WD I have been putting it into 4wd at the start of the road and not taking it out back to 2wd till the end of the road...

Is that ok?

[jeep_boy]

are you aware that in the book it says that you can shift into hi range 4wd up to 80kn/h although i would not sugest it at that speed ive done it at around 60 and it seems fine just go easy on it