Why a front locker?

I've been a bit concerned about the lack there of on a 4R, but I just saw this vid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X62xXQViJo8


The 4R using it's crawl, MTS/A-track and must say I was impressed. At 12.30+ in the vid you can see both front tires spinning looking for traction. Now most likely if one tire found traction that one would bite and the other would spin until the MTS slowed it, but he was throwing dirt from both!

 

There are different ways to achieve same goal.

 

Lockers are proactive. ABS-based traction control is reactive.

 

^^^This. That time to react could get you hung up.

 

Watch the video with the Sasquatch Bronco walking right up it like nothing to see the difference front locker and tires make.

 

That's right weren't they 35" Mickey's with double lockers tho, so expected

 

Although I don’t deny the capabilities of the bronco with the Sasquatch package, the hill was a lot less sandy at that time. Even the bronco sport made it up before the hill terrain became worse.
Also the 4R was at 36 psi which is way too high for that terrain. Once he aired down it made a huge difference. Of course, I don’t doubt the Bronco (not sport) would have made it up that hill again but maybe not as easy

 

I think understanding of how you’ll truly use your vehicle, and then working within the those limits 4Runner can get it done. In the above posted vid, he’s also using a stock set up (no lift, original sized tires, original spec’d tires). As soon as you add a mild lift, taller tires (not necessarily wider), you gain a noticeable and beneficial improvement. Front locker is big bucks, and for those that I know personally who have done it (two 4Runners, one FJ), two of them have broken CVs. I think for our vehicles, there is a level of protection that comes with not having a front locker for the “average” driver.

 

Thanks for posting this video.

 

Just straight-up a-trac does a great job as getting you 90% of the benefit of a front locker, with none of the risks to CV’s.

After watching so many reviews that focus on the MTS gadgets; I just don’t get it. The A-trac feature is useful and straightforward. But the extra MTS layers…I’ve tried and tried to figure out how to use it in a way that is actually useful in real life, but I don’t get it. Just like in this video, I find myself experimenting with it rather than simply using it. It just seems so much easier to figure out how to get through/over something by yourself.

 

I've only used crawl control once. I buried myself in sand and I was pretty fucked. My wife still makes fun of me for the face I made after burying all 4 tires and unsuccessfully attempting to get out. We were in the middle of the mojave and it was 103 out.

I put it in crawl control for the first time. The dash had to tell me how to put it in 4 lo, but first put it in neutral to get to 4 lo (thanks 4runner).

Crawl control got me right the fuck out of the sand like magic. When it's useful. It's useful.

 

That seems to be the one feature of MTS that’s talked about as being magical lol. Frankly, I’ve kind of been viewing that as a party trick, because people say you have to give it like 5min to unbury itself. I’ve thought no way I’m waiting I’m 5min, it will be faster to dig a trench for the traction boards, get yourself out, and go!

But, now that you mention 103 degrees, yeah, that can be an issue to start digging at that temp in the middle of the day, downright dangerous if you’re caught out without enough water. Or if you don’t have traction boards. I got myself buried in a bog down to the frame, on a hot day, with no nearby shade. We needed to dig for quite a while just to be able for my buddy to winch it. Thankfully, we were very close to home. So after a pathetic initial attempt with a shitty trenching tool that left me feeling like I was going to have a heart attack, we decided to leave the 4runner there while we got a couple of gallons of water and proper digging tools for the thatchy bog we were in. I distinctly recall thinking to myself, that we would have been properly screwed if we were oit on our own far away from help.

So, if it works for sand, then I’ll have to keep that in mind in case I ever find myself in that situation. How long did it take for the magic to happen? What kind of sand was it?

 

I was stuck. Stuck stuck. I was fucking around in 2wd and started buying myself so I clicked the rear locker and and gave it gas and buried the rear even more. I was still in the happy mood all excited to be out in the mojave so I jammed it into 4wd and floored it. Huge dumb mistake.

MTS had us out in like 10 seconds. Even if it was 5 minutes. Getting out is getting out. I've watched many videos online and it gets out pretty fast. Again
My personal dipshit experience was 10 seconds.

It was deep sand like the beach. But in the desert.

It took longer to get the MTS engaged than it took to get out. Well worth it to be able to call in a life line. Otherwise yeah. I don't use it at all.

 

Huge dumb mistakes are fun to look back on in the comfort of home, aren’t they? Any pics?

Not sure if you’ve seen pics of
my huge dumb one. But here she is, right after thinking I’d have to call my insurance agent







I didn’t even try MTS. A ROFL emoji would have probably popped up on the dash if I would’ve tried. Lol

 

Come on!? There are little pictures on the dial and everything!

Kidding aside, I feel your pain. It’s like the decision makers had multiple personality disorder.
Driver decides! — No. Computer decides!
Downhill assist! — No. Crawl control!
No wheel spin! — Some wheel spin!
Let’s compromise and put it all in! yeah.

I think I use MTS about the same way you do, and feel the same frustration at the overlap and redundancy of features which is so confusing. But the kid in me, the one that loved Lost in Space and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, loves having those buttons and knobs to play with on the upper console!

 

Those are some cool pics. No, how did you get out?

I don't have any pics. I'm man enough to admit I was too scared and anxious at the time to think about taking pics.

 

^This!

I have two other vehicles besides my 4Runner that have front and rear lockers and I wish the 4Runner had a front locker in addition to the rear. When I get to a section of trail where it looks like I'll have one front tire and the opposite rear tire dangling in the air I lock both lockers and gently drive right on through that section. I do not want ANY tire spin at all if I can help it. That only makes the situation worse.

 

Yes. The problem with lockers is that they are not idiot proof. You have to know when to use them, and when not to.

 

The Mall Terrain Select knob is basically an ABS volume control. When the terrain is tricky, crank it to 11. When the terrain is loose, turn it down.

 

I think the only reason I took pics was because a certain calmness and detachment set in, the kind of calm that happens when the die has been cast, and your fate has been dealt.

It was totally one of those moments you get out, take a real good long look…and just kind of calmly say….Yup.

Then, since my buddy had a winch, we decided that we would try to get it out…because, why not…we got nothing else to do.

This happened a few months after I bought the 4runner. My buddy in a rubicon and me decided to cruise a mutual friends back 40 on a farm he rents out. He warned us about the bog near the perimeter, but I told him I already knew about that bog. About a year before, a tenant tried to take a large tractor on huge flotation tires through it (think “Bigfoot” monster truck tires). It got stuck and took them a month to get it out.

So as we cruised around back there, my buddy started to blaze a trail and it started to get a bit scratchy. I decided to back up and go around the tight patch. I knew the bog was close, but it was covered with the same grass we were on. It only took about 15 feet of backing up for my rear passenger tire to slip into it. I tried gently going forward and my front tire dropped in. Locker did jack squat, besides make me slide sideways deeper into the bog.

After my buddy and I looked over the situation, we decided the only way to pull on it was backwards, from pretty sharp quartering angle. Essentially, the rear had to come up and over the trench sideways. Then we tried winching it as it sat, but that made the jeep slide forward, even though he was pulling from behind a slight incline that somewhat anchored him. No trees around to serve as another anchor point. Regardless, I didn’t like the idea of pulling it through the trench wall at such an acute angle. All I imagined was tearing my rear axle off if we kept trying that.

So I went home and cut up some 4 foot sections of 2x14 boards I had laying around. Basically we dug a angled ramps into the soft thatchy ground. It was soft, but the thatch made it impossible to dig through. So I used a machete to cut the thatch out, like muddy bricks of peat. Then we placed the boards into the ramp trenches we dug, so the rear and front tires could slide up onto them, instead of trying to bulldoze through the trench wall with my tires. It worked well enough. You can see the boards in the mud in the second picture I posted.

When I went to undig the boards out of there, In stepped onto the grass I thought looked solid enough, but with one step I broke through and sunk down to my thigh. My foot itself sunk into water, not the bottom. It was basically a very thick floating mat of grass and thatch. I have no doubt I would have sunk my 4runner had I kept trying to get out under my own power.


Ahhhh, the memories

 

The ZR1 and the Ranger Raptor have front lockers, so clearly some companies are willing to offer them despite the risk. Toyota doesn't put front lockers on the 4runner because it's nearly 15 years old, and it doesn't make sense to put R&D into it when it will be replaced soon.

And if the new Tacoma shows us anything, this no front diff situation wont change any time soon. Toyota seemed to prioritize the fancy Isodynamic baby seats over having a front locker on the new TRD Pro. I don't think the lack of front locker was a choice to stop customers from hurting themselves, after all this is the same company selling high clearance 4wd to city slickers (which shows that Toyota sells what people want and doesn't care if it's what is best for them).

Anyway, your less likely to break a CV axle with a front locker, but you have to know how and when to use it. With a front locker, you have more control and don't have to resort to sort of wheel spin and thrashing that tends to cause broken CVs. Toyota has great traction control, but when the going gets tough there is no substitute for a mechanically locking front diff.

 

I don’t need no stinking lockers. Just completed a short trip on trails made from baseball to softball sized jagged rocks. Yes, several sections involved climbing steep hills. All done in 4H except during steep decents I used 4L for engine braking.

Very glad I’m running LT tires.

 

I never used to engage my front unless I KNEW I had ZERO chance of making it otherwise. I almost always tried without first, and mostly worked through without ok. I've had my share where the front only got me stucker, and some where it pulled me out but not sure 4R tech wouldn't have done it too.

 

I had a 1985 G-Wagen (part-time 4WD) with two locking diffs from the factory. Then a 1991 G-Wagen (full-time 4WD) with three locking diffs from the factory. Then I had a 1997 Defender 90 with a locking center diff. Lots of guys who added ARB air lockers to their Defenders would upgrade the front axle. I seem to remember reading that there was a sacrificial weak point in that axle designed to break first, and it could be replaced without removing the hub.

 

Front lockers have been around since before 2010. Whatever their reasoning was for not offering it in 2010 is the same reason they don't offer it now.

 

I tend to agree with a lot of what's been said here so far.

I've recently started using A-TRAC more regularly, and have been very impressed with it. What I didn't realize at first is that you need to stay on the gas a little bit for it to work. Nothing crazy, just enough to get the tires to slip a bit and get it to kick in.

I believe MTS and Crawl definitely have value, especially Crawl. But, I'd trade both for a front locker. But, as someone mentioned above, it would only be engaged if there was no way to get by without it.

 

The upside of this discussion is it got me re-watching videos of people exercising the A-TRAC, MTS, and Crawl. I hope when the time comes, I'll remember enough to not just be randomly pushing buttons.

 

Bottom line, no matter how your rig is setup, it comes down to knowing your limitations.

 

Did you read my story? Totally opposite. Just do what ever you want like an idiot and if you run into any issues you just throw the crawl control on and poof.

 

My apologies, I missed that.