4 wheel drive not functioning

michigan2500hd · February 6, 2006

The other day my truck would not engage the front axle. Of course it happened at a bad time while i was backing a large trailer across my very wet yard. After pushing the button back and forth from 2 to 4 wheel drive it finally went in. I figured this might be a one time deal and that i might not have any more problems with it. After all the truck is almost brand new. Well yesterdat it was raining and very wet so i decided to take the atv's out to work and play in the muddy fields. After i had got muddy and wet i tried to leave and the rear tires started to spin in the mud so i pushed the four wheel drive button and it made a couple of clunks but would not engage the front axle. You could hear a faint noise coming from the transfer case area like two gears slipping against each other. After pushing the buttons many times and turning the truck off and back on it finally went into 4x4. I even tried spinning the back tires 3-4 mph while pushing the button. I have had several trucks with push button 4x4 and never had problems with them. I just wanted some opinions on what it could be before i take it to the dealer. Always nice to have as many facts as possible before dealing with the repair people. The truck is a 05 1500 crew. 5.3L, auto, auto-trac tranfer case.

Thank you for any help.

oh, and by the way today i used four wheel drive several times with no problems, but the truck was moving each time i engaged it.

fmjhp594 · February 6, 2006

When it is not working, does the little lights next to the buttons flash yellow or red, or are they a solid color?

michigan2500hd · February 6, 2006

When it is not working, does the little lights next to the buttons flash yellow or red, or are they a solid color?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The lights for the buttons show that which ever button you are pushing is engaging.

if that made sense, example- if i push four high it lights up yellow ( solid ) and shows that it is in four high, no red or flashing lights

pm26 · February 7, 2006

When you push a 4WD button, the light will flash several times until it engages. Then you have a solid yellow light. To shift into 4WD LOW, the transmission must be in neutral. You usually hear a clunk when shifting in and out of 4WD low. There is no clunk when shifting between 2WD and 4WD high.

You probably have a defective autocrap case switch. Have it replaced by dealer. just to make sure.

Note: I wish I had my 95 Nissan truck manual transfer case lever. Never had a problem in 10 years, always shifted easily. This electronic crap gives me the creeps as far as reliability goes. The switch is probably made in Mexico and 10% of them are defective or fail within a year. Have people become so lazy that they cannot move a lever anymore? Not like they gave us much of a choice. It's the electronic shift autocrap in a crew cab Z71 LT, or nothing.

Why don't they give us pushbutton auto transmissions too? I had a 1961 Chrysler with one of those: I was always pushing buttons tens of times to make it go in gear.