Dolly towing a 4 down vehicle

if you can tow 4 down then you put the car or truck on the dolly, take it out of gear, just like you would do if you were towing 4 down and you are set. The car does not know its on a dolly.

mericksonjr wrote:

msmith1199 wrote:
A four wheel drive vehicle has a transfer case and a transmission. If you put the transfer case in neutral then yes, it disengages the drive lines from the transmission, but not from the transfer case. If you put it on a dolly then the rear drive line is spinning within the transfer case is spinning and the front is not. The engineers at Jeep and Dodge say don't do this! It's bad for the transfer case. I don't have to take it apart and know exactly why to believe them.

Finally someone who has explained it like I was looking for. I appreciate your explanation. That makes total sense to me now. I had even considered that the transfer case would still be engaged. Thanks so much for answering my question.

I have a 2001 Jeep Wrangler with an NP-231 transfer case, but I'm pretty sure all the manual shift transfer cases are similar. It's been quite a while since I investigated the reasons, so the details are a bit faded. The t-case output shaft for the front driveshaft is connected to the rear output shaft with a big chain and sprockets. In 2wd and neutral, the sprocket on the rear shaft is not locked and is free to rotate on the shaft. In 4wd modes this sprocket is locked on the rear shaft and both front and rear driveshafts must rotate at the same rate. Also in 4lo, a planetary gear assembly is included to reduce the gear ratio. In 2wd, there is rarely much rotational difference between driveshafts so the wear on the bearing of the rear shaft sprocket is minimal. In neutral they also expect both driveshafts to rotate together. If you tow on a dolly, the rear shaft will rotate, but the front shaft, chain and rear shaft sprocket won't causing tremendous wear on the bearing for the rear shaft sprocket.

teddychamp wrote:
I would only buy front wheel drive for the dolly, manual or automatic. I towed a 2006 Saturn front wheel Automatic, all wheel down as per manufacturer and the Saturn caught fire the second day during towing. Yes all safety precautions where made the day before towing and after towing, running the engine and shifting gears etc. I was just lucky that I was able to disconnect the RV during the fire and just to get slightly burned on my arms and forehead.

Did you ever find out what caused the problem?
Bill

J-Rooster wrote:

othertonka wrote:
I have a 2002 Honda CRV AWD and it is towable only 4 wheels down or 4 wheels up on a sled type tow truck, but never on a tow dolly with only 2 wheels on the ground, either front wheels or back wheels. Transmissions and differentials won't last hardly any miles

X-2

I have a 2014 CR-V all wheel drive and you can tow 4 down but not 2 down.
Bill

mericksonjr wrote:
The only reason would be so I dont have to purchase a tow package for each vehicle that I have. I have different needs to tow different vehicles and was hoping the tow dolly would accomplish that. But according to what is coming back to me if its not front wheel drive then short of disconnecting drivelines it wont be possible. Thanks for the feed back.

It may be worth the expense to put tow bars on the other vehicles. Disconnecting the drive line would work on some of them but a lot of the all wheel drive systems may be out of the question. Consider the time and aggravation every time you want to hook and unhook. If you have a jeep then you have two drive shafts to mess with. disconnecting the drive line sounds easy enough but when you are laying in the mud you are going to wish you had the tow bar on the front.

Sez Hoo! wrote:
If the vehicle is front wheel drive ONLY than it can go on the tow dolly with the front wheels on the dolly. The rear wheels are just freewheeling on the ground like they always do. Any front wheel drive should be ok on a tow dolly. All wheel drive or 4 wheel drive vehicles need to have both the front and rear axles turning at the same speed. They are all connected to one transmission. If you have a vehicle that is towable 4 down why would you want to drag around a tow dolly?

The only reason would be so I dont have to purchase a tow package for each vehicle that I have. I have different needs to tow different vehicles and was hoping the tow dolly would accomplish that. But according to what is coming back to me if its not front wheel drive then short of disconnecting drivelines it wont be possible. Thanks for the feed back.

If the vehicle is front wheel drive ONLY than it can go on the tow dolly with the front wheels on the dolly. The rear wheels are just freewheeling on the ground like they always do. Any front wheel drive should be ok on a tow dolly. All wheel drive or 4 wheel drive vehicles need to have both the front and rear axles turning at the same speed. They are all connected to one transmission. If you have a vehicle that is towable 4 down why would you want to drag around a tow dolly?

happy-2 wrote:
I tow a 2008 saturn vue with 2 wd auto all 4 down ,put in nut, key to acc, flip switch to dis engage the starter switch and go,

I have the same and yesterday I saw one on a dolly on I 196. The dolly looked like a rather expensive one with surge brakes and fancy lights.

I tow a 2008 saturn vue with 2 wd auto all 4 down ,put in nut, key to acc, flip switch to dis engage the starter switch and go,

I go along with msmith1199. but I will throw a wrench in for the OP. The Transfer case has 2w, neutral, 4high, and 4low gear slots. Now 4L & 4H both output shaft should turn. 2W only the rear output shaft should turn. Neutral the Transfer case output and transfer gears are not connected. So your proble did not go away. However I tow my Jeep Rubicon as instructed to by Jeep. I am sure they have a good reason for the way they wrote the instruction to tow it.