4WD vs 2WD

I get a kick out of rh just waiting to post that snowy pic. :W

With road conditions like that i would have my adz off the road.

I got 2WD with just exactly what I wanted on the truck. I ordered it.

i have never been stuck on wet grass. Seems to be a standard reason to get 4 WD.

Bottom line it is what you need, not what i think you need.

It has been alluded to earlier, but it bears repeating. 4 wheel drive does not prevent you from getting stuck. It just makes it less likely as long as you use some reasonable judgement. However, when you DO get stuck in a 4x4, you are really stuck. I speak from experience - one of those "experience is the best teacher" incidents.

Also, I see far more 4 wheel drive than 2 wheel drive vehicles in the ditch every snowstorm, mostly because of sheer stupidity. They start up better than a 2 wheel drive on slippery surfaces, so people think it's okay to drive faster. Unfortunately, they still don't stop any better, so once things get hairy, you are usually in more trouble than you would be driving sensibly in a 2wd vehicle.

As I said above, for me it's 4wd all the way, but one still has to use some common sense.

Resale will be better and easier with 4wd.

BillyW wrote:
I have to use 4 wheel drive every single time I back my trailer into my yard. Even then, I occasionally end up digging some holes with the tires.

THIS!!!
I actually forgot. It's barely any incline at all, but whenever you back a trailer into my lower driveway (it's packed gravel) with a 2WD, you dig holes. I don't allow anyone with a 2WD in my driveway anymore at all, they even spin and screw it up when they are empty without a trailer.

I have to use 4 wheel drive every single time I back my trailer into my yard. Even then, I occasionally end up digging some holes with the tires.

If you have to ask...Do NOT get it

I always get a 4x4 for a tow vehicle. In about 1991-ish, we were pulling a travel trailer to the mountains. It had been raining on and off all day. When we got to the campground it was after dark. We got our paperwork and drove to the campsite. I had a 2 wheel drive Ford truck. I started backing into the slightly uphill campsite and the wheels started spinning. I tried several times and eventually got a reverse running start, in the dark and rain, running totally on memory.

Around that same time we took that same truck with a cabover camper in it. We stayed in a little seasonal campground, also in the mountains. We didn't know the campground at all but, were looking for a secluded spot. There was a little dirt road in the camground that headed up the mountain. It looked like a beautiful place to camp. I drove up that little drive that turned into a path to a nothing. The incline got really steep. We concluded real quick that there was no place to turn around. The right front wheel slipped off of the side of the hill and it was about 100 feet to the bottom. I let off the brake and let it roll and the wheel came back up on the path. It was not bloody fun at all getting back off of the mountain. Although 4x4 is no cure for the curious it would have eliminated some of the slipping and sliding.

Since that time.. We were at a conference, in the mountains, and some friends invited us to eat breakfast with them. They gave us directions which were as clear as mud. We found the address and turned. It was a red mud driveway that wrapped around the side of a mountain and, of course, I made another wrong turn that put me down a logging road at a real steep angle. My wife was, as she has had the opportunity to do many times, freaking out. It looked like we were in a real fix. I engaged the 4x4 and we crawled right back up that hill and made it for breakfast.

In other words, I need 4x4 because I will try any road. My life is a series of bad decisions..LOL.. I know from experience that needing it and not having it sucks. The rule at our house is we always have at least one 4x4.

4x4 for us.. We Live in the Sierras and use it quite often.. Towing a large boat and going up a steep ramp 4x4 comes in handy to pull out of a wet situation. Towning a Ruing in Oregon we have been in parks that are Grass.. On grass its great not to get suck.. The extra resale is also worth it.. most want 4 wheel drives..

DutchmenSport wrote:
No response on "payload", that's your choice. But as far as when to use 2 wheel drive or 4 wheel drive when towing ... well, put it this way ... in the last 15 years, I used 4x4 towing on only one occasion.

We planned a trip from Indiana to Norfolk, VA to attend our daughter's wedding (which by the way, never happened). She was in the Navy. The day we planned on leaving, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Virginia got hit with blizzard like conditions. We traveled anyway, driving 20-25 mph in 4 wheel drive over interstates in those mountains and hills in KY and TN. What should have taken about a 10 hour trip ended up being 2 days. Once we crossed over the Mountains in Virginia and got on the flats, the snow was behind us!

Since then, I've never had to use 4x4 towing, even in the winter as we've been able to avoid or work around snow covered roads.

4x4 towing would come in real handy if you camp on a beach, go off-road on forest roads, or boom dock in places there are no roads.

If you are driving paved road, the use for 4x4 is virtually non-existent.

Now, the question is, do you have another use for 4x4 when not towing? Because of where I live (in the country, on a county road, 25 miles from where I work) I need a vehicle that I can depend upon to make it through snow covered roads in the winter when a normal car will not! So for me, I don't use 4x4 towing, but I use it for other purposes!

It's really all a matter of how you plan on using your tow vehicle that should drive 4x4 or 2x4. Otherwise, you are correct 4x4 is an over-kill and something you may never use. So why get a vehicle that has it.

Only you can make that determination.

X-2, however I have never had a 4x4 truck for personnel use nor did I drive one at work. At work I was an electrician who had to travel between company places to do repairs come rain,sleet,snow or what ever. I did this fro 21 years in a Ford van then a Chevy van. Never failed to get there nor back to base. I also drove a 2wd truck to and from work 21 miles one way. Grew up on a farm with 2wd trucks,3/4 and 1 ton dually. We lived in a northern tier state for 9 years with a 2wd truck as our primary transportation. Never failed to get where we needed to or when we needed to. Do not have nor anticipate ever having a 4wd truck. That way I do not have to fight with a truck that is to high for a 5th wheel. JMHO.

I'm on my 4th 2wd drive truck, the 5th one will be 2wd also.

Never been stuck and I don't go place where I get stuck. If I ever did, I have nice big tow hooks on my 2wd :)

Different strokes for different folks. :)