Engaging and disengaging 4wd in the Jimny

There’s a lot of people who get into the Jimny with no experience of 4wding and there’s some rookie mistakes that you can make. Part of this is not that great information in the owners manual and part is just things not being well explained.

Before you get into this, it’s worth also looking at my article on tyre pressures for the Jimny. You should get into the habit of deflating tyres when you go to engage 4wd (so you have extra traction) and then reinflating when you go back to 2WD and hit sealed roads. Even if you don’t strictly always ‘need’ to do this, it is a good habit to get into and will lessen the chance of getting stuck.

How the Jimny’s 4wd system works

The Jimny’s 4wd system is a part time 4wd system. By default, the car only provides power to the rear wheels. On the 4wd selector this is called ‘2H’: 2 wheel drive, high range. When you engage 4wd (enging ‘4H’ – 4wd, high range), two things happen:

Physically, drive is also connected to the front axle through the transfer case.
This is a direct connection with no differential or other coupling involved.
The vacuum system will engage the front drive hubs, which connects the front axle to the wheels.

The first thing to realise is that when you are in 2H and only the rear wheels are receiving power, the front axle is disconnected from the wheels. This means manual free wheeling hubs/locking hubs are not needed, unless you have some particular reason to want manually locking hubs. This has benefits in fuel economy: you aren’t spinning the front differential and associated components so there is less drag on the car.

There is an additional component to the transfer case and that is the inclusion of low range. This takes the power coming from the output of the car’s gearbox or automatic transmission and puts it through an additional set of gears. From the factory this is a 2 to 1 reduction, so you will go half as slow in any gear in the transmission for an engine rpm with the low range engaged. This has the benefit that it also multiplies the torque of the engine so you can climb up harder terrain.

When you engage low range (4L – 4wd, low range), a number of the car’s safety features are switched off. Electronic stability control, autonomous braking and some other minor functions are switched off; the car disables normal traction control but instead aims to brake an individual wheel if it spins which helps you when you have wheels off the ground as you go 4wding.

One thing to bear in mind is that the part time nature of the Jimny’s 4wd system means that it lacks the ability to have different wheel speeds between the front and rear ends of the car. When you go around a corner, the front and rear axles travel a different distance and that means they need to go at different speeds.

Without the ability to accommodate that difference through a centre differential, the Jimny has a risk of transmission/transfer case/driveline damage if you are in 4WD on the road. It won’t instantly break things: they make a lot of awful noises before things break and likely you’ll hear the wheels making little screeching noises as you turn as the first sign of trouble, but it is not good to be in 4WD on a sealed road unless you are absolutely driving in a completely straight line.

How to engage the different 4wd modes

This is something I’ve helped a few new users with. To engage high range 4wd, just pull the lever back from 2H to 4H. The 4wd indicator light will flash on the dashboard and then engage after a period of time (once sufficient vacuum has been built to engage the front wheel drive hubs), and you’ll now be in 4wd.

This mode can be selected when you are moving, up to 100 km/h. Above 100 km/h the car will not electronically activate the hubs to engage front drive; it’s probably not sensible to engage it at high speeds anyway. You will also feel the steering get heavier once the drive is engaged, as the car will now be putting engine power through the front wheels, which ends up providing extra feedback to your hands holding the steering wheel.

Note that the clutch in a manual car only separates the engine from the car’s gearbox; the transfer case will also be connected to the gearbox output and so you can engage 4H just by pulling the lever back: the clutch does not need to be pressed in to make the shift. In an automatic in any of the forward driving positions you can also just pull the lever back and you’ll be in 4H.

Engaging low range is harder, and you need to have the car not moving for this shift. In an automatic have the transmission in neutral or park; in a manual you can have the clutch in and the car stopped but in gear, or you can have the gearbox in neutral but with the clutch pedal pushed in.

You need to both push down on the transfer lever as well as pull it backwards. When the cars are new you can find that the transfer can be quite hard and stiff to both push down and pull backwards on simultaneously: this can result in the car falling out of low range as you drive. Additionally, aftermarket centre console cupholders and things can stop it engaging low range as it holds the lever from coming all the way back.

In low range, you’ll notice the dashboard change colours and there’ll be a few chimes as various safety features are disabled. This is a good sign you’re in low range!

Shifting back from 4L to 4H and then to 2H is quite easy. You do not need to push down on the lever to go from low range to high range: just push it forwards. You should be not moving when you do this, and with an automatic transmission in neutral or park, and a manual with the clutch in.

Going from 4H to 2H is even easier: this again can be done at up to 100 km/h. Just push the lever forwards from 4H to the 2H position. The car will automatically use the vacuum system to disengage the front wheel locking hubs and the axle will be disconnected from the wheel, giving you the fuel economy benefits of being in 2wd.

When would you use different drive options?

Somewhat an existential question, but there’s a few rough rules of thumb I use to dictate it.

First off, I think as a guiding principle people are too frightened of putting it in low range. The car comes with a low range for a reason, and they have a little engine that needs and loves to rev. Low range makes it rev and reduces the load on the engine. The official owners manual tells you not to exceed 30 km/h in low range (for absolutely no reason) but then tells you elsewhere you can do more than 30 km/h in it. I suspect that’s down to the requirement to keep traction control/safety stuff on by default, which is what happens in high range.

If I’m doing a beach run I’ll often be in low range to let the car rev. The only difficulty with that is automatics don’t seem to pick up 4th gear if you’re in low range, so you end up being limited to ~70 km/h. A manual will do about 100 km/h in 5th gear in low range. I never want to be going nearly that fast on most sand I hit, more like 40-50 km/h, so low range is perfect. Hit some soft sand and you have the power to get out of it, whereas loping along in high range and you lack that instant acceleration.

Low range is also your gear for rock crawling, or even hitting some mud. Remember you don’t have to take off in first gear either, you can potentially be in different gears in low range to what you might think. It’s worth reviewing my article on Jimny gearing to understand what speeds correspond to what engine revs in low range to wrap your head around this.

If I’m on a loose gravel road then I want to be in high range 4wd. I won’t be doing more than 100 km/h in these situations anyway (most likely) and it keeps the car from sliding around as much since not all the power is going to the back wheels. It also helps with the unexpected and gives you that additional grip.

One area to be in 2wd, i.e. transfer case lever in 2H, is on bitumen/sealed roads. Even wet roads provide sufficient grip that they will not slip the tyres enough to accommodate speed differences between the front and rear axles. If you’re hitting a sealed road after 4wding, make sure to fully engage all the way back to 2H.

A final thing: it’s a good idea to engage 4WD periodically when you can. Firstly it makes sure things are working and the hubs are engaging etc, but also it’s good to turn the front differential from time to time. Without the car being in 4WD the differential remains in one position and the oil settles mostly to the bottom. Engaging 4WD means that it gets turned through the act of putting drive through it, moving oil around the differential.

Things to look out for / basic troubleshooting

4WD light won’t stop flashing when I engage 4H
4WD light doesn’t show when I engage 4H, and flashes when I engage 4L
I have engaged 4L and all the safety features are remaining engaged
The transfer case makes crunchy noises when I try to engage low range
The transfer case slips out of low range
The transfer case lever is really hard to move trying to go from 4L to 4H or 4H to 2H