The road to our boat ramp is quite a steep grade. Boat and trailer is approx 5,500lbs. Trailer has surge brakes but I feel that my 4runner brakes are taking the majority of the stopping. I'm essentially riding the brakes all the way down the hill.

My question is can I use 4lo as a sort of engine brake or does this put my tranny in jeopardy? Not looking to use DAC as it would take too long to get down to the ramp, approx 1/2 mile.

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Nobody has any thoughts on this?

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It should work, but you'll get some binding if it is a pavement decent around turns which might break something in the driveline.

You don't need to lock the center diff to be in 4 low he should be good, just keep RPMs at normal levels.

that's what low range is for, use it.

Yea I won't be locking diff, or going over 25mph for that matter.

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Is it? I just wanted to make sure I wasn't putting too much stress on trans.

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Well look at it like this. If you use your brakes you are gonna potentially burn up/shorten the life span on a couple hundred dollars worth of pad and rotors. If you use your granny you could potentially damage a $3-4k part. I don't know that this will happen tho. I wouldn't think so.


On the flip side of you are worried about stopping then you ar trying to protect human life and by all means do whatever it takes.

No problems using low range like that, it'll work great.

More worried about overheating brakes and them not working.

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Another vote for "uhhhh, isn't that low range is for?" Use it as long as you don't go too fast and redlining it.

I’m in a 5th gen, so maybe 4th gens are different? But I’m fairly certain that unless you have a Limited with permanent AWD and the option to lock the center diff, once you engage 4wd high or low (Sport, SR5, Trail, Pro), the center diff is locked (in my SR5 I get 50/50 torque split in either 4hi or 4lo), and care should be taken not to make any turns when driving on pavement to keep from binding the driveline.

That being said, in any driveline friendly situation where I can take the load off of my brakes by going 4lo, I will. Not only am I saving my brakes from overheating, but I have more control over the vehicle. I use 4lo to traverse steep downhill grades every time I off-road, and unless I’m bombing down a soft sand wash, I’m pretty much always in 4lo, if for nothing else, to help me slow down and enjoy the trip.

All 4th gen V8 non-2wd (full time 4x4) models have the same center diff as your 5th gen limiteds.

AWD v8. You have to manually lock diff in 4hi or 4lo.

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Interesting, so all 4th gen V8s have permanent AWD with the option to lock the center. So then possible driveline issues only apply to V6s with part time 4wd.

I was curious about how bad bind can be for our driveline and found this thread. Really good info, and apparently a few of our senior members have had no issue with mild to extreme use of 4wd on high traction surfaces.

Using part-time 4WD on dry pavement (TE - SR5)