What is leaking?

[OHP]

Does anyone know if there is any way to prevent this leak from happening in the first place?

 

[TRDCal]

Does anyone know if there is any way to prevent this leak from happening in the first place?

Buy a 2wd model lol. But seriously it's kind of unavoidable if you want a 4runner. I would think its better for the seal if the actuator gets used often (switch to 4lo once a month or something) rather than never because if you never use it, the seal and actuator get stuck together and then when you do finally use it, the actuator damages the seal getting "unstuck".

Either way you look at it, its a wearable component that's not going to last forever anyways. It's too bad it doesn't last longer but I think that has a lot to do with people buying them, never touching the 4wd switch (esp. bad it fulltime V8's) and then 5-10 years later the second owner jumps in and says "oh I wonder if the 4wd works" and sure he gets it into 4lo but little does he know, he just ripped the seal all to ****.