So what about getting new auto hubs put on??
Would that be a good idea??
(I just dont like the thought of getting out to lock em)
Sure, you can replace them with another set of auto-lockers if you want, but what would be the point ? Service the ones you have because unless they're broken there's really be no advantage to installing a new set. To be honest I just don't understand the whole "I don't like getting out of the truck" deal. There are a number of considerations here. To begin with everyone should understand that auto hubs are *less* than reliable (a LOT less). Once you've engaged them if you go & back-up then you've DISengaged them and you're back in 2WD (ask Billy about this one, he'd been trying to figure out why he kept getting stuck in the mud and couldn't back out of the mudholes
/emoticons/
[email protected] 2x" width="20" height="20" /> ). Auto hubs make it virtually impossoble to rock yourself out of a stuck. Manual hubs STAY locked and engaged once you turn them, very simple, VERY reliable. Also, you do *not* need to keep hopping in and out of the cab. It is perfectly acceptable to lock the hubs at the head of a trail or when bad weather is forecast and then just engage the transfer case when you want 4WD. Back in New England I would routinely lock the hubs and leave them engaged for weeks at a time in winter. The extra wear & tear caused by keeping them engaged like that is negligable and if you clean & maintain them & your front end then it's even LESS of an issue. The main reason that people swap to manual hubs is simply that they're so reliable. With auto hubs you have no telltale or any other sort of indicator to tell you that they *are* in fact physically engaged and they disengage on their own so frequently that they're just plain unreliable, add to that the problem of having one hub engaged while the other isn't (again, no way to tell what the deal is, except for the fact that you're stuck & the front end isn't helping you out). Now Auto hubs work fine for the Soccer-Mom crowd that never takes the truck off-road or that uses 4WD so infrequently that it's not a big deal. If the only time you ever use 4WD is for snow covered roads and you rarely get stuck then sure, auto-hubs are a fair compromise and lots of people who use their trucks that way are happy with them. There's absolutely no *performance* advantage to be had with hubs, locked is locked regardless of how you achieve it, the huge diffrence between them is reliability. When you turn a manual hub you KNOW it's engaged and it STAYS engaged until you decide different. Auto hubs were marketed & sold as a *convienance* feature and that's all they are, you trade reliability foe a percieved sense of convienance (I say "percieved" because there's nothing convienant about being stuck because the hubs keep disengaging on you when they're needed most)
