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Originally Posted by Brian
I was told this by a certified Subaru tech regarding AWD SVX's:
"There is a fuse spot under the hood in the box that if you put a 20 amp fuse in it it will turn off the rear wheels for summer driving."
Is this right?
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Well ....... up to a point. It will ensure that the transmission never locks up, and so the rear wheels will never see any positive power being fed through them. But you've still got all the parasitic losses of churning round all the geartrains, so the engine and the auto gearbox are still going to be working just as hard to push the car along against the passive drag of the gearsets.... but you'll just be wearing out the
other side of the teeth on the rear wheel drive gears, and wearing out the front drive gears a
little bit more.
But if you suddenly
need the additional stability that all wheel drive gives you, when you need to swerve suddenly, on a wet bumpy road with adverse camber, you might just regret inserting that fuse.
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If it is, would running the car like that be easier on the transmission (as the FWD SVX's are supposed to be easier on their transmissions than the AWD SVX's)? Or, since we're talking about a car that is designed to be AWD, would this just cause the transmission to deteriorate faster?
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It isn't going to make any significant difference to the wear, performance or fuel consumption.
Put it another way, would you deliberately disconnect the rear brakes?
I guarantee that your rear discs and pads will last forever like that.
