Tomorrow I may be towing my 2008 4wd Jeep Liberty behind my brother’s van/rv. I know that he has a 2-wheel tow dolly that attaches to his bumper hitch and that will be his plan.
Reading the owner’s manual, 2-click link to manual download, I see instructions for shifting the transfer case to neutral, understood. There’s also a warning about damage if “a front or rear wheel lift is used when recreational towing”. Does this mean the tow dolly?
The only stated approved means of towing is with a tow bar, ie 4 wheels on the ground.
I would assume the tow dolly is recreational towing (i.e., typically used for long highway trips) rather than breakdown towing, which typically would be a short trip.
The failsafe method would be to disconnect the driveshaft from the rear drive axle and tow from the front.
Go ask a Jeep dealer for the straight dope. Barring that, try asking the question on an RV website like Good Sam. I’ve never seen a Jeep towed on a dolly, always “four down”.
I did ask the dealer, but only got a phone message at the end of the day saying it was okay to tow.
From another forum I have partial information that the Select-TracII transfer case can not be towed 2-wheel, but that the Command-TracII, which I have, might be okay.
Any thoughts?
P.S.
Dropping the drive shaft isn’t really an option, it’s for a short 6-7 hour round trip. So if this can’t be done then we’ll have to tow a different car.
With an old fashioned move-the-lever type transfer case, towing it either way with the xfer case in neutral or in 2wd with the back wheels off the ground should be fine. Not so sure with a fancy newer 4wd system (with its own name and everything!), but in my mind, the transfer case neutral position should mean the axles aren’t linked together and the drivetrain isn’t linked to either axle, in which case it should be no problem at all.
I’m 99% sure it’d be fine. But I’m 100% sure I’m not paying for your new transmission if you toast it, so I wouldn’t risk it unless you hear it’s okay from somewhere definitive.
I don’t know what CommandTracII is, but CommandTrac is the NP 231 transfer case and … crap, common wisdom says tow flat but now that I search around there’s a lot of conflicting information. The main problem is that the front and rear output shafts in the transfer case remain lock together in neutral. Some newer NP231s apparently have true neutral but there’s a ton of conflicting info about that as well and I can’t really find anything on the Liberty or what a CommandTracII is. There may be other reasons that towing with two-up are bad for the Liberty.
You might try jeepforum.com, there’s an entire section for Libertys. I’d advise going with the owner’s manual if you can’t find a definite answer. I’ll add that disconnecting the driveshaft is only a 5 minute job and there are probably easy to follow how-tos on the web.
Borg Warner transfer cases I am familiar with (on Ford trucks)have an oil (ATF) pump driven by the output shaft. When towed in neutral this provides lube to all the moving bits in the TC, and the TC in neutral prevents the transmission from turning, so it is fine as well.
I don’t know if the Jeep in question uses a BW TC, but from the OP it sounds like it or something similar.
Automatic transmissions have the pump on the input, so don’t lube if the engine is not running. Manual transmissions also don’t lube well when the input gear and counter-shaft are not turning…so it is not OK to tow with the TC engaged and the tranny in neutral.