Hello,

under the bonnet of my 1998 outback there is a fuse holder (with no fuse) that has 4WD on it.

Silly question- what happens if you put a fuse in it ??

Normal use is no fuse. Install a fuse, car operates in front wheel drive only.

So would putting a fuse in for normal around town on bitumen roads be better for fuel consumption?

Would it do any damage ?

Since there's no axle disconnects on a subaru, all the rear driveline will still be spinning even if you put the fwd fuse in. So you don't gain anything.

It's also argued that giving full duty cycle to the C solenoid is bad and will burn it up, I dunno if it's true or not, but just leave it in awd.

Won't hurt anything either.  Most mpg you might gain would 2-3 anyway.

And here I was thinking someone would say you have a super rare special model and if you put a fuse in it will lock the the diffs and double the power !

4wd or Fwd?

Big difference.

 

In some countries (not the US) there was an option to lock into 4 wheel drive, by installing a fuse in the fuse holder labeled "4WD" on the strut tower.

 

Its in about the same place as the "FWD" fuse holder on the US models. Except the Fwd fuse holder does the opposite. It totally disengages the AWD, and gives you only front wheel operation.

 

It would be kinda neat to know which pin on the TCU that fuse goes to. Could be useful for people here who like to run a switch to the duty c solenoid to lock the transfer clutch into 4wd.

I will check tonight but I'm fairly sure it was 4WD.

Yes it's just behind the strut tower on the right side.

Maybe I should put a fuse in and see what it does ?

No I was wrong it's says FWD !

Thanks for the help

Rick has put a toggle switch on the dash of 2 of my now long gone Subarus so that I could flip between AWD and FWD as I wished.  I ran my '92 Legacy Turbo Touring Wagon LE in FWD most of the time and only flipped into AWD when the conditions required it.  I had that car the longest, so it was like that for several years and still no transmission troubles when I finally sold it.