A stranger met in a parking lot told me that her husband converted her outback from 4wd to 2wd by doing something (unmentioned) in the fuse box. Seems a bit dodgey to me but SHE claimed it gave her about 30mpg afterwards. I have a Forester all wheel drive and was wondering if it would work on my car... or even if it were possible for that matter.

Anyone know??

The fuse is designed to be used for towing, meaning disabling AWD. It's usually marked FWD. Some say it will provide increased MPG and others say it will damage a solenoid in the transmission. I've never used mine.

 

 

Ryan

i've driven an AWD soob in FWD for extended periods of time and experienced no gains in gas mileage. i think the only way you *might*, and this im doubtful of, but the only way i could see you noticing a difference is with more city driving than highway driving...which she wasn't doing much city driving if she got 30 mpg.

 

an AWD running in FWD mode is not like a FWD trans. i didn't design the thing, but the internals of the AWD are still present and there will be more internal resistance than a FWD. and the AWD weighs considerably more as well....heavier transmission, rear drive shaft, rear differential, rear axles, heavier rear hubs, sometimes other things are beafier as well....control arms, struts etc. installing that fuse will make little difference.

 

a FWD auto XT6 can get close to 35 mpg. an AWD XT6 can't get more than 28 mpg stock. i ran my manual AWD XT6 in FWD mode with the rear driveshaft removed and experienced no highway mileage gains. i'm confident of these results as i drove 40,000 miles per year or more during that time and had very consistent stretches of roads to compare.

 

maybe newer trans are different, but that's been my experience.

I have to agree with gary. I drove my 98 legacy for a couple weeks with the FWD fuse in place (due to some transmissions problems (Torque Bind)) and I didn't notice any gains in mpg or anything... hated the way it handled though.

A stranger met in a parking lot told me that her husband converted her outback from 4wd to 2wd by doing something (unmentioned) in the fuse box. Seems a bit dodgey to me but SHE claimed it gave her about 30mpg afterwards. I have a Forester all wheel drive and was wondering if it would work on my car... or even if it were possible for that matter.

Anyone know??

 

We need to make this a sticky thread since this topic comes up ever few weeks.

MPG has to do with weight, drag, gearing, etc. By putting in the fuse this will affect mpg by 1 maybe 2 mpg at most and can damage the solenoid.

The only way to get better mpg is to lose weight, remove all seats, use low weight wheels, low resistance tires, and since this is a Forester chop the top to cut down in wind resistance!