HELP. I can not get my 96 Outback to disengage the AWD with the fuse. I loaned my car to a friend (everyone listen) and he had a blowout and thought he was doing me a favor by changing the front tires only! Then drove it until it started clunking..bad. It is stuck in this friends driveway. I went to put the trusty fuse in and the FWD light will not come on. Am I totally screwed now? Any Suggestions, thanks

With the key in the ON position, I would test that you have 12v on one side of the connector for the FWD fuse. If you do have 12v there, I'd suspect something wrong with the duty c solenoid. If you don't have 12v there, you may want to check some fuses.

 

Regardless, if he drove it until there was clunking, he may have done irrepairable damage to the AWD system.

It sounds like the damage has been done. Usually the Duty c solenoid failing will throw a code on the tranny light (i think). The only suggestion i can make, is first check the tranny fluid, see if it is burnt. You may want to try a tranny flush if there if the previous test for power is ok. Can you describe the clunking better? and can you explain why the car wont move? Exaclty what are you doing and what is the car doing. A freid AWD unit should not make it impossible to move the car, unelss the tranny itslef is fried. which is possible.

 

 

nipper

Is the fuse blown? Not to be smart but if it is....

 

I did this a while back when first got mine. Drove on the spare for a long time, clunking got pretty hideous. Drove with only FWD for a while. Eventually the clunking stopped, pulled the fwd fuse and everything is 'ok'. What really happened to the gears and what not.... Im scared to think about it.

 

Hentai

get new/matching tires on it.

 

might take a little bit of driving straight for the FWD to engage. have you tried driving it or just installing the fuse and turning the car on?

 

if you can get new tires on it, i wouldn't be surprised if everything works fine afterwards. wouldn't be surprised if something is wrong either, but i wouldn't assume the worst just yet. the AWD's just don't drive well with mismatched tires.