How can I tell if my legacy is AWD or FWD

[ssspoon@aol.com]

Iain asks; how can I tell if my legacy is AWD or FWD

Yes yes yes , you have been given some good suggestions, but will any of them offer you unmistakable proof ? What if your car really should be AWD but somehow has ended up with an inoperable driveshaft and/or rear differential with no innards ?

For real proof jack your front end so the front wheels are a couple of centimeters off the ground. Clear out anybody from in front of your car. Get in and start up. Place the car in gear. Give her the gas. If you can drive off the jackstands, it's with your rear wheels, thus positively confirming (or not) whether you have AWD.

A more challenging alternative is to jack all wheels off the ground, start up, put in gear, and see if all four wheels spin. If only front spin, carefully slow front wheels by applying gentle pressure to tires to see if torque transfer causes rear wheels to start turning.

Either of these methods will result in more reliable proof than just looking under the car or trusting that someone can stand off to the side and tell whether both front and rear tires spin in water. Maybe they will, maybe they won't.

[ob1poor]

yup, the elusive awd fuse. well for me anyway, yeah i'm probably
the one josh was thinking about. i've posted everywhere trying to
get any info on my missing fuse. i have a plate on the drivers side
door that says 4wd turbo sedan and i know for a fact that i do have
4wd but i can't find the fuse everywhere. i had someone check carfax
and get a report for my car to see if it was in an accident and
somehow the fuse and such got taken out during repairs but nope,
pretty spotless report, and it did in fact say 4wd. so even if you
have an auto and can't find the fuse thing i wouldn't go by that
alone to determine fwd/awd. i'd jack it up like larry suggested and
check it out.

[legacycentral]

My 4EAT has "torque-binded" itself to death, and is effectively FWD
even with the fuse out. In snow, it's fairly obvious, and when i get
on the gas and the front wheels spin, well...

This happens on a lot of 4EATs, and it's not cheap to fix, but the
problem is so stupidly simple that they ignored it till the 97
models. Oh well, i'm going to replace mine this spring anyway, so i
might actually get some of that power to the rear wheels too!

[Doug Hancock]

Rev it to about 6000 rpm and drop the clutch if smoke pores of the front
tires then sew the buggers. If it bites and throws you it to an on coming
truck then you will have to buy a new car (and not that new fandangle thing
either). if its an auto well do none of the above. Look under and running
along side of the exhaust pipe should be another pipe a little bigger that
should be your drive shaft. If that is missing then you could buy that new
thing.

[subman2001nz]

The AWD fuse is only available in the Auto models, there are two
types.

1. The FWD models the fuse dissables the rear drive line.

2. The AWD models the fuse locks the centre diff.

This feature can only be avchieved on the auto models as the
transmission setup is totally different to the manual version.

[Josh Colombo]

Hey Dan,

It must be different in Aust/NZ. The FWD fuse is for the Auto's only, and is to disable the power from being distributed to the rear wheels....it basically bypassses or sends a signal to the duty solenoid that controls how much power the rear drive shaft gets, and tells it not to send any power to the rear.

The FWD models will have no such fuse. Same goes with the manual transmission models.