4 wheel drive

[bryan307]

I have owned a few 4x4 in the past were you have to put the car into 4wheel drive,having never owned a crv not sure how you out these into 4x4 its a 2002 petrol model

[fixer]

Hi bryan; The CRV is not 4X4 in the usual meaning of the phrase. It is an automatic system which is always applying torque to the front wheels unless it determines the front wheel(s) are turning faster (spinning) than the rear wheels. Then it will apply varying amounts of torque to the rear differential in an attempt to find more traction there. To answer your question, the system is always working. There is no way to turn it on and off. There is a VSA on off switch which when off will let a little more torque go to the rear wheels and it will be more consistent. Use the off position only when you are stuck or about to be stuck, as the VSA should be in service to Assist in Stabilizing your Vehicle when it is operating normally on the road.

[bryan307]

i cannot find the switch which you are describing to me,will just have to wait and see how the car handles when we get the bad weather

[Buffalo4]

i cannot find the switch which you are describing to me,will just have to wait and see how the car handles when we get the bad weather

I don't think that year CRV has that VSA feature. The 4 wheel drive feature is fully automatic.
However, if the rear differential hadn't had its oil changed in recent history, it would be a good idea to change it. Use only Honda Dual Pump Fluid in it. It is fairly easy to do and takes just over a qt.

There are write ups in this forum about how to do that.

Enjoy your CRV.
Buffalo4

[fixer]

Oops, my bad. As Buffalo4 says, there is no VSA on Gen 2 CRV's. The best thing you can do to assure good traction is to get 4 Winter tires on it. Not All Season, "Winter". All season tires just don't have the grip for snow and most become harder and harder as the temp drops. You can imagine how something as hard as plastic would grip on ice or packed snow!!! Winter tires have a more open tread to let them bite into snow and the tread stays soft. The soft tread sticks to ice better. They have many small sipes or cuts in the tread surface to bleed off water to prevent hydro planing on ice etc. This is not just a marginal change in traction, it is an OMG change. The first time I used these tires I was astounded by the difference. To easily identify these tires you should see an icon on the side that looks like a snowflake *.