awd ?'s 04 tahoe

[no_rice]

so this is my fairly new to me toy...

2004 tahoe lowered with 20's

its in really good shape, mostly loaded.

i have had many chevy 4x4's over the years ranging from 75-97, but all of them were actual 4x4. as in 2 hi, 4 hi and 4 lo.

this tahoe is full time 4wd with the stabilitrak. so far im not to fond of the way its working. i figured out how to turn off the stabilitrak by pushing the top botton on the left side of the cluster. easy enough. the "stability system disabled" shows up on the info at the bottom of the cluster and the tc with a slash over it shows up near the top right. which means to me the traction control is off and so is the stabilitrak. ok so far so good.

now my problem comes when i stand on the gas. in my regular 4x4's, if i stand on the gas all 4 wheels start to spin and stay spinning and of course the first thing it would do on slick ground is slide completely sideways against the curb if you dont let up.

now try that in my tahoe, and all the wheels start to spin for a second, and then the rearend steps way out as if i was in 2wheel drive and the front is barely going. it still looks as if its moving, but just not with much power.

now i have looked through the owners manual(ya, a rare occasion) and it says when the system is turned off, the traction off light and the stability sys disabled will show up on the cluster, and are there to warn the driver that both the stability system and PART of the traction control system are disabled. ok...

so then after that it says, your vehical will still have brake traction control with stabilitrak disabled.

now the way i read that is not in "antilock brake" sense but more in the "traction control" sense even though it should be turned off.

so i guess im trying to find out how an AWD tahoe should behave in the snow like this.

and has anyone figured out how to COMPLETELY get rid of the traction control and stabilitrak. i have been looking through the fuse block im not a big fan of the vehical controling its self and even over ruling what i am trying to get it to do. i guess when i stand on the gas i expect all the wheels to spin until i let off the gas.

anyway, for a first post that was pretty long winded, but i dont know a single person with this set up on their stuff. thanks for any info

 

[no_rice]

not a single person on here has an all wheel drive? i thought for sure someone would have something to say?!

 

[oomindwarpoo]

I've never heard of a tahoe having AWD...? Typically that's reserved for the Yukon. One of the guru's will jump in soon enough.

 

[scomo]

I have a AWD Tahoe, but I've never tried this. I think I might give it a whirl this weekend. I know what you're saying about disabling your traction control permanently, but mine has already saved my life and I've only owned the vehicle 4 months. Call me an aggressive driver, but the traction control works.

I have a question for you, though. If you are driving in the snow and want to maintain traction, why would you want to disable traction control? If it's to get squirrely, I understand that and from what I hear, these all wheel drives make it hard to have fun fish tailing.

 

[no_rice]

well i grew up on gravel and in the snow. there is nothing wrong with sliding or spinning except for the fact to many people over react or have no concept of counter steer. hell i ride motorcycle mostly year round snow or not.

the problem is if you are sliding a bit or something like that. a person used to that stuff or comfortable with it just steers through it and adjusts the gas acordingly. no problem, unless you counter steer like you should and then the damn car decides it needs to jam on the brakes and makes an abrupt change to whats going on. then you have to compensate for that to. so you start compensating for that then it adjusts the brakes again.... on and on. all that happens is you end up fighting the car and instead of a nice smooth fluid small slide, you get this big jerking around vehical that is a pain in the rear.

also its hard to get up any momentum to make it through the deep stuff when the thing keeps trying to slow its self down.

all i can say is i have never had that stuff on any of my vehicals and ive never gone in the ditch or lost control of a vehical in bad weather, and the worse it gets the more i end up being on the road heading out to go snowmobiling and such and i love to run hard in the snow!

 

[ezstriper]

pretty rare on tahoes, should be the same system a escalade or denalli uses, one thing i have heard is they cost you 2-4 mpg, because of the extra drag...Rob

 

[no_rice]

yep it definatly sucks the fuel. i rarely get over 14 mpg. doubt im going to like the mileage when i haul 5 bikes down to georgia again in march... ugh

 

[wilb3]

I don't think you could get the rear-end to fishtail if you wanted on our AWD models! They're safe but not the most fun.

 

[no_rice]

turn the stabilitrak and traction control off and it will swing the rear all over. the only problem is that once you turn the steering wheel more than a little bit to counter steer the damn sensores on the steering wheel tell the brake control you need help and it starts to jam on the brakes. then it gets all messed up.

i was out in a field doing donuts in the snow for awhile the other night while i was trying to get everything turned off. tried yanking some fuses and such. if you yank the stability fuse aparently that also disables 4LO. that pisses me off.

 

[boostaholic]

Unfortunately you can't really tune around this and you're stuck with the goofy awd. The issue with the awd on the tahoes and 03+ denalis is that they're based off input from the abs system, body control module, and power control modules so it acts as a sort of nanny to make sure you don't crash your truck. Getting a good tune to delete some of the torque management would definitely help but you're pretty much stuck with an underpowered truck with quite a bit of traction. I'm lucky enough to have the nvg-149 tcase which continuously varies torque independently like a REAL awd tcase should. You aren't missing much other than 1mpg and a greater risk of crashing your truck, awd cookies are fun tho.

 

[Rollin Thunder]

Cant you just pull the fuse for the AWD and get a true 2wd truck then???

 

[boostaholic]

No, you'll fvck some sh*t up if you try that. Just buy a 4wd if you don't like it lol. You'd actually have to pull the front shaft and it would burn up the viscous coupling.

 

[Rollin Thunder]

I think your issue with you tahoe is they uses a 670 transfer case which just bairly makes due. While the yukon and escalde use a 680 transfer case which is much stronger and bigger. Right???

 

[tybardy]

sorry to get off topic, but do you know what stance your car is at? I like it alot

 

[boostaholic]

Looks like 2/3.

 

[tybardy]

i would like to lower my 'hoe, just not sure how thats gonna look/feel on the z71 (plus the fact that it seems kinda douchy to get a z71 and lower it)

 

[boostaholic]

Fvck it dude, it's your truck do whatever you want.

 

[tybardy]

about how much should one pay for a 2/3?

 

[boostaholic]

I paid less than $200 but reasonably I'd say $400-$600 installed for keys, shocks/extensions, torsion keys, install and alignment. I'll have some 4" coils for sale this spring.

 

[bahollis]

Yep, they're right. It seems the whole point of AWD is that you have less chance to lose traction. All of the safety features you're trying to disable are there... well, to make it safer. I had a 2WD single cab truck spin 720 on the highway moving about 60mph, because of a small slick puddle under an overpass. It had no ABS, no Stabilitrak, and no AWD. We slid off I-20, across a ditch and up an embankment backwards about 100 ft. before we came to a stop. That's not to say that all the goodies my AWD 4x4 has now would have prevented that for sure, but they might have. Luckily, all I had to do was clean the mud & grass out of the valance & behind the front bumper. It didn't even spill my drink.

So if you want to spin the wheels, go get a rental. And buy the $8 insurance.

BH