can't switch out of 4WD

I really feel bad for the OP... poor guy, stuck in his 4Runner for two years, unable to disengage or engage 4H or 2H or both. Probably abandoned it by now. Such as sad story.

 

Made this point in another thread...people like to join the forum to post "HELP - MY 4R IS DOING XXXX!" and after a lot of discussion, we never hear back from the OP.

 

Yeah, happens on every forum. I'll admit to doing that on a couple forums for cars I've owned but aren't in the "hobby" category... like, my wife's new BMW that is a constantly source of frustration. I was very pleasantly surprised that there's a world where guys view the BMW X3 as a cool performance car, and are way into them. But like here, those guys are a wealth of information.

But, I do make a point of leaving a "This is great. Thanks guys!" comment before I vanish.

 

Yeah it’s a funny pattern.

• The OP usually asks the initial question in a very vague way.
• Well meaning forum members ask for clarification.
• OP drifts away OR
• OP responds to request for clarification but provides no clarification.
• Well meaning forum members attempt to puppet the OP with diagnostic baby-step instructions.
• OP drifts away OR
• OP interprets the baby step instructions as patronizing and , frustrated, drifts away OR
• OP doesn’t have the technical acumen to follow even the baby steps and, ashamed, drifts away.

 

OP was just trolling

 

I think some of these ghosted threads - that sometimes seem like trolls - are because the OP realizes early on they made a very stupid user error... then spend the rest of the thread trying to save face with "yeah, I did that but it didn't work... "

 

The problem is usually due to the OP, as Boss Man says to Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke:
“what we have here is a failure to communicate!”

 

https://xkcd.com/979/


"All long help threads should have a sticky globally-editable post at the top saying 'DEAR PEOPLE FROM THE FUTURE: Here's what we've figured out so far ...'"

What similarly sucks is finding a thread and OP simply says "never mind I fixed it!" and vanishes.

 

but.. but how'd ya fix it?