So I was driving from MA to SC for school, and about 500 miles into the trip check engine light came on.

Then I noticed that the transfer case indicator read neutral. Yet I was doing 80 on the highway so it was clearly not in neutral. I tried hitting 2wd while driving to see if the indicator would work, but nothing. Later I parked the truck and hit 2wd and then the 2wd light worked and hasn't gone back to indicating neutral since.



Checked the engine codes



Basically I am asking what needs to be fixed and is this bad to drive around on.

 

I would check all of the transfer case wiring and see if something has come unplugged or has corrosion. If that doesn't fix it then you likely need a new 4x4 selector switch.

 

This is what I was thinking. Anyone else have any opinions? I was wondering about the tcase motor going bad, which is much more pricey than the selector switch.

 

You should be able to hot wire the motor to test it.

The switch contacts can also get dirt and fail. I saw a thread on another site where the guy repaired his own switch.

Without the proper scan tool with OE coverage it's hard to diagnose.

 

Will HP tuners be able to diagnose better?

On a positive note the switch hasn't messed up again since that one day.

 

No, you need something with Bidirectional controls and you need to be able to access things other things such as the body control module.

You would need something like a GM tech2 or a GM MDI with GDS2 software. But there are other aftermarket tools that have similar capabilities. Autoenginuity, Bosch Mastertech and Mastertech MVCI, Snap on, OTC, Launch and a few others out there.

Just comes down to what your willing to spend and how much you want to be like the OE tool.

Autoenginuity with the enhanced coverage is only a few hundred $$$ I haven't used so I don't have first hand experience with it though...

 

I had this issue with my Suburban, 2003. I replaced the switch, cheap and easy, and then replaced the encoder on the motor that switches gears. No more issues. Not very expensive, and not too bad to do. I did find something on youtube showing that the motor can be removed and replaced without removing the driveshaft. It is a bear, but not as bad as removing the driveshaft! Since the replacement, everything works perfect.