Kaisen, you are way beyond due for an issue but for what you use that Burb for in an urban all weather vehicle setting it may work fine and even when it doesn't it is just an inconvenience for a day of Christmas shopping at Mall of America. Its not like you'll have to walk out 20 miles of trail in Death Valley on a 100 degree day to the nearest lonely highway. Take something like that on a real world outing in Canyonlands or in the mountains where you are shifting in and out of 4 hi to 4 low every 50 to 100 yards and see how well it works out. The other thing is you are basing your opinion on one vehicle that you have experience with in an urban setting. That is like one single 6.0L PowerJoke guy with a 98,000 miles on his engine that has performed like a sewing machine so far saying the 6.0L diesels are the best engines ever when real world knowledge knows that is not reality. It is the electric shift convenient and easy for the wife to use? Yes, just like a cell phone and a AAA membership. That is exactly what is wrong with pretty much all of the 4x4 full-size SUVs and trucks. They are made for people that should be driving cars.....like all-weather Subaru's cars to be exact. :elkgrin:
You've made a few assumptions that humorously help make your point, but aren't exactly the truth in my case. This particular truck sees a lot of duty, it's not a daily driver or mall crawler, but a cabin/canoeing/boating/snowmobiling/car-carrying/airstream towing workhorse. A lot of Minnesota North of the Twin Cities is "backwoods", and we head to the Boundary Waters (Sawbill outside Tofte) regularly, where the "roads" really aren't. It's in and out of 4x4 often. Low-range not terribly often. And it serves Winter daily driving when there's snow on the ground, again in and out of 4x4. We don't have tremendous grade and rock crawling here (unless you seek it out) so you're right, I don't engage 4Lo as often as others. Plus, there's enough torque. At some boat launches where others need 4Lo, I just use the throttle. So you've got me there. Still, in those times I do engage 4Lo, it works. Every time. Can't complain.
The point of a personal anecdote is that it's truth, not a generalization. One person's truth, but it is fact and cannot be argued that it didn't happen. Talking about someone else's truth isn't quite as credible.
As an aside to your 6.0 jab, I owned a 2007 F350 Powerstroke 4x4 (Harley Crew) up to about 117K miles (sold it in early 2010), and it had one failure, ever.... a climate control head unit that went on the fritz and was covered under warranty. That's it. No issues with anything else. I replaced the tires twice. I replaced front brakes once. And regular maintenance fluids/filters, etc. It was a great truck. I always feared it would break in all of those catastrophic ways, but it never did. What can I say?
My 2007 GMC Duramax Crew 4x4 (Classic) got a new turbocharger last year, under warranty. It probably wasn't necessary, but the vanes on the turbo got sticky and the sensor set a code. Instead of taking it apart and cleaning it, GM decided to replace it. Wasn't my money. If it would have been, I would have just cleaned it. Otherwise, the truck has never had a failure. It has a little over 60K miles now, and the only time it moves is when there's a heavy trailer on it. Tires once, front brakes once... both a couple years ago at about 40K. Low miles, but it's still eight years old and it's seen heavy towing most of that time.
So these are personal anecdotes. My truths. If someone else has a failure and says "they all do it", well... YMMV
