So i'm trying to get up my driveway in the snow and the AWD light starts to flash after 30 seconds of spinning. The user manual tells me to shut the car down and let the AWD system cool down. Am i missing something here?!! the reason i got the 06x was because it had AWD and i know my driveway was hard to get up. Should the light be coming on so easily? I'd understand if i was spinning the tires for 5 minutes but for 30 seconds? I just had the AWD system serviced 5000 miles ago too. Is this worth a warranty visit?

i've never seen my AWD blink, other then when i ran stag tires. But i never spun tires for 30 seconds either...

pay attention to the times it blinks. normally 2 series. say like 3 short blinks and a pause and then 5 long blinks and a pause, pair that up with info from the FSM and it will tell you whats the deal.

do you have a "snow" button under the steering column by your right knee? it helps

Yeah forgot to mention the snow button was on.

mine was flashin too, but I was doing this

are u runnin stock tiresizes?

That would be my first question.

They are P215/55R17, not sure if that is stock or not.

That's stock.

I've heard of EXCESSIVE wheel spinning causing the light to blink. Was your VDC on when you were spinning tires?

VDC was on at the time. As a last resort i turned off the snow and vdc and powered up the driveway. The AWD light was still flashing rapidly but aleast i got out of the street.

interesting. But I'd only suggest resetting ur ECU.

Isn't this the same protection that kicks in when you are running staggered tires? Doesn't seem like it should happen after only 30 seconds though.

I think it depends on the amount of wheelspin and if it's proportional and if the VDC kicks in and tried to stop the wheels from turning and doesn't so equally.

In fact, that's my bet on what happened. The VDC tried to apply brake and as a result the wheel rotations between F and R were off ad caused the system to fault. Usually happens in snow mode because the transfer case is locked 50:50

It went off because your front tires were probably not doing anything and the rears were spinning. Or there was a big diff in the wheel speeds of both. Not sure why you sat there for 30 sec before you figured out you weren't going to make it.

The diff in speeds probably heats us the viscous coupling that transfers power rear to front. so the light blinks. Just a guess here.

just an update,
AWD turns off, if it gets too hot... Same one first gen
and 2nd gen too. AWD starts flashing if it's too hot, Gotta let it cool before you give it another go.

If your AWD is spinning to get up the driveway, invest in a new set of tires because yours obviously suck.