Well,
Without knowing any other details, it's hard to condemn the driver of the coach for this. It doesn't matter what kind of coach one is driving, be it a 500HP diesel or your basic V-10 powered 35' gas coach, one CAN TELL if the toad is in or out of gear when taking off from a dead stop. Heck, I did it in an off road situation where we had our '99 Fleetwood Bounder 34V with the V-10 and we'd hooked up our Jeep YJ for a trip home after goofing around off road down in the Boreggo desert in So Cal.
We were still in the dirt area when we'd hooked up the Jeep and for some odd reason, most likely distraction of some type, I'd left it in 2WD. We took off and IMMEDIATELY I could feel the drag on the coach, not normally there when departing from any scenario like this. I stopped immediately after feeling that drag.
Behind us was about 10-15' of skid marks in the flat ground area from the Jeep. Needless to say, I hammered my own butt for being such an airhead. We'd towed Jeeps for thousands and thousands of miles without any form of incident. This was pure STUPIDITY on my part. No damage to anything other than 10-15' of wear on those rear tires, IN ONE SPOT!!!
So, pertaining to the OP's video he posted, again, without knowing each and every detail of the motorhome drivers frame of mind when hooking up, real tough to make a judgement on this scenario. Can one these Rocktrack 241OR transfer cases just JUMP INTO FOUR LOW, ALL ON ITS OWN? Well, in a few zillion miles of Jeep Rubicon towed miles, from owners all over the U.S., a potential self shift by one of these transfer cases would be so phenomenally rare that a statisic of some such manor would be impossible to build.
There has been, in the past, a few owners of Jeeps, some in Rubicons and some with Cherokees, incidences of *supposed* self shifting transfer cases where, the transfer case itself self destructs. I know personally of one Rubi owner and one Cherokee owner that have had the pleasure of self destructing transfer cases. Both of these people were seasoned vets of towing their Jeeps.
Both made darn sure they were in NEUTRAL prior to take off. Both had towed for several miles before the transfer case self-engaged and decided to go see the great transfer case in the sky for ever. The Rubi owner had towed for well over 200 miles begore a driver pulled along side him and motioned some crazy signals that caused the my buddy to pull over in his coach, on a freeway.
Upon exiting the coach and approaching the drivers car that motioned him to pull over, he notice a giant dent in the hood of that drivers car. Hmmmm. The driver said something came out from under the towed Jeep of my buddy and hit the hood. He ducked as this piece of material came at him at whatever speed. It hit his hood and bounced up and over the wind shield.
MY buddy kneeled down next to his Rubicon and, to his dismay, the rear section of that Rocktrack 241OR transfer case WAS GONE and, along with that, the rear drive shaft. Oil all over the place. Again, he was a seasoned vet at towing. He had ZERO explanation as to what happened. He and his wife had been the road for well over 200 miles when this incident happened. And, he'd towed this particular Jeep for several thousand miles between multiple states and had, up to this point, zero issues.
So, was the motorhome driver in the video NEGLIGENT? Well, we're not there to say one way or another. But again, if that Jeep in the video had been left in 4 LOW during initial take off from being hooked up, without a doubt, no matter what the coach was that was towing it, the driver could have felt the drag of all four wheels, and, based on the fact that if it was a stick tranny, they are supposed to be left in gear, preferably 2nd gear to keep from what's called sympathetic rotation of gears during towing.
If it was an AUTOMATIC transmission, those are supposed to be placed in PARK. So, you'd have a TREMEMDOUS DRAG against pulling that Jeep. Even a 500HP diesel would feel that so, don't say that "I can't tell it's back there", that's not an excuse.
Scott
