Trying to justify getting F/R lockers and an MTS question

[mbach]

Getting a new LC200 built by a member of this forum and I'm finding it difficult to decide if I should get F/R lockers.
I've gotten into situations with snow that I feel would have greatly benefited from lockers... and if I could have used front chains.
E.g. when I try to ascend a hill on a trail with ~1 foot of snow I couldn't do it with the LC. I went out and bought another Toyota 4x4 pickup for snow w/ AT tires, had a limited slip installed and had no issues. I feel that with momentum and lockers I would have no issue in the LC200 vs the previous LC behavior where I would loose traction mess around with different MTS settings try again with no luck and then in put it in Crawl Mode and couldn't get traction still.

Also, how is MTS (not Crawl) affected by lockers?

 

[grinchy]

Maybe it was tires / lack of air down? Lots of opinions on lockers. . . . Personally I got rear only, and that sees infrequent use.

 

[mbach]

I was running stock everything, tires, wheels and air pressure was not reduced.

 

[grinchy]

I was running stock everything, tires, wheels and air pressure was not reduced.

This is not a recipe for good snow traction. The stock tires have atrocious wet and snow traction

 

[TeCKis300]

Agreed with @grinchy. Airing down tires will make a huge difference 15-20 psi even on stockers. Center diff lock, which also turns off traction control (VSC), then go to town.

I'm in the mountains now and couldn't be happier with the snow performance of my Falken AT3Ws. All around great AT performance in everything I've used them for.

 

[coleAK]

Getting a new LC200 built by a member of this forum and I'm finding it difficult to decide if I should get F/R lockers.
I've gotten into situations with snow that I feel would have greatly benefited from lockers... and if I could have used front chains.
E.g. when I try to ascend a hill on a trail with ~1 foot of snow I couldn't do it with the LC. I went out and bought another Toyota 4x4 pickup for snow w/ AT tires, had a limited slip installed and had no issues. I feel that with momentum and lockers I would have no issue in the LC200 vs the previous LC behavior where I would loose traction mess around with different MTS settings try again with no luck and then in put it in Crawl Mode and couldn't get traction still.

Also, how is MTS (not Crawl) affected by lockers?

Snow is more about tires than anything else. A RWD truck with excellent snow tires (like Nokian) will run circles around a triple locked LC on all seasons.

and to answer your own question. If you couldn’t get traction even with crawl control traction wasn’t there to get, it was your tires. As per lockers like others have mentioned it’s discussed on here if you search. My 0.02, if you frequent times when at least one tire is off the ground (like rock crawling) then consider a rear locker, if that isn’t in your plan lockers are not needed.