Guys, check out the explanation of FDII on jeep.com!

1.) Go to: http://www.jeep.com/4x4/

2.) Click "Get Ready" in bottom left corner.

3.) Click "See How Jeep 4x4 Systems Work"

4.) Click on the Patriot "Off Road Freedom-Drive II"

5.) Click "Learn More"

Enjoy.....I guess.

Thats pretty cool, and informative. Hopefully this means that production is one step closer...

The animation seems to be showing three modes for the drivetrain:
1) Normal Mode, Dry Conditions - front wheels are driven
2) Normal Mode, Added Traction - rear wheels are driven?
3) Off-Road Mode - front and rear wheels are driven

I'm confused... by the "normal added traction mode"... the animation seems to indicate that only the rear wheels are driven. I didn't think that this AWD system worked that way.

I also was confused the first time I saw it, but what I finally think I got is that you can put it in "lock" mode like the FDI in the Compass and that makes it with added traction. And separately you can activate the 4 low.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

I believe what they were trying to show is that:

Normal mode - the vehicle is generally driven by the front wheels.

Normal mode added traction - with AWD vehicles nothing needs to be engaged. Thus, they showed the front wheels slipping, and the power automatically shifting to the back wheels. In other words...this just shows what happens in normal mode when things go wrong.


Off Road - this is where you manually engage the lock and all four wheels are powered.

Aliens8443 and unclejjg are correct; 'Normal mode added traction' is not a separate 'mode'. It's just showing what happens when additional traction is needed in normal mode (engine power is split between the front & rear axles).

'Lock mode' (available on both FDI and FDII) locks the engine power at 50% to each axle.

Then, FDII has a separate 'low-range' mode which emulates the low-range gearing in a traditional transfer case.