Locking the hubs by hand before every trail saved my transfer case at Big Bear
The auto hubs on my 2004 Tacoma quit engaging twice on the John Bull trail last month, so now I just get out and lock the manual hubs before I even air down, and has anyone else made that switch or am I just being paranoid?
Been doing the same thing since my auto hubs left me stuck on a fire road a couple years back. Getting out to lock them takes two minutes and saves you a whole lot of guessing. Not paranoid at all, your mileage may vary but I'd rather know they're engaged before I hit the dirt.