4X4 light flashing - am I stuck in 4 wd?

Hi all.

I have searched for his topic and found a few answers both on this forum and elsewhere, but all a bit too technical for me.

I had my Jimny on the beach earlier and had to briefly use the 4wd when parking it. Came back to it later, forgot it was still in 4WD and drove maybe half a mile (low speed) before noticing the flashing 4x4 light. Pulled in and tried to get it off by switching back to 2WD. Didn't get the usual sounds to indicate anything happening. Drove about another mile and left car for a while, came back to it and it's just constantly flashing 4x4.

I will not be able to fix this myself - as I said I am no mechanic - but I'm 100 miles from home and my usual garage. Is the car safe to drive like this? Any easy way of checking if she is stuck in 4WD as I can't imagine 100 miles on tarmac in 4WD is going to do any good! I don't have ramps to put her up onto to check if all four wheels are driving...

It's a 2007 JLX with the dash mounted buttons for the drive settings.

Thanks!

Park the car in gear. Use the jack to lift one of the front wheels at a time.

If the wheel turns then its not in 4x4, or at lest the hubs are not engaged. you can drive it fine on tarmac like this no problem.

if the wheel wont turn then its probably in 4x4 and shouldnt be driven on tarmac like this.

Riccy wrote: Park the car in gear. Use the jack to lift one of the front wheels at a time.

If the wheel turns then its not in 4x4, or at lest the hubs are not engaged. you can drive it fine on tarmac like this no problem.

if the wheel wont turn then its probably in 4x4 and shouldnt be driven on tarmac like this.

Thanks for the quick reply Riccy, much appreciated.

I took it back to the beach (drove slowly) to try it in soft sand and the rear wheels were spinning in the soft stuff, front weren't. But I will try this to be sure.

psybear wrote:
I took it back to the beach (drove slowly) to try it in soft sand and the rear wheels were spinning in the soft stuff, front weren't. But I will try this to be sure.

That's more or less what I did when I was not sure about my Pajero but in my case I found a field with soft mud and yumped around for a bit. Usually if the light doesn't go out I do a quick short reverse.