4WD not working

I inherited a 04 jimny from a friend who passed away earlier in the year. The 4WD hasn’t worked since I have had it and I don’t know about prior to me having it. It went into the garage yesterday to have it looked at and have been told that the whole system needs replacing as the pipes have all rusted through. The garage spent 4 hours doing a temporary fix on this for me free of charge and said it could last a couple months or a couple years. It does now work in 4WD but obviously it won’t forever. Has anyone else had this experience? If so what did the costs come to?

For the easiest fit manual locking hubs
Or use silicone hose, 4mm internal bore and a couple of T connectors

Yes, rusted through vacuum pipes on the front axle is a common failure mode, but not inevitable. It goes hand in hand with general rusting of the Jimny and what previous owners have done to slow this down.
So your options are as Jack said ^^^^
You are looking at £100 - £160 for manual hubs.
Replace the rusted tubes with silicon pipe and plastic fittings, not sure of cost, but cheapest option.
Just to add you can also replace the pipes with Suzuki replacements. The last time I looked about £180 in parts.

Just some rough parts costings for comparison, not intended to be 100% accurate.

Me - I like my vacuum hubs and intend to keep them working as long as I can, it's just my preference.

What did their "temporary fix" entail? On my jimny the vacuum hubs seemed to have stopped working on one of the previous owners. I only noticed this after I had pulled the hubs for cleaning - it was welded solid. There's nothing inherently wrong with this, but it uses more gas, and wears parts that shouldn't be worn. Just letting you know that if this is what they had done I'd suggest looking about a pair of manual hubs.

Temporary might be permanent and without looking at the work they have done, who can tell. If you don’t know your way around the 4WD system (and even if you did) then manual hubs are the best option.
bryn