If you’re someone who regularly utilizes the 4WD capabilities of your vehicle, there’s a good chance that you’ve run into the issue of a damaged or malfunctioning transfer case. Even though repairs are possible, sometimes replacing them is the best course of action.

For those of you who are currently searching for a new one but don’t know the distinctions between the gear and chain transfer cases, you’ve come to the right place. We’re here to help you differentiate the two so that you know which one will be best for your needs.

Materials Used

The main reason why there are two kinds of T-cases is that most car manufacturers decided that they wanted cases to be more fuel-efficient. That means they had to use lighter materials. While most gear-based cases use heavy cast iron, the new-and-improved chain ones primarily use aluminum. The lighter load typically allows the car to have better fuel economy.

The Loudness of the Sound

The other popular reason for the change was gear transfer cases were quite loud. Since you can’t effectively dampen the sound of turning gears, the only way to fix this issue was to develop a new system. Hence, the chain transfer case was born. While they’re not completely silent, you can usually only barely hear them over the sound of your own engine.

Size of the Case

For the chain system to work, it needs more internal space than the gears would, so more often than not, chain-based cases will be larger. Most of the time, this extra capacity isn’t an issue. However, if you ever want to upgrade your vehicle from a gear T-case to a chain one, you might need to make some adjustments to get it to fit correctly.

Age of the Part

Since there was an industry-wide shift from gear to chain, gear-based cases and parts can be a little bit more challenging to find at times. Many companies stopped making them not too long after they died out. Despite that, there are still plenty of gear T-cases on the market. So here at Transparts Warehouse, we always make sure that we have transfer case components for these systems available on our site.

Overall Durability

While it might seem like chain wins out against gear cases when comparing the two, there is one area in which gear-based systems stand out: durability. The parts inside a gear T-case are much more robust than chain ones. This is the main reason why they still exist. If you take your four-wheeling experiences seriously, gear-based transfer cases are the way to go.