Thread: Finally got her dirty...

I've had our D2 for a little over a year and sadly I have had little to no chance to get out and use it as intended, i.e. off road. The only mild excursions away from tarseal, until this past weekend, were launching the boat off the beach. Not exactly "proper"4x4'ing!

This all changed this weekend when a good mate of mine who has just got himself a Toyota Prado found a 4x4 driving course that was funded by one of the Poly Tech's as a NZQA level one driving course. Turned out the instructor teaches the likes of the NZ Police, NZ Fire and even our conservation dept staff how to drive off road. So we felt we were in good hands and as it turned out we were.

We spent the morning doing theory and understanding how what things like "ramp over angle" meant, how to safely descend/ascent etc etc, it was very thorough and covered enough for those such as myself who had never gone off road "for real" to have a basic understanding of 4x4 fundamentals . The over rding message was slow and steady keeps you safe/alive.
We even ran a safety scenario based on 3 vehicles and 10 punters going bush for 3 days, where we discussed what to take, how to plan such an event, and what it meant to be the team leader/safety officer etc. Then how to deal with an accident on said pretend trip and what to do etc, so all extremely useful stuff. And I would highly recommend anyone new to this awesome past time learn from someone with the appropriate experience.

Of course the real reason we were all there was to get out and drive for real which we did for the entire afternoon (about 5 hours). We were located out at Woodhill Forest on Aucklands West Coast, a fabulous multi purpose area for those that know it. With large individually sectioned areas for MX, Horse riding, mountain biking, walking and of course 4 wheel driving (approx 2500 acres for 4x4'ing) Most of the ground is covered in sand with more advanced sections being clay. We got to try all that we learned in the class room and even though I knew Disco's were good off road I didn't appreciate how good! Ours is a bog standard D2 ES spec...on 18" Goodyear Wranglers, and I'm sure it was yawning at the light workout it got even though we felt we were about to slip off the edge of the earth!.

The instructor was a D1 owner himself until recently and was full of praise for our chosen brand (he did mutter some comment about crappy electric and ABS problems...having just replaced our Wabco I couldn't really argue).
I was most impressed by HDC (meaning the new Modulator was working!), it made some of the steepish declines we went down seem almost too easy, engage low range slot the auto in to 1st and hit the HDC button then let gravity do the rest! Even wifey had a go and loved it (I think I've created a monster...conversations have now moved to winch bars, winches, lift kits, snorkels and underbody protection!)

One of the funnier moments was when one chap, who was a top bloke, got his brand new Jeep Cherokee hung up approaching a reasonably steep decline and needed winching out by our instructor...poor sod, he wasn't too happy at the time, especially when a little Suzuki Vitara made it look easy.

So I've now got the bug, as does our friend with the Prado, we're now planning an excersion with our families, be it a tame one compared so what some of the folk on this forum would usually do. I finally get it and loved the experience...I'll get some pics up just a soon as I get time to post them.

yeah, that was something that the instructor mentioned also...apparently they get wrecked reasonably easy, as do mud flaps and front airdams!

I'm guessing a 2" lift is about right? ADoes a 2" lift cause any issues with the ACE operating correctly onroad? Any other suspension pieces that need changing as a result of a lift, e.g Radius Arms? Cheers