Thread: Recovery gear was useless on my D3

Originally Posted by disco2_dan

If the tracks rutted out a 2" lift will do nothing as its your diff that's the prob, you need bigger wheels

Not on an independent suspension vehicle!
Diffs stay in the same position, the angles of the wishbones change as does the clearance.

Bigger tyres also improve clearance.

Hi all,

We just got back from 5 nights on Fraser. Having been to Fraser 3 times before once in the D4 I was surprised at how firm the main tracks were. You could have probably driven a corolla to lake McKenzie. We came across several cars stuck most seemed to be utes with ifs front ends and very little clearance some soft readers also appeared to be getting stuck.

The D4 in off road height should be able to traverse most of the sand tracks o Fraser I was driving the beach at high tide in the soft sand and found I had good flotation but h ad my tyres down to 16psi front and 19 psi rear as a result I also kept speeds down at low tide but felt more comfortable knowing I should be able to get through everything at those pressures.
We also towed an off road camper trailer and were able to drive straight past other vehicles bogged without trailers when the trailer was on the back.

The recovery gear is a smart thing to carry ngalaka rocks was blocked often for 30 mins plus as someone was stuck and no-one even had a strap or maxtrax which would have seen the car cleared in minutes this is very inconvenient to fellow travellers in peak times.

On another note I found the behaviour of the gearbox shift points in sand mode spot on it held gears and shifted down early enough to enable torque to continually be fed to the wheels I drove around with dcs on all the time and had no issues.

Originally Posted by Mattt

Just a quick complaint, for my NYE trip to Fraser Island, I purchased lots of recovery gear (Maxxtraxx, Compressor, Gauges, Snatch strap, Shackles, Shovel etc) and the car didn't get stuck once.

I kept the road tyres at normal road pressure, sand mode, DSC off, off-road height and it just travelled along perfectly happy.

Admittedly I didn't venture north of the Maheno, but it handled everything else fine (was based in Kingfisher Bay so did the usual sights).

The worst track was actually the one from the resort up the hill towards Lake McKenzie, the wooden slats had broken up quite badly and I saw a number of cars have difficulty up the hill, including a HiLux which sheared a rear driveshaft and the wheel fell off.

Same purchases and same success on 2 trips once out of Kingfisher and another day trip from Inskip. Did see others having trouble at Indian Head but the tides on the way back and weather closing in made the decision to go deep for us. Now if only I'd spent the money on side protection for the inland tracks bush-stripes! Still having your own compressor was very handy to air down on the rough stuff.

I also have just come back from a couple of weeks on and off the road in beach sand, dirt, gravel, rocks and a little mud, had the winch, Maxtraxx, shovel (was handy for digging damper hole in the campfire) and all the recovery gear. Never used any of it despite some pretty radical tracks. (I did air down on the sand though and used my compressor to air back up again)

The one time I thought I was going to have to use the winch I got halfway up a wicked hill with a tough tight turn between two huge rocks and a washout and got stuck wheels spinning and complete failure to proceed. I got the kids out and safely out of the way and was just about to go and lay out the stuff In preparation for winching and thought ill just have one more go, did a check of everything and realized I was in grass, gravel snow mode, I had forgotten to put it back into rock crawl I put it into rock crawl and it just drove out with no fuss at all

Amazing cars. Permagrin reattached.

Got bogged in some really powdery sand on Stockton on the weekend - forgot to turn the DSC off after a morning tea stop

Turned it off and drove straight out - recovery gear not needed other than for the Troopy that I stopped to help out

Originally Posted by PaulGOz

Hi all,

On another note I found the behaviour of the gearbox shift points in sand mode spot on it held gears and shifted down early enough to enable torque to continually be fed to the wheels I drove around with dcs on all the time and had no issues.

Ozad, was the dunes still closed at Stockton? I hear your only allowed on the beach and 100m from the shore line?

Dunes north of Lavis closed - south open. Beach front all open.... there is still a nice amount of dunes to drive on but none of the big ones that will really test your vehicle and skills.

No where near the usual amount of fun you can have on Stockton but still plenty of places to take some newbies and show them how to get bogged

Originally Posted by disco2_dan

Ozad, was the dunes still closed at Stockton? I hear your only allowed on the beach and 100m from the shore line?

I've been thinking about the title and original topic and am thinking a bit of French may improve it.

Recovery gear was sans use on my D3