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Expedition vehicle

4biker

4biker

Active Member
That black one looks awesome. Stuff some 30x9.50's under that thing and fly down the gravel. I agree they tend to have a teensy bit less of the beefy Earthroamer feel (understatement), but it'll get most places. CRV's don't have low range, do they? Do RAV's?

Cascadia, if you're worried about the Toyota 5VZ-FE with high miles, they have the potential to go forever. If you pick one up, do the timing belt/water pump, change the oil and other fluids, and drive it. With 191k, I just pulled 18.5mpg down to Moab and back, and mine is a brick. That's going 9 over the speed limit the whole way.
 
sixstringsteve

sixstringsteve

Well-Known Member
Location
UT
neither crvs nor ravs have low range. but with an automatic transmission, I'd think they'd do just fine. For most of what I call "expedition" trips, you're not in low range more than 2% of the time.
 
Rot Box

Rot Box

Diesel and Dust
Supporting Member
Location
Smithfield Utah
I don't know where this thread is headed but I like it :p If you ask me its like disaster preparedness and food storage. You can prep what you think you need all you want, you can read about it for a lifetime, there's forums dedicated to it that you can pull ideas from. You can be on one end of the spectrum or the other when it comes down to how much effort you want to put into it--but nothing will show you and teach you more about it than locking up the debit cards and car keys and turning off the power, gas and water to your house for a week. Pack up the Tundra and hit the trail ;)
 
Rot Box

Rot Box

Diesel and Dust
Supporting Member
Location
Smithfield Utah
sixstringsteve said:
For some reason, I'm thinking you're going to want something cooler than a CRV.
Click to expand...

I got to the point with my wife a few years back where I said fine just pick out whatever vehicle will make you happy. When she came home with the Rootin' Tootin' Raspberry aka CRV I about threw up :sick: Fast forward to now I don't know what I'd do without that little car :D

Suspension is great on dirt roads and it actually has quite a bit of travel however the small tire size lets you know rocks are there that you otherwise probably wouldn't feel with a large tire aired down. Airing down would probably help but I don't dare go too much where I have P rated tires. Even without the low range the car hardly complains. Sometimes I have to give it a little more throttle, but I don't feel like I'm over taxing the transmission like I do with many other automatic vehicles driving slow in HI. I think some have the a selectable transfer case (4HI-2HI) making them 4WD but mine does not its AWD. Also as cool as it is I don't think I'd ever increase the tire size--not by much anyway. They are already low on power and the big tires would only make gearing worse. One thing that takes a bit to get used to is the interior noise. They are unibody and there is a lot of cabin noise compared to other vehicles. I noticed the more gear I pack the more it goes away so its a win win haha.
 
JL Rockies

JL Rockies

Binders Fulla Expo
Location
Draper
An old KIA Sportage would be awesome... not as awesome as a KJ CRD but they do have a frame for those who are in to that sort of thing.
 
bryson

bryson

RME Resident Ninja
Supporting Member
Location
West Jordan
P-rated tires are one thing that would shy me away from the uber-small AWDish vehicles. I know from experience (Brett...-_-) that p-rated tires are downright miserable on any road with anything but asphalt or concrete topping it. If my memory hasn't escaped me, we lost 3 of the 4 P-itiful tires on the Rave-4 within about 15 miles on the PET a couple years ago. I don't know what the smallest LT tires available are, but without them I wouldn't dare venture far out of AAA's range.

I like Rot Box's comparison to disaster preparedness... Personally, I'd like to be ready for most things I could encounter (4Runner, Taco, Cruiser, XJ/ZJ/WJ/KJ/JK, Trooper, Monty, etc...) However I do think it is futile to try and be ready for anything you could encounter - even though it would be AWESOME! (MAN, bitchin' 'Mog, Turtle...) With that logic, I'd stay away from the "Sport Utility Cars" (SUCs? :p...sorry.) I really do think they have their place as a useful vehicle, they just wouldn't be my choice.
 
sixstringsteve

sixstringsteve

Well-Known Member
Location
UT
interesting. how reliable are those sportages? Something in my gut makes me sick when I think of owning a kia, but I hear they're starting to get good.
 
sixstringsteve

sixstringsteve

Well-Known Member
Location
UT
that says nothing to their reliability. I'll bet Walmart sells more coke than water, but that doesn't make coke better. :D
 
mesha

mesha

By endurance we conquer
Location
A.F.
We had a 2005ish suzuki grand vitara that was one awesome car. Thw motor was great and so was the mileage. I did rattlesnake in it and had a blast. Soaked up the bumps and would he right in your price range. It was a little small, but since it would be your extra vehicle.......
 
Cascadia

Cascadia

Undecided
Location
Orem, Utah
I'm not dead but drowning from all these little suc's. Haha. That's kinda funny. Sport utility car spells suc. Hmmmmm.....maybe I'll keep looking for runners. I like the thought of them. But I also think I'll just try out my Tundra for a little while and see what I think first. I'm thinking about fabbing up some sliders for them even though they won't see any real rock duty for now. We can still keep this thread going though.
 
cruiseroutfit

cruiseroutfit

Cruizah!
Moderator
Vendor
Location
Sandy, Ut
I'll be the exception to the SUC band wagon :D

I spent a few years rallying a Samurai around the hills, nothing remotely major more like Corner Canyon, 5MP and a few AFC Trips. Sorry, but its a novelty to me... in fact a few of us have been planning a micro rig expedition in which all the rigs have to Samurai sized, i.e. Rav 4, CRV, Sidekick, BJ70, etc. Beyond that I don't see them as practical for the type of trips I like to head out on in my Tacoma for example. We are often moving fast to cover ground and 4-Low is used sparingly but not easily replaced. For me a vehicle needs to perform not only when its empty but also when it has a full payload of gear. I can feel the lag in my Tacoma with a weeks worth of gear, I can only imagine trying to do that in a Samurai or similar small cars. As Bryson pointed out the tires are a big issue, sure you can get better tires but as you recall Brett's Rav4 took a few other beatings, lost some plastic and had to detour around a few sections of the Pony Express Trail that were too difficult. Thankfully there were detours in that cases, not always the situation when your out on the trail. Take for instance some of our other AFT rally trips. That poor Rav4 would have been several days behind and camped a few hundred yards from camp at Blue Notch. Consider the group you may be out on the trail with, is it fair to slow them down because you wanted something high school chics look cute in? :D Quite frankly, if a friend told me they intended to bring a Rav4 on some of our trips... I would tell them its not happening. I'd rather offend one than hamper/ruin the trip for others. Brett's Rav4 experience was humorous and I think we all took it in good fashion and had fun with it but if we were to duplicate SLC to Reno on dirt... a Rav4 wouldn't be along ;)

Can/has/could it be done? Sure, but I wouldn't go out of my way to buy a mini-SUV just to prove it :D
 
sixstringsteve

sixstringsteve

Well-Known Member
Location
UT
good point Kurt. Your trips are pretty hardcore, i wouldn't expect a suc to keep up with you guys on your trips. For the rest of the people who either a) don't get out more than twice a year or b) only get out on backcountry dirt roads, I think a suc might work. I want a suc now just to see how far I can take it. :D

Apart from p-rated tires, what else held the rav4 back from being useful? Lack of a low range? Lack of ground clearance? Traction devices?
 
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