Saturday, Mar 10, 2018 at 12:18
We won’t be towing anything and weight shouldn’t be a problem but we are still cautious re suitability of the
suspension
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I think a lot of people would have a lot less trouble out there if they were towing something. Excessive weight and speed are the two big killers in that type of environment.
I have done a lot of desert driving going back for over fifty years on the type of roads that were little more than two wheel tracks. I have never modified a car for those conditions but I have for sealed roads. If the
suspension in these utes were not suitable for the bush, their manufacturers would be having a very difficult time trying to sell them to the local people out there.
The main problem with the Canning is not the road surface but its length. Just about everyone has to carry extra fuel and water. When that is added to all the extra stuff owners cram into the cars in an attempt to cover every possible problem, the car is usually left overloaded and gasping for breath. They then take it into the worst environment that it is ever like to see and wonder why things break.
None of
the desert tracks that I have driven on have had a surface that comes even remotely close to being as rough as many of the tracks in the Victorian High Country and along the rest of the Great Dividing Range . If only those mountain tracks were corrugated and nothing else. You don’t see all the car damage occurring on them that you see in the Outback. That would be because owners don’t load the cars to their limit or beyond in those areas and there is no speed involved.
You have most likely seen the bent ute chassis story in 4x4 Australia magazine on the net. What is not shown in that story is the editorial in the magazine. The editor mentions Land Rover specifying a lower off road carrying capacity than their sealed road capacity. He then says all cars should have their capacity reduced by around 40% in off road conditions. I was taught 50% in the Armed Forces.
There are light weight carrying trailers on the market that look like a chassis, draw bar and mud guards plus a bunch of tubes that resemble a car roll cage. These tubes locate things like jerry cans, large aluminium tool boxes and extra wheels. The trailer does not have a heavy steel body or tailgate.
If people would use something like that on the Canning, Anne Beadell etc, then their cars would be
well under both their maximum carrying and towing capacity and their chances of breaking something would be just about zero even if they were going a little too fast..
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