Remote area travel - petrol vehicle

There's remote then there's REMOTE. Perhaps you had better define your perception of "remote" first.

While I have always had diesels, my parents have tagged along on most of our trips with their 80 series petrol auto.We've been up the cape, across the gulf, gibb river rd, tanami, gary junction, kidson trk, oodnadatta trk, flinders ranges etc and fuel supply has never been a problem.Crossing the Gary junction and kidson tracks they carried a 20lt jerry can of fuel for safety but would have made the tracks without needing it.Opal fuel is widely ava. in the outback comunities now.
You do need to keep a close eye on grass build up around the cat. on the exhaust as these run hotter than than anything else along the exhaust.
Im not to sure on economy but I thing they get around 6km/lt, the old man is pretty easy on the pedal.It has a snorkel bullbar and swing out spare wheel carrier, apart from them its std.

hi there ,
i have a petrol GQ efi and I take it anywhere we decide to do a trip , CSR, Simpson, Cape York you name it , never had problems with fuel availability ,the places where you can,t get it you plan the trip to carry it , on the CSR trip I carry 145lts in the tank under it and 140 lts on the roof rack .in a braket made to carry 7 jerry cans on there back across the roof rack . only once had an issue with the rack cracking under the weight . not now after a few reinforcing plates , just watch out for the top heavy effect .
when we go away its with M/Bikes , for example the CSR along with the 140 lts on the roof also had 5 swags 2nd spare and spare tyres for the bikes .
mechpete

Hi ....??
FWIW There are issues with petrol vehicles in remote travel situations, the main ones being....
Availability, storage and security.

Others have been on these types of trips with success.

Enjoy your travel.

Cheers,
Wayne.

The only time that you would want to be very careful with a petrol four wheel drive is if you intent to do any cross country work in desert conditions that have a lot of spinifex and grass cover. The catalytic converters have caused many a vehicle to go up in flames, but if you have regular stops and have a fire extinguisher or two on hand, a must for any vehicle in cross country work, you will be alright.
Sure you will use more fuel in the hard stuff, so if you have done your homework, you will get to all the places as diesel vehicles.
When we have been away with petrol vehicles in my group, I make it a must that any refuelling is to be do well before any camp fires have been lit, as petrol vapours can sit on the ground as an invisible barrier and cause the filling vehicle to catch fire if the vapour comes in contact with an ignition source.
Know what you are doing and you will have no problems.

The only other time that you will have to be on your guard, is if you are travelling through remote aboriginal communities. Some permits will insist that you have no petrol on and in your vehicle at all, and heavy fines apply if you do not have opal in your vehicle.

Cheers

Stephen

I've led and done quite a few remote trips with both petrol and diesel vehicles. After a couple of long hard trips with me in a petrol troopy and the other troopy a diesel I changed over to diesel in the mid 80's.
The biggest thing is the actual quantity of fuel consumed and consequently the need to carry larger amounts. In really hard going the petrol can and will use up to twice as much fuel as a diesel. A trip down the CSR where we were the first ones through for the season and encountered lots of soft going the diesel used 170 litres between Halls Creek and well 23 and the petrol used 350 litres of unleaded!
We've also been across the Simpson in very hot weather, petrol used 260 litres, diesel 160 litres.
Second is to be aware that as has been said later model petrol vehicles run cat converters which in grass and spinifex country will catch fire due to grass buildup.
Thirdly we always put the petrol vehicles down wind of the campfire with refuelling from drums after the fire is out in the morning so that there is no risk of explosion from fume buildup.
As has been said availability is pretty good these days, in the past it could be a problem but the older vehicles didn't mind a tankful of Avgas either ;-))

We brought our Patrol, a manual 4800 for a number of reasons that essentially made it actually more practical and better suited to travelling the sort of places you referred to than its equivalent diesel.

Some of those places like CSR I don't really consider remote they are just long distances which require only one compromise with a petrol - and that is of course carring the fuel.

Remote to me means when there is no -one around and no one to call on for help for days / weeks at a time.

In real practical side by side tests across desserts etc the fuel consumption difference which starts out as about 1/3 drops to about 1/4 as things get tougher, and this is a consideration but not a serious one.
(Comparing the 4.2 diesel and 4800 patrols both manual).

The petrol generally has more capability, not just in performance but in unappreciated things like significantly lower NVH which can drag on you over a rough trip.

We usually set ours up by planning for using 25lt/100km across the desserts and allowing about 18 on touring road sections.
As the standard aftermarket long range tanks can give you a genuine about 220lt so you for trips of 1000km or so you never really need to carry extra fuel.

Not carrying fuel is great cause the diesel owners in our groups keep knocking it off for cleaning things , their chainsaws etc.

A typical run like Simpson uses about 20 and 25 when towing a light trailer for our car which has consumed 16.5lt/100km over its 180,000km life.

On longer runs when I have had to carry extrac , I only use plastic jerries from supercheap which hold 22lt normally and up to 24lt overflowing. These we fit in the car somewhere awkwardly for the first day , and then empty them and place them in a specialy made bag which fits over our spare wheel, hence returning the space inside the car.

The worst I've had in my V6 Terracan was last year in the Gt Victoria Desert where I was getting 33L/100 or 3Km/L this was travelling at 10km per hour all day in high range or low range and in soft sand at times for a number of days.

Was starting to sweat a bit about fuel as it was over 900k between fuel stops.

I have 185L officially in the tanks and I had 60L on the roof.

Gday

I run a 4.8 petrol Patrol 5 speed Auto, On a recent trip through the Simpson desert (French line) and return down the Hay river we did a total of 6500kms and we averaged around 25l/100....pretty thirsty.

I have fitted 2 x long range fuel tanks giving me 225lt under the belly and depending on how it is driven can get any where from 800 - 1000km range fully loaded.

My GU with the aftermarket tanks will go further than a TD100 with it's standard tanks, for what its worth.

In regards to spinifex/fires and exhaust systems water is more affective than a fire extinguisher for this type of fire, but even diesels can still Ignite. A water gun/super soaker is a worth while investment for petrol owners with trips like the CSR

IMO petrols can make great tourers, and as for the more remote trips a bit more caution in the planning is all it takes.

Cheers Ingo