Thursday, Jan 06, 2011 at 14:51
Hi Kanga,
The only thing I know about the fuel consumption is this..... my GQ Patrol has 2 tanks, the main tank holds 92 litres and the aux tank holds 45 litres. I also carried two 20 litre jerry cans with us. From memory, when we arrived at the
Birdsville Roadhouse, we had 10 litres left in the tank. My truck was running a bit out of sorts for that trip, as our fuel pump needed an overhaul 4 days before we left and my mechanic didn't have time to set it up again properly. I have an aftermarket turbo fitted, I didn't see turbo mentioned on your rig profile and am not sufficiently versed in Toyota specs to know from the model number? The only reason I ask is the turbo gives an advantage, but in the desert on sand dunes, I wasn't always "spooled up" so to speak... Our travelling partners 80 series is naturally aspirated and they had no more problems with dunes than we did.... We were using around 16-18 litres/100k's early in the trip, on outback roads like the Strzelecki or
Oodnadatta Tracks. By the time we reached MT Dare, after 5 weeks of travelling, I was having way too good a time to calculate fuel usage! LOL..That figure obviously will rise for the desert by a little bit, but not much I would think. We found the sand was quite compacted on this trip, very easy to drive. In fact, and I say this ONLY to point out that we didn't experience too much difficulty, NOT to brag about driving skill, I was in 2WD for much of the journey, including the French Line. It really wasn't till the last bit of French Line towards
Poeppel Corner that I was always in 4 High, and selected low range for the steeper, softer dunes.
The
Rig Road wasn't terribly difficult, there are sections where the clay has broken up and left ruts, but that makes for a bit of "different" driving, beware though, some of these ruts are monstrous! One crept up on us, I saw it as we neared it, Gayleen saw it too, and we both thought it was just a dip in the track..... till about 2 secs before we hit it! I braked hard, not hard enough to lock up, just to wash speed off, and we landed in this rut that was about 4 feet across and about 2 feet deep! Whew!! Coulda been ugly! There's a few things to look for on the Rig, Pecanek's Grave, the old air strip, the lone gum etc... all worth a look! The French Line is spectacular, but you'll see a lot of it anyway.
Here I go... ramblin' again! LOL.... anyways, I hope this all helps somehow mate... keep us posted! If you any other questions, I'm only too happy to help!
Cheers
Brian
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