Question: Suspension

"while thousands of aussies keep excepting ----the unsuitable for real outback conditions suspensions ---- i guess the japs will leave their heads in the sand and the after market people will keep laughing all the way to the bank with your money"

NO it's called providing a product that the majority of people want...... I would happily say 85% of all 4x4's sold will never venture any further off road than a good maintained dirt road.

So why build a 4x4 that only 15% of the market may want.

Standard suspension will get people further then they think or ever want to go and for the others who want more there is a choice of aftermarket gear.

Suspension is cheap...... spend $50,000 on a 4x4 and another $1500 on suspension to suit your needs...... or pay $51,500 and get one with the suspension already done.

Look at Jeep..... you can get the same model with an everyday suspension setup or pay a lot more and get one with a more off road setup.... end of the day your still paying weather it's factory or aftermarket.

Toyota in the USA offer 3 suspension kits on some of their 4x4's..... standard and as an option TRD sports and TRD off road.

All you have to do is read the forums and there are many people wanting to upgrade their suspension but don't want to loose their soft comfy ride quality.



What do you call real outback conditions?

Nick,
If you do intend to cross the Simpson Desert in your 200 series with standard suspension the be prepaired to have a spot of back bother, the standard suspension is way too soft & the shocks will fade in a really short time!

You may also want to move your spare tyre from underneath the car to a decent roof rack, it sits way too low & will drag through the hump between the wheel ruts left by all of the "lifted" vehicles before you.

Don't forget you also have to travel on all of our wonderful outback roads even before getting near to the Simpson desert!

Yes you will be able to do the trip on standard suspension, but the car & the tracks will be grateful if you fit good aftermarket suspension before you leave home.

If you take it easy and don't over load you will not need to carry spare shockers..... we have never carrier spare springs or shockers.

The biggest problem with travellers is they over load and go to fast.... so if carrying a load slow down or don't over load.

Note what Jeff said about roof racks...."a decent roof rack" ..... we had a couple of people in a 80 series along the French Line who had one of the NOT OFF ROAD Rola type roof racks with a basket on loaded with 2 spares and swags who were trying to catch their friends....... too fast over the dunes with too much weight..... over the radio comes " I have a problem I have lost my roof rack".... when our group got their the roof rack was on the ground broken....... 2 hours latter our group had them on their way again.

Jeff from Mt Dare sees it all and he is the one who has to fix peoples problems.

It must be annoying for you Jeff to see things happen that could of be avoided if common sense came into play.

No not annoying as much as interesting seeing so many different interpretations of what constitutes "adequate" gear for travel in this part of the world.

We get so many different people travelling out here that there just isn't one best way of doing things.

For example, we can get (have gotten) the european backpacker group who just bought a 1986 Pajero to travel the country, 4 people, way overloaded, rusty old roof rack with probably 250kgs of gear on it! Crossed the Simpson Desert with only a few small problems!

Then there was..... where do I stop?

No mice problems at the moment, but that could change as the country dries out a bit!