What factors make Off Road Ability?

NachaLuva said:
Are you sure you want to do it on roadies? :lol:

Not sure if I'll have either Foz ready for that kind of trip by then. It's good motivation to get Venom's old gearbox installed...
Click to expand...

What’s the worst that could happen, I don’t make the climb... yeah actually on climbs like that you’re right!

Get that gearbox IN!!! You’ll wonder what took you so long!

Cheers

Bennie
 
Beachworm said:
I would rather see someone driving an SG Forester than say a Toyota Rav 4 or a Nissan X Trail simply because I have become an apologist for Subaru since becoming an owner. I didn't buy my SH Forester to go off-road. .
Click to expand...


I would not call the current RAV4 a vehicle with any unpaved capability beyond maintained dirt roads.

And this is just awful:

"Up to 80 per cent of the engine's torque can be sent rearward when required, but the car defaults to fuel-saving front-wheel drive in normal conditions" https://www.caradvice.com.au/701237/2019-toyota-rav4-engine-australia/


A glorified FWD. Yikes. But yeah, it is the top selling unibody in the US.
 
MiddleAgeSubie said:
I would not call the current RAV4 a vehicle with any unpaved capability beyond maintained dirt roads.
Click to expand...



I totally agree
I worked at a Private Toyota gig in 2018 and ended up test driving all variants of this years Rav 4 and I wasn’t impressed at all.

They (Toyota) where testing the on and Offroad capabilities on a private racetrack and the Offroad section was an absolute joke lol a Fwd car would have completed it with no worries

They also had a Honda CR-V, a Hyundai Tuscan and a Mazda CX-9 to compare with the RAV4 and ....... you guessed it .... not one Subaru in sight (except mine lol)
The Hyundai was fastest if I remember correctly, and the hybrid Rav 4 was best on fuel.

fd2b08bf5a042b5fb52a80371ff8fd3b.jpg

426661bd2e4fdebae64d88107a43b7c3.jpg


Cheers

1WD


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
If you've ever been involved in or watched F2 rallying you will see that FWD cars can do amazing things on dirt with appropriate tyres and driven by people who know what they are doing. I rallied a RWD car and went through mud where most people would think a 4X4 was required.

The sad truth is that very few people who buy vehicles with real off-road ability ever use them that way, including Subarus. They'd be better off with a FWD and save a bit of fuel. Most Subarus don't get to see proper off road (and I'm not talking unsealed roads because that's not off-road at all) until they're 10 or 20 years old and someone like the people who post on this forum buys them to have some fun.
 
russians have lots snow too
Prado vs foresters vs Tuscan vs snow hill
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96qeryRQz5g"]?????? ?????? [????? Toyota Prado & Subaru Forester & Hyundai Tucson] off-road - YouTube[/ame]
good example as some newer with vdc /x mode, some older without
Tuscan losts its AWD capabilities after couple tries as its overheated
older silver forester had 5cm lift and good tires that made difference when you have deep snow
 
They didint said about tires so i guess not. And i think that prado would do better there with more skilled driver. Some ppl just buy new prado and next day they going to test its infamous capability then finding out that they cant drive it but blaming car.
they just comment in end that silver forester had 5cm lift with spacers and that why it went higher on that hill in the end.
saw similar tests with new BMW X drive vs audi Quatro vs Mersedes 4Matic systems on snow / ice. and BMW X drive doesnt work really. it overheats fast and disconnects front drive leaving just rear. audi and mercs doing much better there . like on snowy hills.
 
Last edited:
Audi Allroad 2.7 biturbo 250hp vs Forester Turbo 2.0
so whos better
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtoYkHgF7dc"]? ??? ???????? Audi? ???????? ? ??? ??????? ? Subaru! ??????????? ????????? :( - YouTube[/ame]
looks like that allroad very low . he said its not on air bags , simple springs.
audi stopped in middle of hill and tried many times from there , why ? who knows , seems like driver is carefull , where subaru just flat out and see what will happen :)
anybody knows forester turbo models , how much of that turbo power you getting on offroad ? like how much revs you need to raise to get turbo power ?
that patriot have just about 150 hp front 70% locker and 100% rear locker.
 
Looks like significant rust in that Audi. Were they saying the noise was the fan? Imagine how well it would go with better diffs. No, i didn’t watch the whole video.
 
They showed at one moment it was some failure there where fan was it was towed later back to town it wasnt driving itself anymore.
Then those other hills where subaru went on and that big heavy 4x4 with lockers had problems even.
Then there is maintenance costs i would think to fix anything on that biturbo engine would cost much more then pretty simple subaru. And those models allroad with airbags when those goes wrong its again cost a lot. Thats why people there and here not chosing those complicated audis or they just drive them on streets only. And subaru its like work horse it will go where you want it to.
 
Here is an interesting take on the test of newer Subarus. They compared a stock XV with a properly modified Tacoma as the benchmark. I think the car did pretty well.

The car has enough traction to pull through such obstacles. That plus the decent ground clearance is good enough for most of the wheeling that I do. The newer ones do it using different methods but they still do the job.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuuUusoXqiU"]Can a stock Crosstrek make it up this hill?? A closer look at the Crosstrek off road (Part 1) - YouTube[/ame]
 
Last edited:
Looks like on the last climb he encountered the same issue Alex did in my video. He mistakenly attributed some of the reason for not getting up on the road tyres, which as my video has shown is not the case. He also said he took the wrong line, which may have been the case but as we have seen the worst line for him may be the best line in another situation. Of course, he’s quite right when he says the driver plays a very significant part.

In the end, the car does well enough traction wise as already the bumper has suffered damage. And that’s all you can ask is that the car can work within its defined role. However, all that slippage going on within the gearbox is not a good thing. Something is wearing out with all that happening and that means both a shorter working life and an expensive repair bill down the line.
 
[MENTION=44]Rally[/MENTION]

Hey, so, interesting story, I'm actually the guy in that video driving the Crosstrek. Small world ._.
This is my first Subaru, and where I do want to push the car and see her limits, I don't want to break her due to lack of knowledge of the system, and possible signs of a failing component. Now are you saying that it looked like something was going out??? Or are you just saying that slipping it that much is going to break it down sooner??
 
The later. All of the engines power has to go somewhere. Normally it goes into producing forward motion. But not here. So it’s doing something else. I don’t know the intricacies of a cvt box, but there must be something inside there which absorbs that energy. Because the electronics require you to wait for it to do its thing, it encourages slippage and I think that must cause premature wear. How much slippage you have to do for that wear to be significant is the great unknown.
 
I reckon CVTs would get awfully hot. Like stupidly hot.
 
^ yes, I think adding a separate and larger trans cooler might prove useful. I think the CVT cooler lines still run through the radiator like the older ATs so even bypassing the radiator would be good in warmer climates.
 
Dirt Trek said:
@RallyHey, so, interesting story, I'm actually the guy in that video driving the Crosstrek. Small world ._.This is my first Subaru, and where I do want to push the car and see her limits, I don't want to break her due to lack of knowledge of the system, and possible signs of a failing component. Now are you saying that it looked like something was going out??? Or are you just saying that slipping it that much is going to break it down sooner??
Click to expand...
Good video, mate! It's calming to watch stock Subies do such.
Rally said:
The later. All of the engines power has to go somewhere. Normally it goes into producing forward motion. But not here. So it’s doing something else. I don’t know the intricacies of a cvt box, but there must be something inside there which absorbs that energy. Because the electronics require you to wait for it to do its thing, it encourages slippage and I think that must cause premature wear. How much slippage you have to do for that wear to be significant is the great unknown.
Click to expand...


The Subaru Lineartronic system still uses a torque converter and ittakes the same slipping situation as in the planetary-geared automatic transmissions. As @Kevin said, a trans cooler will help a lot to increase heating tolerance as with many other off-roading 4EATs and CVTs.As with the other videos, the TCU will search for the lowest gear ratio possible at D, so I am more concerned with the variable shafts trying to do their thing constantly to get to those ratios. As a remedy, many lock the gear to 1 to prevent that much play in the input/output shafts.


Regarding failure, according to MRT Performance from OZ, who races and builds Subarus, when the transmission encounters high-torque situations, like heavy towing and tuning, slippage in the steel belt can occur and, therefore, premature failure. Failure also occurs with the overheating of the fluid as in other TC systems. The oil that circulates in the TC is the same oil that drives the hydraulics of the shafts, so when the oil is burnt or properly broken down, it fails to drive the shafts as well and the car stops accelerating or even moving. Cheers.
 
ABfoz - Thanks for this great information. Using authoritative and knowledgeable sources is very helpful and reduces speculation. Well done.
 
In the off road conditions where the slippage occurs, when the car is stationary and full throttle is applied although maybe not achieved, how much is torque converter slippage and how much is belt slippage? It’s not something a rally car will experience, it’s mostly off road conditions.
 
Thank you all for your feed back and opinions! Very helpful! Will be asking more in the future, would like to slowly start building this rig up and want to make it last as long as possible. If you see anything I get wrong, or quote incorrectly in my videos please let me know so I can rectify it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top