I just got back from a trip to Wyoming for pronghorn hunting. While most of the trip was spent on the interstate (driving from Florida), we camped off the grid on BLM land and took our Cross-Preza further than a lot of people take their legit 4x4s (based on how many ads I see on ExPo and Mud with “never been off road”).
On the drive out I noticed a few things. The first is that by having a fully loaded SylvanSport Go and a fully loaded car, my rear end was sagging quite a bit. Then with the greater offset on the Method wheels, we bottomed out early on big highway bumps by the outer edge of the tire hitting the inside of the wheel well arch and not the inside of the wheel well itself.
Out in Wyoming we spent a lot of time on dirt/gravel roads, but a decent amount of time on two track also. We were able to move around pretty well and the rarely used two track definitely needed the additional clearance that our mods gave us.
Of course, at one point I stopped to get a picture and my wife asked if we could make it down the next chunk as there was a bit of a drop. I said “yup.” 20 yards later we were high centered. Luckily it was not on a rock, but on the near rock hard dried mud/dirt of the area. It took a while chipping it away with my E-Tool to clear the area under the car and we got moving again. Only to get stuck about 50 yards further up ...
This time we came down a slight rise into some fairly deep sand. We were also at a bit of a side angle. The front passenger side tire just dig into the dirt. The rear didn’t help as the driver side rear was up in the air. It would have been a perfect opportunity for the Maxtrax Minis, but they weren’t for sale before I left (and still aren’t). Eventually I broke out the ARB X-Jack, filled the hole in with dead sage brush branches and was able to back out.
I backed out because while I was working on getting unstuck my wife walked down the road and said the two track just disappeared in a washed out area at a side angle. Definitely not worth attempting in the Cross-Preza. I was able to do about a 20 point turn on a hard pack area and made it out just fine. And I promised my wife I would be a bit more cautious on the road conditions.
In retrospect, the more aggressive Kuhmos were not necessary compared to some of the Geolander tires. Had I gone with stock Subaru steel wheels (without the extra offset of the Method wheels) and the slightly smaller Geolanders I don’t think I would have had the bottoming issues on the highway. But no real damage was done.
In the end, I still feel that these mods did and will allow us to handle terrain that most regular cars can’t and we accomplished what we set out to do. However, I definitely proved, unintentionally, that this is not a true 4x4. Nothing I got stuck on would have slowed us down in the old Titan. Luckily I have some decent recovery gear. I will be checking out Maxtrax at Expo East for sure.
Now, how do I embed a video in this joint?