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off road exploring with 2wd

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TripleBee

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What is the heaviest off roading you have done with a standard 2wd California?

Mine is standard, 2wd, manual, 140hp, standard road tyres.
But from time to time I go off road for nice picnic spots, or to get to a nice scenery.

Quite off road, but wouldn't have done it when wet.
offroad1.jpg
I can post a video of the track if anyone is interested.
Place: Peyriac-de-Mer, going for a picnic spot here: 43.083190, 2.973433 (coördinates).
 
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What is the heaviest off roading you have done with a standard 2wd California?

Mine is standard, 2wd, manual, 140hp, standard road tyres.
But from time to time I go off road for nice picnic spots, or to get to a nice scenery.

Quite off road, but wouldn't have done it when wet.
View attachment 65232
I can post a video of the track if anyone is interested.
Place: Peyriac-de-Mer, going for a picnic spot here: 43.083190, 2.973433 (coördinates).

Call that off road?
That's a good quality farm track in my part of the world. If it's all like that I would have no hesitation in taking even my daily driver car (Skoda Fabia) along there. It doesn't look as if it would be any worse in the wet unless there is the possibility of deep pools of water.
 
@TripleBee Sadly I think calling it "heaviest" is going to promote the "mine is bigger than yours" response,

Perhaps most attractive, as what you have posted looks to be a very attractive location.

For me perhaps, (and why I did not take a shed load of photo's I'm not sure), was in February 2015 when the track to the Mull of Kintyre was badly damaged by heavy rain and was declared "closed" but the very nice man from the council supervising reconstruction allowed me to carry on, thus spending the most amazing, isolated and gorgeous evening all on my own at the Mull of Kintyre. Heaven.
 
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@Vagophile , ok in your part of the world ....
But general speaking for 9/10 California owners off-road is where the tarmac/concrete ends.
This part of the world(Belgium) most roads are paved/concrete/tarmac ;)
 
Video:
Never mind the music.

And I would not have taken my Golf 4 on this road. Would have scraped the bottom a few times, if not got stuck there.
 
Pics and videos tend to make roads look a bit better than they do from the driving seat. But (and just to reassure anyone worried about taking their Cali down rubbish roads anywhere), the road in the video would be regarded as a good one in many parts of the world, dry or wet.

In developing countries people get themselves around on some really shocking roads quite happily with bog-standard 2WD cars and vans. Of course if done every day it takes its toll on the vehicle. A driver in an African country (I forget which) once quizzed me on how many sets of shock absorbers I'd expect to get through each year back at home. He didn't really believe my answer until his eyes lit up and he said "Oh, I get it, so the roads in England are finished, yes?" (he meant, surfaced).
 
@Vagophile , ok in your part of the world ....
But general speaking for 9/10 California owners off-road is where the tarmac/concrete ends.
This part of the world(Belgium) most roads are paved/concrete/tarmac ;)

Yes, I get that there is a difference in interpretation and I didn't intend to be rude.
As a farm boy, I probably take a different view of some surfaces.
I had a @GrannyJen experience in Greece a long time ago; same result, a fantastic night under a sky full of stars, followed by a day where you could hardly hear yourself speak because of the buzzing of the bees.
This was pre Cali days and still not really off road by my definition.

"Normal" surface
DSCN0898.JPG

Getting worse
DSCN0900.JPG

Past the worst part
DSCN0902.JPG
 
With my 4motion I decided, after watching a few offroad videos on youtube and offroad T6 conversions that it would be cool, to go offroad , i got a 4motion afterall.
So I took a similar road as in the video above and realised at every pothole how much slow i should drive and how many unpleasent noises where coming from the inside of the van. Than I started thinking how good all the shaking and rattling could be to the interior furniture of my Ocean, let alone suspensions and tires Inflated at 3.7 bars.
Never took an offroad path ever again and reminded me of the reasons why i bought a 4motion: rain and snow, not offroad!
 
MW2_1771 - Copie.JPG
Corsica
"Normal" car, normal tyres


DSC_1945 copie.jpg
Romania
Peugeot 806, normal tyres
The previous day the road was not as bad, but it rained "torrentially" all night, and the next day there was no more road. As there was no other path, we bypassed by the meadow above, putting gravel under the wheels which skated all along to the top of the hill. If we have had our California 4motion at this time, with our Michelin Latitude Cross it would have been useful.
 
Clearly this is a road after all. Many times people miss the ”off” in ”offroad”. The Transporter based vehicles is in fact really great on bad maintained roads. This is mainly due to great ground clearance. If you like to go serious offroad you need much more before you need 4wd. Wet or not, that kind of gravel, stones and sand is no problem. Dakar is raced with 2wd vehicles.
 
Dakar is raced with 2wd vehicles.

Very true, although not all of them are 2WD (I think the 2020 season Toyota is 4WD). For the Dakar cars, rear wheel drive allows them to have much greater suspension travel on the front, which is needed for the speeds they're going over extreme terrain.

But another example is the Peking-Paris classic rally, which runs every two years. Very few of those cars are 4WD, but they get across the worst 'roads' in Mongolia.
 
.... ground clearance ....... you need much more before you need 4wd.
Agree with this. Having been off road in Australia and NZ, driving rear wheel drive vans, it was usually ground clearance not grip that stopped you.
In Europe, Romanian roads have given my Cali the worst battering. Wet grass and a slight incline defeated my 2wd cali.
 
That road really does not look like a big problem. There is many a car park in the UK with a poorer surface, pot holes stones etc. Surely the way to navigate these types of road is "carefully". I reckon any modern vehicle driven with consideration would manage that road with ease.
 
Good afternoon,

4motion and differental lock was always on my wish list (dream list). By now I got several times stuck, mainly on wed grass or mud on the side of the road (making room for oncoming traffic).

The change to Michelin CrossClimate tyres made already a good improvement. Next year I will, more than likley, get the Michelin Latitude Cross.

I believe with this setup it will get me through 99.5% of roads I want to go through. Off roading might be possible, but it is a kind of hobby that is costly, because there is always something that breaks and need to get repaired.

If finaly Covid-19 allows us to travel freely again we want to go to Scandinavia and if everything is going well to Romania the following year. Also I am very interested in Northern Spain / Pyrinaen. I am more confident now (as 2x years ago) that my California will bring me there and back (gosh, reading this again it sounds like a sentence from the Hobbits).

Happy California,
Eberhard
 
Please keep in mind that going on smaller roads in Scandinavia usually involves trees and bushes scratching up the sides of the van so get some protection for the sides as well.
 
What is the heaviest off roading you have done with a standard 2wd California?

Mine is standard, 2wd, manual, 140hp, standard road tyres.
But from time to time I go off road for nice picnic spots, or to get to a nice scenery.

Quite off road, but wouldn't have done it when wet.
View attachment 65232
I can post a video of the track if anyone is interested.
Place: Peyriac-de-Mer, going for a picnic spot here: 43.083190, 2.973433 (coördinates).
Woooooah hold on, surely this is impossible without 4Motion, KMC Holeshots and BFGoodrichs slightly too big for the wheel arches? If not what did I spend all of my money for? ;)
 
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