[at-l] RE: Help

[jbryankramer@msn.com (J Bryan Kramer)]

Well I had a Toyata Tercel, one of the old style ones and we, like your VW,
drove it everywhere. Up improved goat trails and some unimproved with lots
of large rocks. I recall one road in Idaho up to Iron Lake, when we arrived
the 4x4 drivers already up there were stunned that we made it. The front
wheel drive on those light weight cars would just drag them up almost any
road.

But there are roads that really need good road clearance, usually its the
mini-bolders in the roads that call for clearance, you often can't get
around all of them. And a good SUV should have good clearance. I doubt that
these yuppie SUVs come with skid plates either.

Bryan

"Si vis pacem para bellum"

> -----Original Message-----

> Bryan,
>
> Reference your post, dated 12-7-02, advising "(M)any of these
> SUVs are not
> made to go off road ... Many have maybe 6 inches of (ground)
> clearance, not
> much good for rutted trails with a high central hump."
>
> I went to school in southern California and enjoyed getting away to the
> mountains and deserts.  I owned a Volkswagen Karmann Ghia
> convertible which
> had a flat plate covering the entire underside and almost no ground
> clearance.  It had steel-belted radial tires.
>
> I recall on one occasion driving up a dry mountain creek bed and
> encountering a deputy sheriff who needed to get to the top of the
> mountain.
> He had driven a CJ-5 Jeep as far as it would go and pulled it
> aside.  I told
> him he was welcome but would have to hop in because if I stopped
> I doubted I
> could start up the mountain again.  The top was down and he
> hopped in.  We
> made it to the top of the mountain and I let him out.  He told
> me, "I really
> hope you get a flat."  I was shocked.  He told me he could see the shiny
> steel fibers sticking out of three of my tires before I got to
> him, and was
> irritated that I had been able to go where his jeep with new
> tires couldn't
> make it.
>
> I was only stuck once in that car.  I walked out of the desert,
> hitch-hiked
> home, and returned the next day with a friend and his four-wheel-drive
> pickup truck.  The truck became stuck before we reached my car.  A sand
> storm began so we freed my car and drove home.  The next day we retrieved
> his truck.  He became stuck two more times before we got out.  My mistake
> was driving up the leeward side of a dune.  My car instantly
> bottomed out.
> This is the only time the car with no ground clearance was ever stuck.
>
> Low ground clearance doesn't automatically mean a vehicle won't
> make it off
> road.  You don't drive IN the ruts.  You drive with the front and rear
> tires, on one side of your car, on top of the crown, and the tires on the
> other side of your car on top of either side of the ruts.
>
> Steve
>
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