Have any of you been offroading in your new 4Runners yet?

Please tell us stories and post pics...

I took mine to a local Wildlife Management area this afternoon and did some fun driving through snowy dirt trails while scouting for the upcoming turkey season. Didn't push it too much with the stock tires. It really made we want to get some 17" rims and BFG AT KO's!

I haven't done any serious offroading yet, but this week I tested out my TE's locker & ATRAC on a wet, steep V shaped ditch. Crawled straight down one side and up the other in 4L. It was deep and steep enough that my front bumper made light contact at the bottom and my trailer hitch collected a pound of dirt as I headed back up the other side. I crawled back and forth through it half a dozen times and never had any wheel spin whatsoever. I was astounded - my 98 T4R could never have done that. Technology is a wonderful thing - with BFG AT tires, the TE truck is an offroad beast, imo.

Wish I had pics, but I was driving solo.

I took my TE in some light snow earlier this week and climbed a very steep embankment utilizing 4Lo, atrac, & rear locker and made it Since then here in WI we got another 8-10" of snow, so maybe this weekend I will see what she can do....stock tires of course too! This summer I plan to goto Michigan and check out the silver Lake sand dunes, looks awesome...youtube it for cool videos.

Brandon

Just took my TE offroad in a snow covered field tonight again. We have about 4-6" left on the ground. I got a chance to to climb probably a 50* incline and made it. I was in 4lo with rear diff locked. I also played around with crawl control using the rear diff lock and boy is it slick. I tested the feature by doing the following:

I climbed part way up a longer hill(not the 50* one), stopped and tried accelerating up the rest of the way. I was using 4lo and diff lock. I found the truck began to spin too much with me driving and it dug in and would not go any further.

Next up, I reversed down a ways, engaged crawl control on the fastest setting, and I found the results to be much better. I was able to climb further and it was much more consistent meaning i got stuck less often I felt crawl control managed the gas better than I could and put the traction where needed.

I really had a blast

I really need to film this next time.....need to bring the wife along for that though.

I took my T4R through some seriously deep/soft sand this past weekend in a national park and the TE didn't blink. The closest it got to stuttering was when I tried backing up a steep deep soft sand hill face, but once I engaged rear locker & ATRAC, it backed right up, no problem. I was duly impressed.

i've taken my TE through mud, brush, sand and big puddles. crossed some shallow creeks and dried river beds as well. the TE had no problem getting through all of it and kept asking for more. i'm hoping to get out for some more fun in the sun once the weather clears

Cool stories all!

If the weather holds, I'm heading out this weekend to one of my hunting leases for some scouting and offroading. I'll try to get some still pics - don't have a video camera though.

Pics:

Did you leave TRAC on when going through the soft sand or did you turn it off? If you left it on how did it do?

We have deep soft sand beaches that we drive on durning the summer here, just trying to figure out if it is best to turn TRAC off in 4HI in the soft sand. I can just picture the system constanly kicking in.

just leave her in 4lo and give 'er

I turn TRAC, VCS and the side airbags off every time I go off road because I spend much of my time in 4H.

Why the side airbags?

if you roll the truck and the side air bags deploy its not gonna be a good day. you most likely wouldn't have needed the side air bags in a slow speed roll and it'll make things alot more difficult trying to get out.

Although you can "disable" the curtain airbags, if you actually roll the vehicle they will still go off from the impact. The roll sensing just keeps them from going off at extreme lean angles.

Lucky guy! My closest Wildlife Management Area has all the trails blocked off to vehicles with gates. I can only drive on the main road which, yes, is a dirt road but a very well made dirt road so I can't really count it as Off-Roading.

I'll have to check out some of the other WMAs in my area. What season are you guy's in over there? Rabbit season ends for us in two days followed by a month and a half of no open firearms seasons and then Spring Gobbler in mid-April.