'Softroaders' off-road? or, X5 abuse

klutch said:
Heheh, I had a feeling you'd chime in.

It wasn't some poncy grassy field like you'd see in Top Gear or 5th Gear qualifying as 'off-road'. The picture you see is an access road to a forestry service trail. We couldn't get too far into the bush because of the snow; they weren't actively logging, so it hadn't been plowed. We were dealing mainly with ruts about 2-3 feet deep, mud about 2 feet deep, and generally messy stuff that anything without AWD would get stuck. Temperatures were hovering just above freezing, so the ground was thawing and was pretty slick, but still with lots of loose-packed snow. I hope to have some video of some of the gnarly bits soon. The dirt in the area is all a very fine silt, as we were in the bottom of a canyon...the stuff had dried on by the end of the day, and proved a real whore to get off.

Regardless, it was more 'off-road' than I'd venture to guess than the vast majority of X5's around here would go. And keep in mind; its nearly 6-figures of BMW that we didn't want to (completely) destroy. The exhaust was...a little misshapen when we got back.
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A three foot deep rut is serious, that's about up to my waist and if one doesn't attack it just right you can expect it to eat your front end. Thick mud at two feet will bog down all but the most capable and well equipped offroaders.

I look forward to those videos, especially bashing BMW's finely tuned exhaust into rocks. No doubt you did much more than most X5s ever will, but that's not saying much since the most offroading those see is being parked on a cricket lawn for a party.
 
Hmmm... how much body work damage can you incur by taking a Cayenne off-road?

The bill must be yummy



[EDIT: fixed spelling]
 
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My I ask the name of the trails? I know most of the local trails. I'll be the judge of whether it was REAL 4x4ing! :lol:

I'm surprised you didn't go out to mission or harrison. There are better trails out that way.
 
Yeah, I was a little constrained by time. The trails were about 20 minutes from 'downtown' Squamish, to the west of the highway. Forestry service roads, following some powerlines out to a generating station and beyond.


Anyways, as fun as the X5 was, its sometimes hard to see the point, especially given the typical consumer. I'd like to get my hands on a Discovery or the Cayenne for some comparison, but I'd much rather be flogging a car. So much can go wrong when you're out in the bush, and when you've got a car worth half as much as an apartment and insurance that explicitely states "no offroad coverage", you've gotta be a little mindful of what you're doing. Now that we've got BMW enthusiastically on board, there's a certain M-car coming our way for a long term test....
 
I still don't understand the whole "Softroader Sport" thing, I want something more like a road-worthy Baja Truck or CORR racer, not a lifted 5 series with 4wd and locking diffs, thats just all none-sense. Technically the current soft-roaders mix car suspension designs with truck liftkits, what I would really like to see is a company brave enough to design a quick off-roader built from the ground-up to be more like a livable, somewhat luxurious version of a Bowler Wildcat.

Maybe I'm perceiving X5s and Cayennes wrong, but i really doubt any of them could land a 15 foot leap unscathed, or run across huge dirt undulations at 80+mph without blowing their shocks like nobodies business.
 
There are rumors circulating the web of a Ford truck so freakin' cool it'd make even the most Euro-centric bloggers among us stop dead in our tracks, and if true, would make everything else do just the same.

The report claims that Ford is working on a derivative of the all-new F-150 pick-up internally known as "Raptor". The pumped-up version of the popular truck is said to feature a long-travel suspension (developed with Fox Racing), 35-inch tires, and ? wait for it ? a possibly turbocharged version of the upcoming Boss V8. Essentially a Baja 1000 or Dakar racing truck available to the public, the Raptor would be capable of covering rough terrain at high speeds, and also feature distinctive bodywork wider and lower than a conventional F-150. Word of the Boss V8 finding its way into an F-150 has also led to speculation that Ford is preparing a new Lightning, but the Raptor seems much, much cooler. If given the green light, the Raptor could be a year-and-a-half to two years away. Stay tuned.
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Heheheh.
 
^ consider the test mule was photographed, it's safe to say that it's a bit more substantial than scuttlebut. (second post down, and more in post #92)

Now, getting the green-light for production remains to be seen, but we should at least get a decent concept car out of it.
 
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