I drive a Dodge Dakota 4x4, 4.9L locking dif , skid plates and love it but it does drink the gas, for me its a big plus to have the ability to toss dirty gear, fire wood, bikes ,atv's and what not into the truck bed which is something you cant do with a suv

I drive a toyota tundra. It pulls our trailer easily and is a great offroad vehicle. My brother who is a logger and is a dyed in the wool general motors guy finally had to admit after a week of hunting in it that it was as good or better as any truck he has ever had. also went mushroom picking up the Skagit with a friend who drives a blazer, i drove in and his comment was that if we had been in his blazer it would have fallen apart on that particular road. btw, picked about 30lbs of chantrelles.

No contest: Plymouth Valiant or Dodge Dart '62 - '67. Slant Six.

The Kia Sportage ranks high.It has an actual frame not unibody like most suv's.Land cruisers and 4runners are the toughest.Samurai's go anywhere.My rig is a bloody tank and is not made for tight steep roads.



Where the truck reaches it's limit I resort to the KX.

Yes of course,the slant six.
A great engine usually found in poorly built cars

I guess bottom line still is...you got 5,10 or 40k+ to spend?

Hmmmn , a couple things not brought to your attention would be
1. A four by four going over severe washboard roads and getting opposing wheels off the ground quickly turns into a two wheel drive and becomes useless unless you have locking differentials which can be expensive.
2.If you buy tires up to 15% bigger than your stock tires you will get up to an inch and a bit of clearance.
3. You can always make a skid plate.
4. If you buy new and scratch the pretty paint job you feel bad , if you buy used and scratch , dent or mangle , you'll feel fine because those are battle scars to be proud of.

I drive a Suzuki four door which does not quietly go through the ditches like my two door used to. And being a 92 model it gets about 35 mpg which is better than the newer models that have more horses under the hood. Perhaps under powered for some but it gets me to the destination.

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What about the suzuki Samurai or the Chevy Tracker same as the Vitara both have Ladder frames from 1999 and up. I Personnally would go with a 4.0L Cherrokee Sport 4x4 its one of the better 6 cylinders for power and mpg. Thats just my personnel opinion though. Lot out there just do your research and go with your gut.

#1
Biggest and most commom obstacle is the waterbar or crossditch.Sometimes new ones can swallow full size trucks.As mentioned,little overhang front and rear is desirable
#2
Poor driver abilties..
An educated driver and co pilot can go surprisingly far without any damage in quick fashion.
A newby Off road driver can easily get a capable 4x4 stuck beyond hope and ruin the weekend and more.
Purchase a unit suitable for the task and learn how to drive it when encountering obstacles.Then create a list of items that should be carried in the backcountry,like a shovel,of course a jack,towstrap etc.

Suzuki Vitara, good on gas but has real 4wd.

Xterra is a heavy, gas sucking beast.

RAV4 will be almost same performance as Vitara but cost twice as much. CRV will be not as good offroad as RAV4 for same price as RAV4.

Jeeps are good but 1) not good on gas compared to Vitara, 2) break down frequently so might be in shop when you want to be in mts. but 3) are cheapo to fix. If you have to buy American buy a Jeep but you will be buying North American car which equals crap IMHO.

The main obstacles on BC logging roads are water bars and crossditches for which the shorter wheelbase of the Vitara outperforms full size trucks. A full size Dodge pickup wil be scraping the undercarriage and bumper on entry and exit from a deep waterbar whereas the Vitara will sneak through due to the shorter wheelbase.

I'm assuming you don't want to be an off road poseur with tricked out giant swampers and winch etc all of which are mostly designed as penis substitutes to impress your 4x4 buddies rather than for logging road driving performance.

OTOH if price is no obstacle buy a Pinzgauer or a Unimog.

Yes Jeep,TJ and XJ is capable ,and all you need is lots of tools and knowledge how to fix anything and everything and then you can go hiking...

Bring a comealong.It is perhaps the most valuable 4by tool besides a brain.

My wifes old subaru forester, now that was a true mountain car. Took a lickin' and kept on tickin'. Has one the best all wheel drive system of any compact ute, and that horizontally opposed 2.5 was really gutsy. Compared it directly with the crv and rav 4 and there was no comparison. Unfortunately could not carry kids, dogs and gear at the same time.

I've got an older Tacoma 4x4 manual. Great truck. Very light in the back so I travel with weight if anticipating snow. Excellent low range.

My beloved Landcruiser (we're no longer together) I really do miss it, they have so much character:


A true, new, 4x4 is close on the horizon, actually this month. The FJ Cruiser. Excellent approach and departure angles. Style may take a little getting used to. But it's based on the Tacoma and Landcruiser Prada (overseas Landcruiser) so it's bound to be a future classic. I'd be hugely interested in one, especially if it came in diesel (not the case however), and Biodiesel was readily available.

...The annual car review topic.....more anticipated than the SI Swimsuit edition....and an excuse to show one's hand....

My experience is that there's one issue, and two scenarios.

The issue is getting as far up the logging roads as you can to access the alpine or backcountry. One useful generalization is that the farther up the roads you go, the wilder the country you can access, and the worse the roads. So the farther you want to drive, the more "rugged" vehicle you want. Generally, the more capable the vehicle, the more it will cost, and cost to operate.

You can reduce your vehicle needs a lot by a combination of avoiding the tougher roads, or walking farther. Many of the people who do the most frequent and toughest backcountry trips, actually have vehicles less capable than today's small suv's. Yet somehow, they do all these great trips. At the other extreme, today's low-slung sedans just don't cut it. Often, something that will stop one vehicle, like a large fallen tree or bridge out or gate, will stop everything.

The two critical scenarios are snow and ditches. Snow/ice requires a lot of traction, plus good clearance helps. The stupid ditches being put in by the stupid Ministry of Forests require very high clearance, and good traction helps.

If you don't go out in winter, then perhaps you can get by without traction control systems. If you avoid the ditches, you can get by with less clearance. Traction control lets you diagonal through ditches if there's enough room, and lets you drag the bottom in deeper snow before losing traction. So clearance and traction are closely related.

I wouldn't worry about durability, and therefore whether something's a unibody or has a frame. We're not like the off-road 4x4 crowd, and the rough road stuff we do doesn't seem to hurt our vehicles except for replacable stuff like brakes, exhaust systems and clutches. And the rare oil pan or automatic transmission. We never do structural or extensive body damage.

So, what to get? If you want something new that's cheap and crude and is great off-road, get a 2-door Jimmy/Blazer with the ZR2 options. Last ones were 2005's. Got more coin, don't mind lousy mileage, and want something very capable, get a new Xterra, 4-Runner or something like that. Even farther up that path, there's the Mercedes G-wagon, the various Range Rovers, VW Toureq, big Lexus, Land Cruiser etc. Less serious needs with coin points to the new M-Class, Pathfinder, Sequoia, etc. More modest needs plus reasonably efficient city operation suggests things like, in generally desending order of capability: the Grand Vitara/XL-7, X-Trail, Tucson, old Rav-4, Escape, Forester, new Rav-4, CRV and on and on.

Of course, another layer to all this is reliability (as opposed to durability), which is why I didn't mention any Chrysler products or Explorers.

With the new Santa Fe dropping the low range, and other than the Liberty, the new Grand Vitara is the only new smaller suv you can get a low range on. Want a diesel? The Liberty is the only choice.

Then there's used stuff, like Pathfinders, and 4-Runners. Not to mention the under-appreciated Trooper. Dime a dozen, and they do the job. On-line Buy & Sell has 30+ 1995 Pathfinders!

I don't get why people who don't intend to carry large volumes of dirty stuff, work stuff, dogs or lumber, buy pickups for backcountry trips. Seems like a popular route, though, despite long rear overhangs. But then you have to buy a cap, and still don't have a decent place for passengers. If you get a second seat, they have long wheelbases and poor breakover angles. Friends have an extended cab Tundra TRD, and due to the light back end, it had to be put into 4wd on a road where our '91 Pathfinder did fine in 2wd.

For what it's worth, at Christmas we replaced that Pathfinder with an '06 Grand Vitara equipped with the 2-range transfer case. The new GV is an excellent design, at an unbeatable price, has absolutely awesome traction, but clearance is marginal. At least the rear tow hook is designed to protect the exhaust tip.

It has 6 airbags, ladder frame reinforcement welded to the unibody, traction control, stability control and all sorts of other surprising enhancements. These days, I wouldn't buy a new suv that lacked side airbags, traction control and stability control. It can be operated in AWD, 4-Hi locked, or 4-Low locked. Weight distribution is an ideal 50/50 both front to back, and side to side. The GV's heated seats seem ostentatious until the first time you start home damp and chilled from a trip. Mmm.

For our combination of needs and what we felt like spending, nothing came closer. Maybe some day we can get a lift kit for it. Credit goes to a CT discussion that clued me in to the fact that Grand Vitaras had 4Low.

We considered the Xterra, but the older one is basically the same vehicle as the original Pathfinder, and we'd had our fill of that (though it was good). The new Xterra is just too big (short version of the new Pathfinder), but with less room for passengers than the new GV. The X-Trail was second on our list, but there's no low range available, and if you want stability/traction control and side airbags, there's a $5000-$7000 premium over the fanciest Grand Vitara. Slam dunk.

I disagree with the common opinion that Vitaras have poor resale values. If you check the used ads, and factor that they didn't cost as much to begin with, you'll find they've held their resale value as least as well as anything else. Then consider the compound interest on what they didn't cost to begin with. $6000 at 4% over 10 years is almost $3000.

Besides the off-road considerations, others' needs will vary depending on how many people they need to carry, cargo space, desired mileage, safety, budget, mix of city/highway driving, towing, etc. Not to mention that most people would be content being less anal than me about making the optimum selection.

If you want to see what people are actually using, just visit the Diamond Head parking lot on the next sunny weekend day. Better yet, visit on a bad day and see who makes it how far. The variety of vehicles in use suggests the main thing is to get out and do stuff, whether you have the perfect vehicle or not.



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