There are many different ways to gain confidence and grow more familiar with the capabilities of your vehicles off road performance.

It comes as a HUGE surprise to many new 4 Wheel Drivers that before you take your brand new (or new to you) 4WD vehicle off-road for the first time you won’t need to make ANY modifications.

Vehicle manufacturers spend millions of dollars every year to ensure that the vehicle you have purchased will offer a comfortable blend of performance and reliability in many different conditions and will provide a fairly even compromise of offroad ability in a range of varied terrain and weather conditions depending on the model of vehicle you are looking for.

Familiarity

The first thing you need to do is become familiar with your vehicle. Learn where all the controls are and how to operate them. Things like engaging 4WD and how to operate low range, will mean that when the pressure is on you aren’t pulling out your user’s manual to have a look at how it works (unless you really need too!).

Start small

Just as with anything you undertake, starting small is the easiest way to learn a skill. You don’t have to enter TUFF TRUCK CHALLENGE with your 4WD to learn how to 4WD. We recommend finding a large gravel carpark and working out how to use 4WD and low range in a controlled comfortable environment.

Have a go at crawling along in 1^st gear low range and letting your vehicle idle along. This is one of the most useful skills to have on tough sections of track as it prevents your wheels from spinning unnecessarily and digging you into soft terrain like sand or mud.

Air Down

It’s easy enough to forget this all-important step, but the importance of airing down your tyre’s increases the contact area of your rubber. Making sure your tyres are let down accurately and low enough will add a surprising amount of offroad performance and grip without requiring fancy modifications such as ‘lockers’ or upgrading to more expensive offroad specific tyres.

There are many ways to let down your tyres down, and in many of our early years the solution was to use the end of your keys to drop pressures down, periodically using a conventional tyre gauge to ensure we’ve hit the desired pressures. This is time consuming, so learn from our mistakes and get yourself a dedicated and accurate Tyre deflator such as a Kwiky Tyre Deflator.

By quickly removing the core of your tyre valve in a controlled environment inside the Kwiky Tyre Deflator, you can quickly dump air pressures with the integrated release valve to gain additional tyre contact area, whilst still maintaining accurate air pressure balance between all 4 corners.

Pro Tip: Don’t forget a reliable 12v air compressor to air up your 4WD tyres! we use a Thumper max compressor for the fastest inflation

Take a lesson

There are stacks of 4WD Schools out there, taking a lesson from a trained professional can enhance your off-road driving abilities with plenty of professional tips and tricks and instantly give you confidence in the ability of your 4WD in what would seemingly look like a hairy situation to untrained eyes.

A good lesson from a reputable school or club will give you all the tools you need to get your vehicle further offroad, avoiding damage and getting stuck in easy to get out of situations.

Bring recovery gear!

No matter how far you are travelling off-road, whether it’s a quick trip or a massive expedition into the outback, it’s always a good idea to pack a reliable recovery gear kit.

Without bringing a reliable recovery kit with you, you may end up having to call for help resulting in being stranded for a long period of time. This can be embarrassing and expensive, some remote places charging 10s of thousands to recover a vehicle.

Getting yourself out of trouble can sometimes be as simple as reducing your tyre pressures a little bit more with a Kwiky Tyre Deflator.

However, in trickier situations having a fully kitted out Hercules Complete Recovery Kit you can setup full winch recoveries with a Domin8r X 12,000lb winch and even clear debris from under your vehicle making recoveries with the included Snatch Strap easier and hassle free.

Gaining confidence driving offroad doesn’t take long, simple preparation and a little bit of knowledge goes a long way. So get out there and have more fun offroad with equipment from 4WD Supacentre!