Is The Rav4 Really An Off-roader?

[Old Bexley]

Hi all,

Off to the lovely Isle of Arran and then Argyll on Friday. We've been told that some really good places to visit are via various off-road tracks etc - particularly beaches.

My RAV is only a few months old and has never been off-road.

The questions are:

How do they perform off-road? Do you take yours off-road regularly? Is it what you could describe as "off-road light"?

Don't worry - I will not be out to churn up the counrtyside or leave car tracks on the sides of mountains!

:)

Regards

Rich

[Uncle Bob]

As we know the RAV4 is a sports utility vehicle and was never intended for the great outdoors.

Its restricted by its road tyres, so soft boggy grass is a no no, hard standing dirt tracks should be find, the RAV4 underbody clearance is fair to good, but watch out for deep rutted tracks were the RAV4 may ground out on its under belly, other than that enjoy yourself.

[Old Bexley]

Thanks Bob- we will Certainly enjoy it up there!!

Rich

[RAV4 in Family]

Thanks Bob- we will Certainly enjoy it up there!!

Rich

The RAV4 is classed as a light offroader, ie it will drive on to flat dry grass fields and smooth dirt tracks, nothing else. My mother has one which proved crap offroad. I'm a farmer and drive a Land Rover Discovery which will go most places and doesn't struggle with deep ruts. The rav4 is realy just a fwd car.

[TheNissanMan]

If it's beaches yes.... I used ot use a RAV for waddybashing when I used ot go to Dubai to visit the folks and you'ld be amazed how well it handles on the sand (best to let tyre pressues down a bit)...

Not really recommended for dirt and bogs though :(

[JITSU]

It's mostly down to the Tyres. My last LWB RAV was quite good off road as it had decent All Terrain Tyres,it went through Mud,Bog and wet Grass fine but decents are a bit tricky as it has no low range option and deep ruts are best avoided because of the ground clearance (which is good but not that good) but keep the center Diff locked and with a decent set of Tyres you'll be suprised where you can go in one ;)

[alanbradley]

It's mostly down to the Tyres. My last LWB RAV was quite good off road as it had decent All Terrain Tyres,it went through Mud,Bog and wet Grass fine but decents are a bit tricky as it has no low range option and deep ruts are best avoided because of the ground clearance (which is good but not that good) but keep the center Diff locked and with a decent set of Tyres you'll be suprised where you can go in one ;)

Ummmm... You're not actually meant to use the centre diff lock until you get stuck as if you get bogged down with it already locked then you have no backup plan for extracting it...

Yeah, the biggest hinderance for the RAV is its tyres. My dad fitted a set of BF Goodrich All-terrain things to his Mk1 LWB and it would march on through mud, up steep rocky and muddy (REALLY muddy on one memorable occasion) tracks and through snow (never tried sand) without problems. Of course, its good practice to do a recce first so you know what to expect ;)

Have fun, don't trash our countryside and enjoy your hols - the beaches on the west coast are fantastic

A