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Went a little offroading today


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Posted

Dinged up my rocker panel a tiny bit on the passenger side, but my wife in the 2018 LT Z71 with 2" lift crushed one of her side steps...  We were on a part of the trail better suited to lifted Jeeps with 35's and there was one deep hole in a rut, off camber, that we slid into and without offset wheels, the side of the truck and steps hit before the tires did.

I know what my next upgrade is gonna be, after I replace her mangled side step...  haha

Other than that one spot, the trucks did very well...  Lot of fun!  Not what I want to do with these trucks every weekend, but I might see a used Jeep Wrangler in my future...

 

It's a 48 min video, so it will take YouTube a while to process it into HD, so give it a bit, or just deal with the lower def until it finishes rendering...
 

 

Posted

What are you driving, again? The 2018 looks nice! 
 

Great video. That trail looks super fun. Wish I had something like that around here!

Posted

My wife is in the slightly lifted 2018 LT Z71...  I am in my new LT Trail Boss...

We have a gazillion trails like that in North GA...  National Forests and forest service roads all over the place...

I dinged the rocker panel on mine, just a tiny bit and mainly underneath, you almost can see it unless you really get under there...  Need to install a set of rock sliders...

Posted

Thanks for the video......more entertaining than the Ice Road Truckers episode where they were driving beat up POS local trucks on narrow dirt roads on the sides of cliffs on a mountain in India.

 

Nothing like that here, back roads and ones skirting the Potomac and Shenandoah are a piece of cake compared to the ones in the video. As desolate, but not as demanding, desperate or scary - worst that ever happened was when my father-in-law freaked with a WWII flashback to a battle in the Ardennes.

 

No way I'd have the balls to take anything I owned on that road...........but, definitely a candidate for a fun trip in a rental Jeep with full coverage.

Posted

Yeah, I won't make a habit of getting in that rough with new trucks.  I have had the Trail Boss for like 3 weeks, and my Wife's truck is my 2018, so still almost new...  Not things we want to bash up.

I was on that tricky part last year and don't remember it being that bad. But I think that the Jeeps have really dug that rut up over the past year, it's twice as deep as I remember it.  It was really just that one hole...  I should go back with a bunch of rocks and throw them into that hole, to build it up about 1.5 feet and it would be easy at that point.  The trucks could get through it now, but not without scraping either paint or running boards...  Filling in the hole with rocks would solve that...

I was like this isn't so bad and then... CRUNCH...  woops.  LOL

I can buff the couple scuffs in the clear coat that I took, but I will have to replace her side step.  The mounts are pretty mangled, not sure I can get them straightened with a hammer or not.  But at $300 for the set, not the end of the world if I have to replace them...

My buddy got out of the truck and took a couple videos with his cell phone, so I will try to post those later.

Posted

Jeep with a winch helped pull the truck's front end away from that clay wall... Didn't want to scrape the crap out of the bumper or fender, and that tension on the winch rope kept it from grinding along that wall.  

 

 

 

Posted

The TrailBoss has GoodYear UltraTerrains and they seems to have better grip in the mud... The RidgeGrapplers on the second truck seems a little better on rocks and stuff...

 

 

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