Hi, All.
After looking at about a dozen Land Cruisers and LX470s I bought the first Montero I drove, a 2005 Limited.
It may replace a lifted Wrangler TJ on 33" KO2s (swore I was going to go for Swampers this time and maybe wish I had but snow...) or may just compliment that by being about 100x more useful for just about everything but especially trips over the Mogollon Rim in snow, bike trips, camping trips, etc. We've already wheeled it up around Durango a little while scouting and supporting a bike ride, used it to pull a stuck tow-truck out of the snow on Bolam Pass, and seen a little mud at home.
We live on a small river at the top of a lake, two-miles from a maintained road in rural AZ so everything starts with a drive and that includes clay and sometimes clay mud.
Anyway, I'm impressed with the Montero's traction control in dry conditions but in clay mud maybe not so much. The stability control override doesn't completely disable traction control and the traction control cuts power before the tires really get spinning. It does MUCH better once the transfer case is locked but still...
I figure that if I get in actual trouble in the back-40 it's pretty likely to be because rain or snow turned what was otherwise easy into slick sticky clay mud while we're out there.
So my question is, for those of you with experience and mud or AT tires on a Gen 3, can you spin the tires fast enough to keep them slinging clay? I guess as a worst case I could pull the ABS fuse and maybe set a bunch of codes? Another option, of course, is to lock it up with ARB lockers and I might do that but maybe want to give it a chance to prove me wrong first. Thoughts on that?
I'm in the market for tires and looking at 265/70R17 KO2/KM2s or 265/65/17 Duratracs but not in a hurry to give up highway comfort if I can't spin them enough to keep them biting in mud.
Thanks for any wisdom you have to offer.
After looking at about a dozen Land Cruisers and LX470s I bought the first Montero I drove, a 2005 Limited.
It may replace a lifted Wrangler TJ on 33" KO2s (swore I was going to go for Swampers this time and maybe wish I had but snow...) or may just compliment that by being about 100x more useful for just about everything but especially trips over the Mogollon Rim in snow, bike trips, camping trips, etc. We've already wheeled it up around Durango a little while scouting and supporting a bike ride, used it to pull a stuck tow-truck out of the snow on Bolam Pass, and seen a little mud at home.
We live on a small river at the top of a lake, two-miles from a maintained road in rural AZ so everything starts with a drive and that includes clay and sometimes clay mud.
Anyway, I'm impressed with the Montero's traction control in dry conditions but in clay mud maybe not so much. The stability control override doesn't completely disable traction control and the traction control cuts power before the tires really get spinning. It does MUCH better once the transfer case is locked but still...
I figure that if I get in actual trouble in the back-40 it's pretty likely to be because rain or snow turned what was otherwise easy into slick sticky clay mud while we're out there.
So my question is, for those of you with experience and mud or AT tires on a Gen 3, can you spin the tires fast enough to keep them slinging clay? I guess as a worst case I could pull the ABS fuse and maybe set a bunch of codes? Another option, of course, is to lock it up with ARB lockers and I might do that but maybe want to give it a chance to prove me wrong first. Thoughts on that?
I'm in the market for tires and looking at 265/70R17 KO2/KM2s or 265/65/17 Duratracs but not in a hurry to give up highway comfort if I can't spin them enough to keep them biting in mud.
Thanks for any wisdom you have to offer.
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