Gen4 offroad modification

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I've done exactly that and it doesn't take very much to do it, it's also not a matter of driving "hard" enough - we may have "tighter turns" that you do, but here, pulling away from an intersection and turning at the same time is all you need to break traction in a Jimny - you can do it at less than 10 mph - the same holds true for any short wheel base RWD vehicle.

As for the traction control working correctly, you need to remember the traction control does not activate until the wheel spins - it's reactive not proactive.

I grew up in the days of rear wheel drive cars with cart springs, traction control wasn't a thing, and I had to learn to "moderate" my right foot to keep the car pointed in the right direction. I also learned at an early age how to "opposite lock" my way out of a slide, skills that have both been lost with today's ubiquitous front wheel drive vehicles.

The "electronic nannies" may have made the world a safer place, but they have also made for a generation of less capable drivers.

What other mods or spec is your vehicle? Could something else be causing this issue for you more than for others?

My Jimny isn't heavily modded and on stock suspension currently, but I also have a heavy winch bumper and drive it pretty darn hard. On and off road, across the fields at harvest and even in the snow and the like.

It is really hard to get it to spin an inside wheel, you really have to try. Even in the wet. Even then it is only spinning, not lifting off the ground.

I struggle to imagine what you'd need to do in order to lift a real wheel off the ground.

Don't get me wrong, there are always situations and people with different experience. But I too come from multiple 4wd vehicles and rwd cars. I have a V8 powered Triumph TR7, which with no LSD will easily spin an inside wheel. But it has way more power, torque and crazy short gearing. The wheel doesn't lift off the ground though, not even on track or motoring events.

I had a pretty heavily modded Series III Land Rover, lovely soft parabolic suspension and it was a bit of a flex monster. Torquey Tdi power plant and mud terrains. Its been round Silverstone race track and chased a pack of Lotus Elise's round the Elan Valley. It leaned loads, but never once lifted a rear wheel.

Maybe a Jimny would be radically different, I just find it hard to related. I also don't think the anti roll bar would be the prime reason for spinning a wheel or not.

wrote:

What other mods or spec is your vehicle? Could something else be causing this issue for you more than for others?
 

I wouldn't consider the Jimny as "modified", but I'll give you a list of what's been done since it was driven off the show room floor.

Vent visors, tint, under seat subwoofer, 215/75R15 General Grabber A/TX tyres, mud flaps, plastic caps in the chassis tubes (keeps mud/water out), tail lamp guards (kid in the car behind slid on a wet road and bumped my daughter just hard enough to crack a tail light - made an absolute mess of the Toyota hatch she was driving though) and a front facing dash cam.

It is what would be considered the "base model" here, because that's the only way I could get a manual transmission, I had to give up the touch screen stereo, the LED headlights, the storage bin behind the rear seats and the rear power outlet, the storage bin and the power outlet have since been added.

It has traction control & hill descent, it does not have the autonomous emergency braking and other electronic safeties that some markets get, we don't get those here, not even on the "fully loaded" models.

Just so it's clear - this is not an "issue" for me - it's a short wheel base, live axle, rear wheel drive vehicle, and I know what to expect from it.  This is not my first rodeo, the first Suzuki I drove, forty odd years ago was an LJ50, three cylinder, two stroke, short wheel base, live axle, rear wheel drive on bar tread tires, and I've driven quite a variety of rear wheel drive vehicles over the years.

The traction control works, it's an irritant for me, if I were the primary driver of the Jimny, I'd look for a way to disable it (it turns itself back on at around 35 km/h), I don't need it, my daily drive is an old school GV that doesn't have it, and I can manage fine without it, I've gotten by for the last fifty years without it.

Back to the anti-sway bar - you may not think so, but a front anti-roll bar (the Jimny only has a front) helps keep the rear tires planted - experience has taught me that much.  Without the bar there is more body roll, the more body roll there is the less weight you have on the inside rear wheel in a turn, if it's a right turn the torque reaction when you apply power further unloads that right rear tire, a ripple in the road surface and it hops and you lose traction.

This loss of traction is not why I'm against removing the bar, removal of the bar has the potential to create a huge degree of instability if you ever need to swerve as a form of evasive action on road - go back to my first reply in this thread - if the vehicle is a dedicated off roader, feel free, but any time it's going to see road use, for me, it's a major "no-no.

Pulling out of a T junction is enough to spin the wheel of a Jimny with oversized tyres? Even the k15 doesn't have enough torque to do that even with a manual transmission unless the tyres are old and hard or there's something contaminated the tread or road surface either that or determined efforts are being made to force it to do that. My old 2011 once had a set of infinity all terrain tyres on the back in the standard 205.70 they were awful tyres cheap and nasty but even they would hold on at low speed, grabbers are a premium tyre and should be able to hold a Jimny at all speeds regardless of body roll exiting a junction. Unless of course you have Barra swapped it?

My old 2005 Jimny seemed to spin up alot when pulling out of junctions and the back end would slide around tight roundabouts. Now I was new to driving at the time and driving jimnys so probably more driver error. My new Gen 4s I haven't had them step out of line but then i don't drive one of them out in the wet anyway

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grabbers are a premium tyre and should be able to hold a Jimny at all speeds regardless of body roll exiting a junction. Unless of course you have Barra swapped it?

The difference here is you're theorising whilst I'm driving - a manual transmission JB74 Jimny on Grabbers WILL spin the right rear tire with minimal provocation when pulling away from a tee junction - dead stock powertrain, nothing swapped.  I'm not certain if the automatic will do it, the one the dealership loaned me was quite sluggish, but my manual will.

wrote:

My old 2005 Jimny seemed to spin up alot when pulling out of junctions and the back end would slide around tight roundabouts. Now I was new to driving at the time and driving jimnys so probably more driver error. My new Gen 4s I haven't had them step out of line but then i don't drive one of them out in the wet anyway

I wouldn't consider this "driver error" per se, it's just a characteristic of a short wheel base, live axle, rear wheel drive vehicle - I've seen inexperienced drivers loose control and crash because of it, and that is driver error - failing to maintain control of the vehicle is what makes it an error.

Learning to control it so that it does not get out of hand makes you a better driver.