Much more reasonably priced car :: 2014 Mitsubishi SE w/Convenience package(adds crui

[7milesout]

My Blueberry is a prom queen asphalt princess compared to yours. And that's not a compliment to me...

[Fummins]

You care about your stuff more than I. Scratches and dents add character. This trip really helped with the zero poops given look. But a lot of them seemed to almost disappear after the free 3hr long car wash on the way home. I was thinking of flogging this thing but I think I'd like to do a much longer trip now. I've joked about going to Tuktoyaktuk before but I'm seriously giving it some thought now!

[7milesout]

That's a lot of killermeaters.

[Fummins]

It identifies as a grader. Because ground clearance is over-rated.
Attachment 25246

[Fummins]

Attachment 25247
It's really hard to tell how steep and crappy this hill is, especially in a car lol

[Fummins]

Here's pretty much the route we took. I meant to bring along a full sized spare but that never happened. I last filled up in Hinton on Monday afternoon then drove back to edmonton 3hrs doing 119(ish) in the rain. Had to straddle some of the truck ruts cause it was raining so hard the ruts weren't draining and the car would slow down so much that the cruise would kick off. Fuel economy wasn't great but I still haven't put fuel in since Monday afternoon. I've been commuting 45km a day all week and still have one bar left on the gas gauge. I love this car for that. It handled just fine even when bouncing off the bump stops. You should see the looks I get now from land rover and bmw driving parents when I pick the kids up from school. Scratches all down both sides, nice dent in the roof, I haven't removed the Just-in-case tow hook yet(figured it was easier to have it in place than unload the entire car to get to it later), and half the back seat is still laying in the garage.

I briefly considered going out and buying a new 5spd Mirage but this car did the job pretty well considering we were way overloaded. Probably had 1300lbs loaded into the car for the most part. I gotta figure out how to make a watchable video. I've got 5 memory cards and my phone full of pics and videos lol Next trip we'll pack lighter. Can hopefully bring a chainsaw and axe instead of a propane firepit and 20lb bomb. I'm glad I still had the snow tires on, probably should have aired down climbing some of the hills but clearance was an issue. In some spots wider skins may have been bettery. I've actually got an extra set of 27" maxxis bighorn tires for 14" wheels.....I wonder how that offended former member made out lifting his Mirage? I laughed then but now think he may have been onto something. Would be neat to be able to temporarily lift the car for bagging down trails then put it back to stock for bombing down the road for a long distance. But then you'd have to haul around 4 wheels and tires, or at least to base camp....

[7milesout]

Fummins - As much as you loaded down that car, perhaps a lightweight utility trailer might have offered some benefits. I'm sure there would be tradeoffs as well. But, all the crap could be piled on the utlity trailer. And once where you want to camp, perhaps the tent could set up on the trailer floor. A lot more room in the car with the stuff piled on the trailer. A properly loaded trailer would net the car with greater ground clearance for the off-roading.

I'm not sure if pulling a little trailer up that rocky hill would have been any more difficult than pulling it with that car loaded way down. It's a give and take kind of thing. Not sure that one way is better than the other, but worth considering maybe.


7milesout

[Fummins]

No, a trailer would have been less than ideal on this trip. More than once we went down a goat trail off the road and had to turn around on the top of a tiny narrow ridge. It was easier to turn the car around than my side by side. It has better mirrors lol...

Climbing loose rocky hills, spinning out and having to back down would have also been a major pita with a trailer. One more thing to break down as well. Wheel bearings, tires, lights etc....We were often in the middle of bf no-where 2-3hrs min from a town that might have had anything to fix a trailer. I think just packing lighter would be the better way to go. We had way too much food that ended up getting tossed cause the cooler I bought effed up and heated everything up.

Tent on the ground worked just fine even in the rain. My tent sets up in 2-3 mins tops. It took far longer to set up the diesel heater and fill up an air mattress. A trailer would have been handy to take some weight off the car and fine for bombing down the road into campgrounds and stuff like that. We just drove off the road and found random camping spots with zero plans. If we had a base camp set up and were exploring from there and heading back each day a trailer would have been the way to go too. We packed up and went somewhere new each day.

Packing lighter, and more adding more charging outlets are gonna help the next trip. We really lucked out with the weather. Only had rain the last night/morning that let up a little when we set up the tent at 2am and packed up at 9am lol. Hopefully the fireban is lifted soon so instead of hauling a propane fire pit and 20lb bomb around we can pack a little chainsaw and an axe instead. Maybe even a battery powered saw. Wife bought me a battery powered lawn mower when we were away, cost more than my car! Works far better than I imagined. Time to sell everything and go buy a tata!

[7milesout]

Time to sell everything and go buy a tata!

Tata ... I get it.

[Fummins]

This is my crazy friend that I went camping with, in his old polara and dually trike(from a while back) lol. Now, wants to buy an old Tercel SR5 4x4 Wagon and drag around team China(Hisun side by side).