The most noticable thing I found was the Frontera is quite tail happy. On more than a few occasions I found myself having to arrest the tail end before it went ahead of me. The road was extremely corrugated (especially on entry to corners) but it was a little disconcerting all the same how easy it would step out. I've put this down to a couple of factors:
My off road driving experience (or lack thereof) - I'm handling the car how I would handle the bike so I think I need to attend some training
SWB will always equal stability issues when travelling at speed on rough trails - think I need to slow it down a little
Car has a large number of km's on the clock, so suspension is probably more than a little tired
Tyres are rubbish - can't remember what they are, but look to me like they are just big road tyres
So spent most of yesterday looking into what could be done to make life a little easier and have come up with a small recipe book to make life a little more comfortable:
Upgrade the suspension - was planning on doing this anyway as some of my more favorite trails/tracks require a little more clearance than what the Frontera currently has (and most of it is rockfalls, so I don't want to be bottoming out on that). Only kit or ready made solution for my car that I can find is a suspension upgrade kit from Ironman - http://www.ironmandealer.com.au/frontera.htm (apologies for the Australian link, I'm assuming it is the same kit everywhere the Frontie was sold?). Thoughts and opinions on this would be appreciated, particularly if there are any better alternatives but I've had a chat with the supplier and they seem pretty convinced that it is a good path to take (go figure).
Change the Tyres for something decent - had heard a couple of guys talking about Cooper STT tyres and the fact their survivability in the dry and rocky stuff is pretty good just that you sacrifice some of the on-road prowess when you use them - this doesn't really bother me though, I won't be using the car to commute, it's purely a weekend and holiday toy. Again, I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to such things so advice is greatly appreciated.
Thoughts and opinions would be much appreciated!
Cheers
Luke
P.S. re-reading this it sounds likea bit of a rant, but at the end of the day, shortcomings (or perceived shortcomings) aside, I had a heap of fun, and the girlfriend is over the moon that I had as much fun bashing around in the Frontera as I do on my off road bike
