Well, spent the weekend in the Black Hills of South Dakota with some of the local Jeep guys (my first time down there I had my Rubicon - and they're a great bunch of people, so I had to go back with my Cruiser).
Weather made it a little interesting. First day rained, and ended with about 4 inches of snow. The second day snowed in the morning, and was sunny in the afternoon. Slick conditions, perfect for testing the cruiser. All of my previous experience was with a Rubicon (locked with MTR's) and full armor, so I had "big shoes" to fill with the Cruiser.
Well, to make it short, the Cruiser really impressed me. Other than big rocks that I avoided due to clearance, the TRAC system is amazing. Don't mean to make anybody upset, but it acted very similarly to lockers in my opinion. Now, I wasn't rock crawling of course, but it just didn't want to stop for anything. Even when the belly was on something, it just kept on switching around until it found traction. The Jeep guys were really impressed how it seemed to "feel" its way around for the right traction. It was really surreal how invisible the system was. I had to keep looking at the dash wondering if it was working or not.
Now I have Toyo AT's, and I did everything - wet rocks, mud, snowy muddy rock. All of the other vehicles had MT tires, and I had no need to wish I had them.
To sum up, I was very impressed, and thrilled that a "luxury" SUV could handle the trails just like a Jeep Wrangler could. I drove 300 miles in comfort, wheeled like it was made for it (obviously was) and then drove home 300 miles with no effort. And on top of it all, I was so much more comfortable on the icy highways than I would've been in my Wrangler.
Awesome vehicle, I had read it before, but now I know firsthand. It was such a thrill to take a vehicle like this and just do so well on the trails.
I'm attaching a few pics, I didn't get a chance to get many action shots, but I think the guys that I'm expecting pics from did. As all of you who have wheeled know, pics just don't tell the whole story, and make it look so much easier than it was!
In the first pic, I was waiting for the guys in front of me and thought "damn, I don't have any action shots yet, I had better get snapping pics!", In the second pic, this was just before I had to winch a lifted TJ off of a rock on the trail.
If I get some more cool pics, I'll post them. The video that I should get will be great, but unfortunately the best spots everyone was so into getting their own rigs through they didn't stop to video me.
