What are the downsides of a unibody vehicle offroad? I know that they cannot perform like a body on frame vehicle but what can go wrong on them? I have the TRD model, upgraded shocks and AT tires. I would only take it on a 3 rated trail, am I being too cautious?
Unibody Toughness
recordalley
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What are the downsides of a unibody vehicle offroad? I know that they cannot perform like a body on frame vehicle but what can go wrong on them? I have the TRD model, upgraded shocks and AT tires. I would only take it on a 3 rated trail, am I being too cautious?
Your biggest problem will be ground clearance, not body flex.
Your trail rating system must be different than what they use for the Alpine Loop in western Colorado. There, for example, the Ophir Pass has a 2 rating, and your RAV4 would never make it. I tried it in my 2013 RAV4 and it didn't work.
Edit: another problem would be gearing. A true off road, 4x4 vehicle, such as the 4Runner has a transfer case that lowers the gear ratio so you can crawl along at a very low speed, over rocks, (1 MPH) without lugging the engine, or go up really steep hills. Can't do either of those in a RAV4.
Yeah, I wouldn't have bought it if I was needing that.
Well these are the downsides of a unibody vehicle offroad.
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you really shouldn't jump unibodies over dunes or hills, you really shouldn't even crest hills too fast with unibodies you might rip the shock tower mounts out. body-on-frame you can jump like a kangaroo, you might break suspension pieces if you land too hard but your chassis's gonna be ok
I think that is exaggerating a little. You can drive it on trails and dirt roads, not technical trails meant for 4x4 clubs that require purpose built vehicles to tackle, but they can certainly handle more than paved roads.
I take mine out fishing, hunting, camping all the time with no problems. Now its not to rock crawler or extreme off roacing car but can handle unpaved road fine. Handles the beach good also. I even hit the dunes, no jumping just driving around 😂😂😂
This was also my assumption, I don't think they're marketing it as anything it's not, as has been stated here before, they have a 4-runner for that.
The TRD which is the most off road version really does struggle on trails. As the reviewer states, "in term of off road capability, this thing is pretty limited...even though this torque vectoring system is disappointing off road, on road it actually improves handling."
Spoiler, it never makes it up that hill. Pretty painful to watch.
Yea Toyota's AWD systems are heavily FWD biased to prioritize MPG. Even base model Subarus will outperform Toyota's Torque-vectoring but their drawback is they're all CVT. Would make more sense for the TRD and Adventure trims to be more evenly split and send power to the rear wheels more often since they're more focused on trails...
It is the AWD system because there are only certain conditions where torque will be sent to the rear wheels, such as heavy acceleration, during cornering, and whenever slip is detected. But as you can see in the videos above as well as countless others on YouTube it still doesn't kick in a lot of the time even when slip is detected on the front wheels...You can see on the guage cluster screen the AWD rarely kicks in and when it does it's usually only 25% unless accelerating from a stop. Compare that to Honda SH-AWD which can send up to 70% of torque to the rear wheels.
It's not a big deal for city and highway driving but TRD and Adventure trims definitely should be more evenly split or at least 40/60 IMO.
Did you notice how set up everything was? Sounded scripted.
Here's another. And the reviewer actually overheats the torque converter trying to go up an incline. Pretty bad. I wouldn't take the Rav4 out to any trail. Maybe a gravel road, but not a trail.
There's another video I was trying to find where a Toyota club takes Rav4s, 4Runners, and Tacomas out on a trail. The older V6 AWD Rav4 was able to keep up, but the 4.5 Gen AWD Rav4 got stuck multiple times and had to be pulled out several times. At the end, the V6 Rav4 made it through unscathed, but the 4.5 Gen AWD Rav4 lost all of its underbody plastic covers and it's rear bumper.
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