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I just got back from a 4x4 training course at Weribee today.
The ground was all muddy with the rain in the last few days, making things interesting. The Landrover club was also doing their training there. By the time we got to try things the ground was already dugged up badly by them. Some of the ruts were so deep they were pretty much non-passable.
I had trouble engaging low range and centre diff-lock initially on my Auto 150 VX . Worked out after a while that you needed to leave the gear in Neutral when changing to/from low range. I read about this in PP but forgot all about it, and was just assuming that the warning beep was normal
. It didn't help with an aggressive instructor next to you!
Part of the course was to cross a little river. Apparently normally there is hardly any water there, but this time the little river was the collecting point for rain water in the valley so it was filling up by the minutes. I went through the first time with water going up the bonnet, but no water inside. I could see other cars (Pejero/Old land cruiser...) dripping water from inside after the crossing! On the second run, the instructor wanted to try again but I politely told him that I didn't want to risk getting water inside and wanted to take the shortcut.
On the way home I took the Prado to a car wash place and there was mud everywhere under the car. After hosing the underside off, I sprayed the radiator and it was mud dripping out everywhere. I hope everyone from the course realized this and cleaned their radiators. I asked one of the instructors at the theory night if they had any tips for cleaning the mud off after training and he gave me a smart answer "use water".
I then opened the bonnet and couldn't believe my eyes, there were splashes of mud everywhere inside the engine bay. This was worse than a normal river crossing, after 20 odd 4WD's stirring up the mud multiple times! I covered some electrical points (not all) and the DIP stick with some plastic cups I had, and clean the engine bay with low pressure spay. Lots of mud came out of the space between the bonnet and the cover underneath it.
I also met some nice people in the course, a few came and talked to me after seeing my Prado. Prado seemed to be the choice of next purchase for many people.
Overall it was good experience, I got a few things out of there:
- Learn how to ride the brake with left foot and control the accelerator with right foot.
- Most importantly, how to relax and handle the off-road scenarios like normal driving. The most value the course could give is for you to be confident to start learning yourself.
The sight and feel of a brand new Prado sinking down a river of mud was not easy to get used to, but I guess if you can handle that then you can handle most of the other off-road situations!
The ground was all muddy with the rain in the last few days, making things interesting. The Landrover club was also doing their training there. By the time we got to try things the ground was already dugged up badly by them. Some of the ruts were so deep they were pretty much non-passable.
I had trouble engaging low range and centre diff-lock initially on my Auto 150 VX . Worked out after a while that you needed to leave the gear in Neutral when changing to/from low range. I read about this in PP but forgot all about it, and was just assuming that the warning beep was normal
. It didn't help with an aggressive instructor next to you!Part of the course was to cross a little river. Apparently normally there is hardly any water there, but this time the little river was the collecting point for rain water in the valley so it was filling up by the minutes. I went through the first time with water going up the bonnet, but no water inside. I could see other cars (Pejero/Old land cruiser...) dripping water from inside after the crossing! On the second run, the instructor wanted to try again but I politely told him that I didn't want to risk getting water inside and wanted to take the shortcut.
On the way home I took the Prado to a car wash place and there was mud everywhere under the car. After hosing the underside off, I sprayed the radiator and it was mud dripping out everywhere. I hope everyone from the course realized this and cleaned their radiators. I asked one of the instructors at the theory night if they had any tips for cleaning the mud off after training and he gave me a smart answer "use water".
I then opened the bonnet and couldn't believe my eyes, there were splashes of mud everywhere inside the engine bay. This was worse than a normal river crossing, after 20 odd 4WD's stirring up the mud multiple times! I covered some electrical points (not all) and the DIP stick with some plastic cups I had, and clean the engine bay with low pressure spay. Lots of mud came out of the space between the bonnet and the cover underneath it.
I also met some nice people in the course, a few came and talked to me after seeing my Prado. Prado seemed to be the choice of next purchase for many people.
Overall it was good experience, I got a few things out of there:
- Learn how to ride the brake with left foot and control the accelerator with right foot.
- Most importantly, how to relax and handle the off-road scenarios like normal driving. The most value the course could give is for you to be confident to start learning yourself.
The sight and feel of a brand new Prado sinking down a river of mud was not easy to get used to, but I guess if you can handle that then you can handle most of the other off-road situations!
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