ArizonaKevin
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- Aug 16, 2015
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As many of you know my wife and I picked up our first toy couple weeks ago and we finally got a chance to play with it this past weekend.
https://www.riverdavesplace.com/forums/threads/hey-lam.201912/
We decided to go out to the Rolls OHV by Saguaro lake because we knew it would be hatefully hot so we could jump in the lake and cool off. In an effort to beat the heat, we were up at 5am and rubber on dirt at 6am.
Wife took the wheel for the first section (I earned major brownie points for that one) and took us north out of Rolls OHV to get up to trail 13 (called srv rd 403 on google maps). When you're a control freak like me when it comes to driving, sitting in the passenger seat is really hard. But I have to learn to be open to her line choices because she is making the decisions she feels the most comfortable with. Obviously I won't let her put either of us in an unsafe position, but I can't nit-pick her driving.
Halfway down 13 until our turnoff she lets me take over. I take it easy for the first few minutes to get my bearings for how the car feels beneath me and how I think it will react before I start getting after it. My background in this world is with my parents old rhino, their '15 XP1K Desert Edition, and miles of exploring Northern Arizona in my truck while President of NAU4x4. I am no professional by any means, but feel I can push a little harder and have a bit better feel for a car on dirt than most of the general population would.
Right off the bat, everything feels different from the RZR. Driving position, the way the suspension reacts, the way the engine makes power, I have to re-learn it a bit.
Those of you who have driven RZR's before know that it feels a bit like you are driving a truck, you feel on top of everything which is great for visibility, but doesn't always inspire the most confidence when you start pushing things. This car has a much lower driving position to where I feel like I am sitting in the car, I can feel it move around my hips through corners. Drawback for that is it is really hard to see over the front when cresting hills. You have to just trust that the trail is there and the car can handle whatever bump might be on the other side.
The suspension in this car is the main reason that I bought it, I didn't want to deal with radius rods. In comparison with the RZR, everything feels tighter and quicker to react. When i am driving in tighter trails and sandier conditions, my parents RZR feels a bit more wallowy and has more overall body roll than the XX. The XX also has great soft and mid-sized bump compliance, we didn't get beat up over that stuff. However, when pushing it over the bigger stuff, I felt like we could use a bit more spring rate on the lower spring because we were starting to get into the harsh bump zone and actually bottomed out the car twice. This actually reminds me, I need to try my parent's RZR again now that they got the shock therapy dual rate spring kit, my dad said it is a game changer.
Engine wise, this thing doesn't come alive until you are over 6500ish on the tach, then she starts to scream! It is really a jeckyll and hyde type of powerband which is actually quite pleasant. While my wife was driving she kept it below 6k and we were cruising along at a comfortable pace, engine was relatively quiet. When it was my turn to drive I tried to keep it above that as much as possible, the sound that this engine makes at full noise is addicting! Power wise compared to a RZR is, once again, different. This engine gets all the way up to 9k. RZR doesn't have a tach but it feels like it signs off somewhere around 6kish? Drawback of an engine that screams this high is that it doesn't feel like it makes near as much low end torque that the RZR produces.
Back to the ride, after cruising down 13 for a while and checking google earth at every turn, we turn off at the one that will take us down to the coves. It runs down a great ridge with panoramic views of the lake, the surrounding mountains, with 4 peaks behind you until dropping down into the wash that goes to cove 2.
Driving in a wash is probably my favorite sort of driving with a SxS. Hard acceleration, hard breaking, trying to find every ounce of speed through the corners is one of the ultimate thrills for me behind the wheel. In compared with the RZR, I love the way this car feels under braking, not nearly as much pitching sensation when you get into the pedal hard. The most surprising part of the chassis of this car is the turn in, it feels like it has an extremely quick steering rack so the nose just darts wherever you're brain thinks it wants to go. On corner exit, as soon as you get into the throttle she takes a nice squat and hooks up on the way to the next corner. The only drawback I was feeling through these is that, because the engine makes such good power up high in it's rev range, I felt like I had to 2 foot the car to keep the engine, for lack of a better term, on the pipe. I feel like if I was racing a RZR, I would be able to out brake, and out corner them, but the torque of the RZR powerplant would even things back out on corner exit.
At the end of the wash we made it down to cove 2 where a boat and a few people looked like they were finishing up breakfast so we parked off to the side to stay out of their way and listened to some music and hung out in the great shade that cove 2 produces. We then went back up the wash and up the hill to get to the peninsula between cove 2 and cove 1 and took some pictures, watched some of the skiers, boarders, and surfers capitalize on the early morning glass.
On the way back out, instead of taking the wash back up to 13 we decided to find some more technical trails to go up and over the ridges and found some great climbs and rain ruts to let us test the 4wd, the low range, and the front locker. In one instance I had front right tire climbing a ledge the same time back right tire was dropping into a rut so we got front left off the ground a good amount and that front locker really came in handy. This section of trail is where the visibility issues really reared their ugly heads. The best solution i found in these situations was to swim my shoulders out of the harnesses while keeping the waist strapped so I could look out the side and see what was happening. Hopefully the waist strap can keep my in if we roll in a situation like that.
All in all we were off the trail at around 830 right when things started to get stupid hot and had a great ride. We love the car and it was the perfect purchase at the right time for us. The only drawbacks we had were the visibility issues, the fact that the car puts off a lot of heat so the cab area got quite warm, and the fact that the steering wheel is really far away so my wife struggled to reach it but we already have an Assault Industries hub and NRG deep dish wheel on order to help alleviate that.
This is the first long form write up/car review I have done please feel free to give me some feedback!
https://www.riverdavesplace.com/forums/threads/hey-lam.201912/
We decided to go out to the Rolls OHV by Saguaro lake because we knew it would be hatefully hot so we could jump in the lake and cool off. In an effort to beat the heat, we were up at 5am and rubber on dirt at 6am.
Wife took the wheel for the first section (I earned major brownie points for that one) and took us north out of Rolls OHV to get up to trail 13 (called srv rd 403 on google maps). When you're a control freak like me when it comes to driving, sitting in the passenger seat is really hard. But I have to learn to be open to her line choices because she is making the decisions she feels the most comfortable with. Obviously I won't let her put either of us in an unsafe position, but I can't nit-pick her driving.
Halfway down 13 until our turnoff she lets me take over. I take it easy for the first few minutes to get my bearings for how the car feels beneath me and how I think it will react before I start getting after it. My background in this world is with my parents old rhino, their '15 XP1K Desert Edition, and miles of exploring Northern Arizona in my truck while President of NAU4x4. I am no professional by any means, but feel I can push a little harder and have a bit better feel for a car on dirt than most of the general population would.
Right off the bat, everything feels different from the RZR. Driving position, the way the suspension reacts, the way the engine makes power, I have to re-learn it a bit.
Those of you who have driven RZR's before know that it feels a bit like you are driving a truck, you feel on top of everything which is great for visibility, but doesn't always inspire the most confidence when you start pushing things. This car has a much lower driving position to where I feel like I am sitting in the car, I can feel it move around my hips through corners. Drawback for that is it is really hard to see over the front when cresting hills. You have to just trust that the trail is there and the car can handle whatever bump might be on the other side.
The suspension in this car is the main reason that I bought it, I didn't want to deal with radius rods. In comparison with the RZR, everything feels tighter and quicker to react. When i am driving in tighter trails and sandier conditions, my parents RZR feels a bit more wallowy and has more overall body roll than the XX. The XX also has great soft and mid-sized bump compliance, we didn't get beat up over that stuff. However, when pushing it over the bigger stuff, I felt like we could use a bit more spring rate on the lower spring because we were starting to get into the harsh bump zone and actually bottomed out the car twice. This actually reminds me, I need to try my parent's RZR again now that they got the shock therapy dual rate spring kit, my dad said it is a game changer.
Engine wise, this thing doesn't come alive until you are over 6500ish on the tach, then she starts to scream! It is really a jeckyll and hyde type of powerband which is actually quite pleasant. While my wife was driving she kept it below 6k and we were cruising along at a comfortable pace, engine was relatively quiet. When it was my turn to drive I tried to keep it above that as much as possible, the sound that this engine makes at full noise is addicting! Power wise compared to a RZR is, once again, different. This engine gets all the way up to 9k. RZR doesn't have a tach but it feels like it signs off somewhere around 6kish? Drawback of an engine that screams this high is that it doesn't feel like it makes near as much low end torque that the RZR produces.
Back to the ride, after cruising down 13 for a while and checking google earth at every turn, we turn off at the one that will take us down to the coves. It runs down a great ridge with panoramic views of the lake, the surrounding mountains, with 4 peaks behind you until dropping down into the wash that goes to cove 2.
Driving in a wash is probably my favorite sort of driving with a SxS. Hard acceleration, hard breaking, trying to find every ounce of speed through the corners is one of the ultimate thrills for me behind the wheel. In compared with the RZR, I love the way this car feels under braking, not nearly as much pitching sensation when you get into the pedal hard. The most surprising part of the chassis of this car is the turn in, it feels like it has an extremely quick steering rack so the nose just darts wherever you're brain thinks it wants to go. On corner exit, as soon as you get into the throttle she takes a nice squat and hooks up on the way to the next corner. The only drawback I was feeling through these is that, because the engine makes such good power up high in it's rev range, I felt like I had to 2 foot the car to keep the engine, for lack of a better term, on the pipe. I feel like if I was racing a RZR, I would be able to out brake, and out corner them, but the torque of the RZR powerplant would even things back out on corner exit.
At the end of the wash we made it down to cove 2 where a boat and a few people looked like they were finishing up breakfast so we parked off to the side to stay out of their way and listened to some music and hung out in the great shade that cove 2 produces. We then went back up the wash and up the hill to get to the peninsula between cove 2 and cove 1 and took some pictures, watched some of the skiers, boarders, and surfers capitalize on the early morning glass.
On the way back out, instead of taking the wash back up to 13 we decided to find some more technical trails to go up and over the ridges and found some great climbs and rain ruts to let us test the 4wd, the low range, and the front locker. In one instance I had front right tire climbing a ledge the same time back right tire was dropping into a rut so we got front left off the ground a good amount and that front locker really came in handy. This section of trail is where the visibility issues really reared their ugly heads. The best solution i found in these situations was to swim my shoulders out of the harnesses while keeping the waist strapped so I could look out the side and see what was happening. Hopefully the waist strap can keep my in if we roll in a situation like that.
All in all we were off the trail at around 830 right when things started to get stupid hot and had a great ride. We love the car and it was the perfect purchase at the right time for us. The only drawbacks we had were the visibility issues, the fact that the car puts off a lot of heat so the cab area got quite warm, and the fact that the steering wheel is really far away so my wife struggled to reach it but we already have an Assault Industries hub and NRG deep dish wheel on order to help alleviate that.
This is the first long form write up/car review I have done please feel free to give me some feedback!