Australians are driving bigger, heavier, dirtier cars and it’s alarming both climate and road safety experts.
A decade ago, sedans and hatchbacks were the most popular cars in Australia. Today, Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs) and American-style utes dominate new car sales and advertising.
Yeah, well, sedans and hatchbacks don’t tow my caravan into the Victorian High Country.
I’ll gladly switch to an EV offroader once I know it’s capable of getting my family and I to where we’re going, and home again.
This, or something similar, is what many people think. I wonder how many days in a year these vehicles are actually seeing that intended use, though. So many people seem to buy these large, inefficient vehicles with the intent of using them off-road and/or on family holidays, but what they actually end up using them for 99.9% of the time is just daily suburban commutes. It makes zero sense.
I literally see everyday these idiots with their giant “trucks” pulling their caravans up the east coast. The funny part is they can’t even seem to tow them with any degree of confidence or at a suitable speed most of the time. I then see someone in a more humble vehicle that is towing a similar caravan with speed and confidence. It is more a mental issue of size,size,size makes me better.
Saw an ad on Facebook for a ranger the other day, 2 years old 21k km, description read never been off-road, mainly used to go from home to the office. Was selling to upgrade to the new model.
Also I don’t believe these fancier utes are very suitable for actual work, to much precious body work and paint around the bed of the truck. We have some single cab utes at work, and what gets put on the tray I wouldn’t want to be doing on anything I cared about the looks of. Also the height to get to some of the trays is ridiculous.
The bed of mine was factory sprayed with a thick rubber/plastic layer - it’s very hard wearing. Pretty sure I could hit it with the blade of my extra heavy 11kg crowbar and barely leave a scratch and you can buy aerosol cans of the stuff at SuperCheap for 40 bucks. It’s easy to repair.
Single cab isn’t an option, I have kids in the back seats all the time. Also the family complains when our camp bedding gets covered in mud/dust/etc.
The bed of my tray is 900mm off the ground and I prefer that height to anything lower. For example it’s a lot more comfortable to unload load bags of cement or shovel sand/gravel out of the tray when it’s already at waist height. I do need some sort of step (esky/etc) to stand on while roll my motorcycle up with a ramp… but that’s no big deal.
As for being environmentally friendly, that’s what my eBike is for. Pretty much only drive the dual cab when I need to.
All fair points. I don’t follow the whole no one should own one as put forward by a lot of people here. There is just a lot of people don’t need one. Know someone who drives a patrol from one side of Melbourne to the other side everyday as a commute to the office, one person no kids with no equipment , and they have another 4WD so there is no excuse there. My environmentalist mate has a land cruiser as that’s how he can explore our beautiful country, and rides a bike to work.
I can’t speak for others, but I definitely do use mine for off-roading as much as I can.
Is it as much as I’d like? No - I have to earn the money to afford the hobby. But it’s absolutely worth it, especially when I get to show my daughter some of the awesome things we have to offer.
The reality is that we’re a rough, tough country, and getting to see lots of it requires special vehicles.
The reason this seems so recent is because, previously, 4WD vehicles were either purpose-built, or expensive if they were tricked out to be daily drivers. That made them uncomfortable or expensive.
With the death of our local car market, it’s opened up a much wider, cheaper, more refined set of offerings, so more people can afford to get into the hobby.
How often is “as much as you can”, honestly? We don’t care that it’s your hobby. Pick a different hobby or move to a rural area. Big cars kill people at far higher rates.
Please, watch this video, it summarises nicely the argument against bigger and bigger vehicles and likely addresses most of the excuses you’ll come up with:
https://youtu.be/jN7mSXMruEo
It’s about the US, but a lot of it is applicable to Australia also.
They don’t need to pick a different hobby, they can just hire an off-road vehicle instead. There is no reason for people to be buying vehicles for extremely niche, rare use cases when they can just hire an equivalent for a few weeks.
Money saved on the cost of the vehicle, gas and taxes should more than offset the cost of rental once or twice a year. If it doesn’t, tax more.
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I’m sure if they’re renting offroaders they’re aware of that. I did that in Iceland and everything was covered and the vehicle was bent and scratched already when I got it.
The ones in my city cost about $500 per day, and they take an $8,000 deposit. If they can’t fix it for $8,000 then they charge an extra fee on top of that, and they will restore it to new car showroom condition - which means just scraping a tree branch could cost more than the deposit.
Worst part is though, they specifically ban all of the popular dirt roads within about ten days drive of the city. The roads you’re allowed on, I’d happily travel in my Mazda 3.
The thing is though - even if you set aside all of that… the main thing stopping people from going off road is time, and you’d waste half your weekend picking up the car, checking it for damage, signing paperwork, and then after the trip cleaning it and doing all that again.
It’s cheaper and easier to just buy one.
And what an awful hobby it is
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Why do you say that? What’s so awful about seeing parts of our beautiful country that are hard to get to?
The fuck is in your caravan, there are electric fords that can literally tow a freight train.
Go buy an outback wagon. Not to crossover shit from the last 14-15 years.
It’s an off-road caravan, which I take off-road. Ergo, I need an off-road tow vehicle.
You’re not going too off road with a bloody caravan though.
Oh yes indeed I am (have)! I’ve even taken my van into Wonnangatta.
…the big flat ex-station plateau that’s like driving on a suburban backyard?
Yeah, righto. Look it up on Wikipedia, did we? If you can, read the words instead of just looking at the pictures - you’ll see it’s only accessible with 4WD, dirt bikes, on horse, or on foot.
that’s because the bloody place was never paved to, and shut down a century ago. (Try me, most of my family are from the high lands and I grew up there)
True, a sedan won’t cut it, maybe a ute would if you’ve done a bit of thrashing, but the point I’m getting at is it’s not exactly hardcore 4WD driving, and an electric 4x4 can take it without even blinking.
Mate, did you even read my very first comment here? I said I’ll happily switch to an EV off-roader once I know it can get me in and out. Until they get to the point that I can get 400km+ from a single charge, towing my van (as I can with a full tank of diesel), there’s just no point.
The best reviews I’ve seen are mostly empty Rivian R1Ts getting maaaaaybe ~240kms off-roading, without the heavy payload.
PS: no one who ever lived or grew up in the High Country calls it the “high lands”.
Buy a tent and a camping stove ?
They do if you buy a proper sedan/hatchback
What an ignorant thing to say
How is that ignorant. Thinking a sedan can’t pull a caravan is just stupid.
They can pull a caravan on the highway. As soon as you try to drive over something even slightly uneven your wheels will slip and you’ll be stuck.
I said my use case was off-roading in the Vic High Country. So your reply to that was ignorant. Simple.
I tow a fully off road van in an old style (ie not American mega truck) Nissan. I have great visibility. Plenty of power and clearance.
I drove a rental Ford Everest sport or something like that today. The blind spots are insane. The height and width are unnecessary. It’s dangerous. It’s shit. It should require a special license (with warnings all over it)
We don’t need American style, embarrassing, emotional support machines to tow our vans.
All we need is appropriate clearance and suspension and enough torque.
My ‘little’ Nissan has those things in buckets. I’ve done plenty of tracks. The old telegraph track. The Cape. On and on.
I can’t wait for this embarrassing, large body panel fashion to pass.
As mine ages, I’ll buy another tow vehicle once this time has passed, and we’re back at sensible sized capable tow vehicles.
It’s called a tent. You can even carry some of them on your back.
Each to their own. We enjoy caravanning. Did our time in tents - too much fuckery setting up and packing up.
Pardon my curiosity…
From Melbourne?
Are you able to get away just for a weekend, or a longer stay? How often?
Also, what’s your favourite spot in the Vic high country?
Ta
Yep, from Melbourne. I generally get away once a month, sometimes twice. If there’s a long weekend in there, then definitely as long as that, and will often tack an extra day or two onto it. I also do a two week trip each year with the family, as well as a one week 4WD trip with mates (move each day).
So many favourite spots:
Of course, where we go depends on what we want to do. If we feel like tackling Billy Goat’s Bluff (for example), we’ll usually use Eaglevale as base camp, and head out on day trips to check out the sights.