Learn and enable me: unimproved roads and 2wd

So, we're looking at renting a cabin in the mountains in a few months.

The warning is that the cabin at the end of a gravel road. The listing goes on to say that RWD is not recommended, and that they suggest 4wd.

My vehicle? A 2007 4Runner SportEdition 2wd. We just recently replaced the factory tires with five new tires of the same brand, model and size. Honestly, I can't recall, and would have to pay my tab here and go to the parking lot to tell you what the hell those tires are, but they are in good shape. I also have a nifty AUTO-LSD button. According to my DuckDuckGo ministrations, this is a system designed to be engaged in 2wd, in challenging conditions, to cause the brake system to help me out when I have but one rear wheel with traction.

At this point, I feel like I have about the best situation I could have without a second pair of drive wheels.

Can someone offer any perspective on the abilities of my truck, or even the best questions to ask about to access road? I guess I'm asking for wisdom or enablement, because we like the cabin.

Thanks in advance.

Get a winch, come along with extra long strap or hi lift jack depending on your budget and you will be fine.

I'm curious what this road really looks like.

A gravel road and they are still recommending 4wd. That's going to be a steep mother. As long as the weather is good, it probably won't be a problem. Wet it down and you might be walking.

Any chances of getting a picture of the road.

I'd look at the road in person before running out and buying a new truck. You have plenty of ground clearance, and with decent tires I suspect it's not going to be an issue.

Oh, nobody is buying a new truck. While I did push for 4wd when we were shopping, they were hard to come by, and ultimately, it's the wife's truck. She loves it.

They say that about damn near every road to the housing at the local ski resorts. And I've easily made it to these cabins in a variety of FWD cars with all-seasons and/or snow tires over the years. I think it's mostly just a liability thing so if you have some crappy civic with bald tires that can't get up the hill, you can't try to get a refund or sue them.

With a RWD truck and good tires, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to get up even the steepest gravel roads - especially if you have weight over the rear axle. I took our 4Runner all kinds of crazy places off-road without even putting it in 4WD, no problem. And some of the heavy-vertical dirt/gravel places I've taken the e30, for that matter.

short answer: you'll be fine. The warning is probably more toward open-diff FWD cars where on a steep uphill the drive wheels aren't getting much traction or weight over them. RWD cars can go up pretty much any hill assuming it's not ice or slick mud.

Velocity and bravery make up for a lot.

FWD will go nearly anywhere AWD will... this includes fording some small shallow streams (I know, I did it)

Rough, bumpy, sandy, gravel-y and even muddy you're probably going to be fine. But add any real incline and it might be a different story.

Limited slips (tight, functional ones) work pretty well.

Good tires are very, very important.

That said, I'm pretty sure I had 10x the fun in my '88 2wd Ranger than I did in my Cherokees and Samurai's!

(Need I mention the Crown Victoria that did Moab?)

I always kept a set of tire chains in my old 2wd suburban in case I got stuck. Decent tires make a big difference but some chains would get you all the traction you should need.

Did you look at it on Google Earth?

Yes it was awd, but the signs said atvs only

Oh the places I have taken my neons.

They probably suggest 4wd for bad weather circumstances. Like snow. If you expect bad weather when you're there, expect to need 4wd. If not, it sounds like you're in good shape.

Get a set of chain's put them in the trunk. Maybe practice setting them up on one tire if you've never installed them before. I doubt you'll need them. But if your worried about snow up to your axles or something. they are cheap insurance.

If you can drive well, you can go alot of places in a 2wd that people think you can't. The cheapest traction improver you've got is to drop your rear tire pressure down to around 15psi. (Give or take a little depending on the tire). Knowing when to floor it and when to take it easy also make a huge difference as to getting a 2wd to go places people think they shouldn't. I worked as a courier for a couple of years, mostly country and rural areas. I was stuck with a diesel kia pregio van with 185r 14 tires. The looks on some peoples faces when you made it up their goat track of a driveway in that thing was priceless.

My point is, unless the weather is bad, or the road is impossibly steep, you should be able to get to a lot of places in your 4 runner.

An open differential truck or suv on a slippery incline is stuck. That's just all there is to it.

With a limited slip or locking differential, one can get further along. It also means on a cross slope the tail falls, making things very entertaining getting across a slippery incline. Not sure if yours will work this way or not. A setup that uses brakes to stop a wheel is not as good as a system that provides power to a wheel. I've had tractors where you were to use the individual wheel brakes to balance the power between the wheels. Tractors with a locking differential always worked better.

Can you "get'er dun" with a 2wd truck? Yes. With some qualifiers. Slopes with wet grass or mud (especally thawing frozen mud) will defeat you. A/T tires will help. So will chains (what a mess to put on though). Depending on the nastiness, you may find yourself mounting a winch (another pain to use). Which should make you start wondering if you should buy a 4x4, IF you are finding yourself looking for winches and such.

Have you been down this road before? If not go see for yourself.

I second lowering the tire pressure advice, should help a lot. Make sure you have a compressor to fill them back up.

Chains or cable if you think it is needed, but won't help much coming down if only in rear axle.

See if Google street view has gone on it. Of course if public road.

Take a tow strap and keep an eye for farmers with tractors as you get near.

Good luck

Stop being a Bob Costas:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/nq2jY1trxqg

I rented a very similar cabin and used a 2wd drive rav4 to reach it. It required a ton of momentum and trashing to get to the top due to the extreme depth of the gravel. I don't know why it was a foot thick, but whatever.

Tires are key, I had some junk street emphasis yoko's on the thing and it they didn't work well.

Mud flaps will also be key. I didn't have them and wound up scaring my rocker panels badly.

The biggest problem I had was that the traction control kept trying to control wheelspin. I needed wheelspeed to get up the hill and the car kept fighting me by clamping down the brakes and ruining my mommentum. Once I figured out how to shut off traction control It was easier. Hint: it's not just a button on dash, stupid car.

mazdeuce wrote: Velocity and bravery make up for a lot.

The term here is "throttle commitment".

you need the GRM approved (and tagged!) 2WD offroader

captdownshift wrote: Yes it was awd, but the signs said atvs only

The kids and I went down a road similar to this in my old blue Lincoln on our way to a secluded fishing spot. It had bald-ish 235/70R16 all seasons on it and a bunch of heavy crap in the trunk.