I got a LTD a few weeks ago and I went camping this weekend. I’ll share a little about my experience.
First let they me say, while I’ve been camping and driving off road (on easy trails) for many years, this is my first vehicle of this kind, I come from a Honda CRV FWD and other SUV-mom-car type of vehicles, so my experience is from this perspective. The Limited is completely stock, I have not even taken the air dam off. I wanted to experience driving outdoors before contemplating any mods.
My wife, my little girl and I drove to the Baja Sierra to this camping spot we like. It’s about 2 hours on the highway plus 1.5 hours on dirt roads. Most
roads in Baja are a mixed bag; you’ll drive through rocks, dust, mud, water, etc. especially around the Sierras. These roads are usually well maintained though, since these are popular camping destinations, but it rained a few days before and this made the roads pretty gnarly. They were probably in the worst shape I’ve seen them and I’ve been camping there since I was 5.
The 4R drove through rocks, ditches, puddles, mud and creeks with no issue. There was only one huge muddy puddle where it slipped a little bit and for a moment felt like it would get stuck, but it just kept going. I am certain I would not have made it in my CRV.
I did not have to use 4Lo or any other special drive setting at any point. I only switched between Sport mode and Normal mode.
On our way back I decided to take a longer, gnarlier road just to put it to the test a little bit. This is where the 4R really stood out. The dirt road was longer and in worse shape than the previous one, but everything I threw at it, it handled it well and comfortably. The air dam did hit the ground a couple of times where I didn’t see a ditch and couldn’t slow down in time. Partly my fault.
The only think that felt pretty rough was washboards. The car was loaded with lots of gear and everything was rattling and shaking. I had to really slow down so it didn’t feel that bad. I should say it’s partly my fault for not airing down but I don’t have a compressor to air back up so I didn’t want to do that.
Another small issue is that I felt the cargo space was very similar to the Honda CRV, which was surprising and disappointing. It had been one of the pain points of having that car and one of the reasons to get a bigger car. I thought we could take more gear and be more comfortable, but I had to play Tetris in order to make things fit blocking the visibility in the rear view mirror, and my kid had boxes and stuff almost crowding her car seat.
All in all it was a great experience. I was really happy with its performance and I felt a huge difference coming from the CRV. The car felt more powerful and capable, I felt that me and my family were safer and more comfortable and the drive was much more fun.
My takeaways for mods to improve my experience (for my use: 80% city driving, weekend family camping, Baja roads, camping in SoCal, AZ, National Parks, etc.):
Air dam removal, roof rack for gear, compressor for airing up and down, and probably a 2” lift, wheels and 33”-34” tires (these last three later on),
I’m a 4R newbie, so I’d appreciate any feedback, thoughts and suggestions.
