Off Road Driving

Once you know the basics of your four wheel drive system and how to use it to drive off road you will be able to adventure into beautiful and exciting places you never knew existed.  The modern four-wheel drive SUV is a very capable off road vehicle.  You will be astonished at where you can take it.  Unfortunately, manufacturers allow advertisers to show these SUV s driving in a manner that would make you cringe.  Who would want to drive their expensive vehicle in this manner risking damage?  The Driving Company will show you how to drive in a manner that will not damage your SUV, your nerves, or the environment.

We teach "mechanical sympathy" which simply means treating your vehicle with loving kindness.  You will find that you run a greater risk of damaging your vehicle driving to the store than driving on a quiet off road trail.  For public safety personnel, you must be able to get to the scene of an emergency and back again while not getting stuck or breaking down thereby becoming part of the problem.

Torque and Traction

Understanding the relationship between torque and traction is necessary to effectively drive in varying off-road conditions.  Torque is the amount of force or power supplied to the wheels.  Traction is the amount of friction between the tire and the road surface.  If more torque is applied to a wheel than the amount of friction present between the tire and the road surface, the wheel will lose traction and spin.  Spinning wheels have less traction than they would if they were not spinning.  Do not spin wheels!

The differential allows the wheels to turn at different speeds.  This can be detrimental in off road situations where one wheel has traction and one wheel starts to slip.  The differential splits torque equally to both wheels.  When one wheel slips less torque is delivered to the axle, so the gripping wheel will not receive enough torque to move the vehicle.    Locking the differential allows for maximum  torque to be supplied to the axle since the differential is no longer splitting it between the wheels. Differential locks come as a feature on some, but not all vehicles.

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