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Real world Off Roading Pros/Cons

2000prerunner

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I don't see a lot of off road specific pro / con discussions when it comes to EV trucks (specially Rivian and it's 4 motors system). From my experience with 4x4s, Prerunners, Rock Crawlers , Over-Landers I think the biggest Pros will be as follows:


-No need to purchase under body skid plates. The vehicles underside is a giant skid plate.
-No need to re-gears your differentials for bigger tires for more TQ or engine RPMs.
-No need to add lockers to the diffs.
-No worrying about a transfer case /4 high /4 low / all wheel drive modes. The T-case can get "stuck" in what ever mode you are in, which obviously sucks. Even manual shift T-cases can be hard to shift requiring you to rock back and forth. Also you need to come to a full stop + shift the transmission into neutral when going into 4 low and back out.
-On very steep inclines your engine might have trouble flowing oil and coolant through it, causing damage or stall.
-Engines can suck in dust or water. Might not be as bad with electric vehicles that don't need pure air for engine combustion.
-For auto transmission , no need for a bigger transmission cooler (can be a big issue for vehicles running big tires and running hard in the dirt)
-For manual trans , no worry about blowing up a clutch or exploding gear sets when abusing the vehicle.
-Overall no transmission headaches at all! A fully built up off road transmission can run 4k+ & require a lot of maintenance.


I think for the Cons

-Price
-Charging/Range


For the same issues:

Both can run IFS/IRS suspensions. You need to make sure control arms and spindles are strong enough from factory. I guess you can always go aftermarket or custom for stronger stock length arms or even run a wider long travel setup. I think the stock total wheel travel (fully drooped out to full bottom out) is around 6-8"? That's not a whole lot so better not drive too fast. I also think most parts will be cast aluminum parts? Might be good enough? Both will require CV upkeep or replacing the stock CVs with beefy CV joints (porsche 930 CV or RCV type) that wont explode. I don't know what hub assembly they will end up using but it should be strong enough for 35" tires minimum. I guess it's going to be a big unit bearing probably like most full size IFS trucks run. I doubt they will utilize hollow snouts / fully floated hubs. It would be great but probably not.

If you are into high speed off-roading (through desert trails and woops) I would think aftermarket is the only way to go for coil overs, bypass shocks and hydraulic air bumps. That air ride set up is probably good for 99% of normal people but I'm sure that poor shock and air spring will get very hot with such a heavy truck mashing through woops even at lower speeds over time. I would think, just based off similar trucks that run long travel or mid travel setups for desert trails you would want one coil over + one bypass shock per wheel (3' diameter for that heavy Rivian) . I don't even know if you can mount after-market shocks (Fox, King, Bilstein, Icon...) in the unibody setup. Maybe the big aftermarket shock companies that know how to build a real shock absorber will make a bolt in upgrade option that works with the factory mounting points. That auto rid height adjustment system is mostly a joke for serious abuse and has been around in luxury SUV for a long long time. It sounds great if your off road experience is = 0 .

Anyways, what else did I miss?
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Gshenderson

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Low and well balanced center of gravity with most of the weight (battery) near the axle height.
 

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If you are into high speed off-roading (through desert trails and woops) I would think aftermarket is the only way to go for coil overs, bypass shocks and hydraulic air bumps. That air ride set up is probably good for 99% of normal people but I'm sure that poor shock and air spring will get very hot with such a heavy truck mashing through woops even at lower speeds over time. I would think, just based off similar trucks that run long travel or mid travel setups for desert trails you would want one coil over + one bypass shock per wheel (3' diameter for that heavy Rivian) . I don't even know if you can mount after-market shocks (Fox, King, Bilstein, Icon...) in the unibody setup. Maybe the big aftermarket shock companies that know how to build a real shock absorber will make a bolt in upgrade option that works with the factory mounting points. That auto rid height adjustment system is mostly a joke for serious abuse and has been around in luxury SUV for a long long time. It sounds great if your off road experience is = 0 .

Anyways, what else did I miss?
Almost any of these mods are going to be heavily tied to hacking and modifying the Rivian software. Almost all of the drive systems are going to expect the stock setup for traction control, acceleration power, etc.
 

skyote

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Air+hydraulic system is going to be interesting. It may not have as much travel, but should be highly adjustable to negate the need for reservoir shocks. The hydraulic damping system is basically one giant reservoir with multiple valves for potentially even more control. Question to me is the performance of the air spring portion, which is adjustable as well & equivalent to the coil part of the coil over.

As for the axles/CVs, beefing these up shouldn't be necessary if Rivian's traction control system is optimized. When you break stuff in a traditional vehicles, it's often because you are applying a lot of power to a wheel that suddenly catches traction...that shouldn't happen with Rivian.

Now, suspension travel is my one legit question. There doesn't appear to be much, so I wouldn't try to baja it. In the rocks, I'm really thinking it will be fine because the weight & low center of gravity should keep it planted, even if one wheel is in the air.
 
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2000prerunner

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Air+hydraulic system is going to be interesting. It may not have as much travel, but should be highly adjustable to negate the need for reservoir shocks. The hydraulic damping system is basically one giant reservoir with multiple valves for potentially even more control. Question to me is the performance of the air spring portion, which is adjustable as well & equivalent to the coil part of the coil over.

As for the axles/CVs, beefing these up shouldn't be necessary if Rivian's traction control system is optimized. When you break stuff in a traditional vehicles, it's often because you are applying a lot of power to a wheel that suddenly catches traction...that shouldn't happen with Rivian.

Now, suspension travel is my one legit question. There doesn't appear to be much, so I wouldn't try to baja it. In the rocks, I'm really thinking it will be fine because the weight & low center of gravity should keep it planted, even if one wheel is in the air.

Ya, for the rocks and lower speed things that should work out just fine I imagine. I mean , just look at the old H1 Hummer , with IFS/IRS and limited wheel travel they do just fine in the rocks (with big enough tires and portal hubs to help :)).

I have no idea what sort of dampeners they are using , what piston design they are using or how the remote revivor works on that setup. You can certainly control some dampening with flow into the remote resi (like many off road shocks do these days with "clicker adjustment"). I guess if each of the shocks hold enough oil volume that should be good for keeping them cool if you do decide to run fast. I don't know ,it would be interesting to see what they did. The big off road shock companies Fox, King, Bilstein have been building off road shocks for every vehicle imaginable and having a tunable , rebuildable off road shock is essential for a "dialed" in ride. After a good 1,000 off road miles any shock would probably need to be rebuilt (swap out the old hydraulic fluid and replace seals). Unless they have developed some ground breaking new shock tech ,I think some people would probably replace the shocks/ air ride with bigger coil overs and maybe even a secondary bypass shock . For people living out here in the south west (CA/AZ/NV) there are many off road trails / dunes. It would be most unfortunate if you had to "take it easy" while a stock Ford Raptor or mildly built truck blasted past you. I guess we will wait and see. Based off a lot of the videos and interviews out there with (people who have driven it in Baja and South American) it looks like it's basically just as capable as stock Tacoma as far as "high speed" off road capabilities.
 

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Trandall

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2000 Prerunner,
Without any serious off-road experience, just looking at big picture, you mention weight which I think would be a detriment while the center of gravity is very low it's still a significant weight increase to overcome when climbing. Also you mention what I would consider significant modifications to suspension I think these will be difficult as the R1's are very software integrated I can see issues between software fighting with modifications.
I wonder how many plan to void the warranty and factory serviceability on such a pricey vehicle?
 

Chris S

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One of the more recent off-road vids displayed what looked like relatively poor wheel articulation, which combined w/ the weight, makes me think this is going to be better as an overlander than for serious wheeling or dune blasting.

The Bronco, OTOH, is looking like it's going to be super fun and capable off-road, so I'm leaning more towards going w/ one of those.
 

kneebuster

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According to Do Rivian vehicles have independent air suspension? - Support Center - Rivian , ride height is adjustable by 6.5". Suspension travel will have to be added on to that, since the wheels still need to move up and down from those heights. Haven't found numbers though.

Thy hydraulic system could be awesome as they'll have the ability to tweak it via software.

As for hard core off-roading, I don't know that I'll be trying to take an $80k EV on the Rubicon, but I think it'll be more than capable of handling trails up to a 5 or 6 out of 10 on most trail rating systems. Haven't done any high-speed dune blasting, so I can't comment on that, but have wheeled extensively in CO with both an upgraded Xterra, and mostly stock Grand Cherokee.
 
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BillArnett

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...
As for hard core off-roading, I don't know that I'll be trying to take an $80k EV on the Rubicon, but I think it'll be more than capable of handling trails up to a 5 or 6 out of 10 on most trail rating systems...
I wouldn't call the Rubicon "hard-core" but I do agree that a Rivian would struggle on it. My guess is that I could get thru but not without body damage. I'm used to a lifted Wrangler with 37" tires so the Rivian will be a major step down in off-road capability. The biggest issues IMHO are the poor approach/departure/ramp-over angles and the inability to fit larger tires. And I'm not very confident about the strength of the underbody when it comes to climbing ledges.

It would have been easy enough to make the wheel wells a bit larger to allow bigger tires. And Why in the world did they choose those massive brakes that require 20" wheels? That means not only do we have to live with the little tires but with short side walls, too.
 

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Gshenderson

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BillArnett

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Hell’s Revenge in Moab with my R1S is on my bucket list ?
That should be easy enough. I'll be there with my R1T as soon as I can. The optional Hell's Gate obstacle will be fun but I wouldn't be surprised if I get some wheel rim rash. "Tip Over Challenge" should be easy with Rivian's low CG. Escalator: forget it.
 

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... And Why in the world did they choose those massive brakes that require 20" wheels? That means not only do we have to live with the little tires but with short side walls, too.
They chose brakes that can safely manage a 7,650 lb GVWR R1T towing 11,000 lbs down a 45 degree incline with no engine braking to assist.
 

BillArnett

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They chose brakes that can safely manage a 7,650 lb GVWR R1T towing 11,000 lbs down a 45 degree incline with no engine braking to assist.
But it has REGEN braking, way better than friction brakes in that circumstance, no?

(Of course, no one ever traverses a 45 degree slope aside from hill climb competitions. 35 degrees is the steepest I’ve ever done in my Jeep and it seems like straight up. On the highway you’re unlikely to see anything steeper than 10% = 6 degrees)
 
 




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