Long weekend off-road trek

[Arctra]

Hi guys.

Well, I've been meaning to take my Tig off the bitumen for a long time now, and this long weekend has presented an opportunity. I borrowed a book from a mate called "4WD Treks Close to Sydney" by Craig Lewis and Cathy Savage (3rd edition published in 2001) and chosen Treks 1 (Yengo National Park) and 7 (Watagan Mountains) as the basis of the route I want to travel. Plotting them into Google Maps it's roughly
this route:


Does anyone have any comments or recommendations for me? The tracks are rated "Easy", meaning maintained gravel or formed dirt roads and tracks. Water crossings, if any, are mostly bridges and/or concrete causeways. Generally High Range 4WD. Ideal for first timers. Planning on doing it over 2 days with a camp overnight somewhere along the way.

If no-one has plans for the weekend and want to join in you're more than welcome. I've left it to the last minute so don't expect anyone will be keen, but had to throw it out there anyway.

Depending how this goes I'm probably going to be trying to do a lot more of these excursions, starting easy then working up to find out what the Tig is capable of. Again, if anyone else is keen let me know as it'd be better doing it in groups.

[team_v]

Looks like an awesome route.

It will be good to hear what your comments are after it.
I expect a full write up on the ability of the Tig

I would only be taking easy routes as it is a softroader but at least this will allow you to get a feel for your car and its abilities.



NZTiguan will probably be able to offer the most useful advice as he has done a bit of "off the bitumen" work.
I have heard that its best to turn stability control off though?

[Moonan]

Hi Arctra,
We have done the Yengo NP trek twice with ClubTouareg, and I had done it a couple of times over the years from the Wollombi end. You'll find it interesting and not too much of a challenge for the Tig. Make sure you walk to the top of the Finchley Trig lookout, an amazing view. Also, where the route says to turn off the bitumen into Yengo NP the gate is locked these days, you have to go a few km further north to enter the NP. Not sure of the exact Watagans route, but it should be good too. There are some good campgrounds and nice waterfalls in there IIRC. Go for it, and enjoy the weekend.
The book you have is very good, I downloaded all of its GPS waypoint files a couple of years ago and can email them to you if you want. PM me if interested...

cheers,
..Neil

[gregozedobe]

If you want to find out what your Tig is safely capable of I suggest you get some 4WDing tuition (either with a 4WD club or a paid specialist 4WD driving instructor). It will money and time well spent (just don't get in with a hardcore 4WD group).

[NZTiguan]

NZTiguan will probably be able to offer the most useful advice as he has done a bit of "off the bitumen" work.
I have heard that its best to turn stability control off though?

I'm not certain about the stability control issue if you don't have the "off road" package BUT if you DO (have the off-road pack) the definitely turn the ESP OFF when you turn the off-road ON. Some have suggested turning it off when on any gravel anyway but I'm not so sure about that (some gravel roads that are good enough to travel at 100kph on here), personally I only turn it off in slow speed sections (under 20kph) where I'm using "off-road".

The Tiguan is actually far more capable off-road than many imagine, particularly with the off-road pack that splits the drive 50/50 and adjusts everything from throttle response to gear changes (in auto obviously) and abs activation as well as giving hill decent and ascent control (makes sure you don't slip "back" starting off up hill.

It sounds as if these roads are ideal "starters" anyway so there shouldn't be any issues that the standard Tig can't cope with I suspect, and I'm sure that Arctra is more than capable of taking it carefully when required.

Cheers (and have FUN Arctra, wish I was in Ausi to join you)

[duncan]

Its been a good few years since I've done the Yengo trip, but the Finchley campsite was a goodie, with a magnificent setset view of Mt Yengo. I saw a Forester go through there, so you should be fine.
The main tracks through the Watagans are pretty easy if a bit bumpy in places.
The view from Muirs Lockout is great and its a nice place to stop for lunch. Make sure you follow your trail through and don't think about any short cuts some of those Watagan sidetracks break big tyred, double diff locked comp trucks.
Watch out for logging trucks, carry some recovery gear (your phone won't work in parts of the Watos) and a compressor. Let your tyres down to about 26psi, and if it rains the tracks get pretty slippy be prepared to let your tyres down to 15.

Have fun and let us know how it goes
Cheers

[Arctra]

Post trip write-up (Warning - it's long)

Hey guys

So with it being a long weekend here in NSW we decided to have a bit of an off-road adventure to put the Tig through it’s paces and see what it was capable of. Now, I’m from a farming background and am very used to travelling on gravel roads, so I was looking for something a little more off-road than that. But by the same token, my Tig is new, is not a proper off-roader, and I’m far from an experienced 4x4’er, so I didn’t want to push things too much. In the end I used a book called 4WD Treks Close to Sydney as my guide. A mate had lent me his 3rd edition but it was horribly out of date so I ordered the 4th edition which luckily arrived on Friday before the trip. I chose to do Track 1 through the Yengo National Park to Finchley Camp site on Saturday, and Track 3 from The Basin Camp Site through the Watagan Mountains to Cooranbong on Sunday.

Track 1 started at Wisemans Ferry and took a very good condition gravel road through St Albans and up past Mogo Camp. Between St Albans and Mogo camp we came across a Subaru that obviously had not realized that just because Subaru’s a race bred doesn’t mean you automatically inherit the skills of a racing driver. We stopped to see if anyone was in the car in case they needed help, but the crash was not fresh (no ski marks visible either) and it didn’t look like the driver would have suffered much more than a bruised ego. Anyway, it was a timely reminder that all-wheel drive cannot overcome the laws of physics, so I took things easy.





After passing Mogo we pressed on North through the Bucketty Historic Precinct then up North on George Downs drive (tar road again) towards Wollombi. Came across some interesting convict trail culverts. Decided it was a good time to take come pics of the slightly dirtier Tig.





We then turned off the tar again onto the Finchley Track, then shortly after that left onto the Boree Track due South West. The road started to get a bit rougher and the lack of regular traffic and maintenance was evident. That being said, there were relatively fresh tracks, so there must be a reasonable amount of visitors, but we sure didn’t come across anyone. Because we were doing quite well for time we opted to take the side trip down to the Burragurra Aboriginal Site (which continued along the Boree Track). What I didn’t realize (my girlfriend only mentioned it when we got to the site) was that the track was meant for 4x4’s only. That might have explained why it was a bit more challenging that the gravel we’d been on up to that point. The Tig handled it quite easily though, and my confidence was boosted. By this time we were looking quite a bit dirtier though:
Video of decent: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmgSnFxqywc
Video of ascent: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2HGyFlT58U



After finding the carvings we went back up the Boree Track due North till we got to the Yango Track heading off to our left. We too that up to the Finchley Camping site and set up for the night. The track was pretty easy, and fortunately the only real danger on the road was a big log that some kind 4x4’er had marked with an old white T-shirt. Good on him.



The next morning I had a bit of a scare. Actually, a big one. It appears I have the AVC9000-1 battery drain problem, and I leant this the hard way when my battery didn’t have enough juice to start the Tig in the morning. I had a jump start battery with me, but unfortunately it didn’t have enough juice to start me either! An guess who didn’t have any jumper cabled? Bad time to be leaning the hard way. There were 2 other groups in camp and the ones nearest me didn’t have any cables either. When I asked the 3rd set of campers their first reaction was that they didn’t have any, and my heart sunk as there was no mobile coverage to call for help. If my Tig was manual I’d have push started it, but no such luck with an auto. Anyway, the 3rd set then had an epiphany and realized their mate who was on a wilderness walk probably had some in his car. After a search for his keys we found some cables in his boot, much to my relief. SO lesson learnt there, I’ll be getting myself a set of cables ASAP.

After taking a look from the Finchley Trig we took Finchley track back to George Downs Road and turned right into it heading due South. At a strange town named “The Letter A” we turned left heading towards The Basin Camping area. From the camping area we took Basin Road heading North. The track was very rough, and you could see the main traffic it saw was dirt bikes from weekend trail riders. It was nice being in the relatively dense forest though.



Basin road turned into Forest Road, and we slowly continued up past Watagan Creek Road onto Old Mill road. This was the most challenging road of the entire trip by far. In the dry it would probably be fun enough, but unfortunately for me it had been raining the past couple of days and things were properly wet. I would say this track should be rated a 4x4 only track too, but at the time we trusted the book. We came to my first little creek crossing which was a little exciting. The patch of dirt just before the little creek was very slippery greasy wet clay, and the bit just after was a big rock. I thought I’d picked my path well, but I over estimated the clearance of the Tig. After a bit of a slip heading down to the water I managed to keep control, but scraped the bottom on the Tig going over the rock.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFfOtt1mb80
Post inspection showed it was a broad scrape and may have taken a bit of paint off, but it wasn’t likely to have caused serious damage. I let the Tig sit for a few minutes then inspected where I’d been standing to see if there was any fluid leakage. Fortunately nothing so we pressed on.

When we came to the second creek crossing it was a lot more challenging. The fairly steep slope down to the water was the greasy wet clay again, but this time deep ruts that were deeper than the Tig’s clearance were also a concern. Just to make things more interesting there was a sharp rock just under the surface of the water that I would need to negotiate around, so I couldn’t just go straight through. My gut told me I only had one shot at it and there’d be no going back if we crossed it as I didn’t think the Tig would be able to keep enough traction on the clay. Anyway, I managed to cross without too much of a problem in the end and we pressed on.



Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlBePRo_7es

Not too much further along I started heading down a long steep slope and realized there was deeply rutted greasy clay ahead so I gently applied brakes. Well, it took about 5 or 6 meters of clattering ABS and flashing Hill Decent Control lights on the dash before we actually stopped, and the adrenaline was flowing. I walked down to inspect the route and immediately knew there was no way I’d make it through alone. A group of trail riders came up the track and almost all of them fell off and they all struggled for traction with their big knobbly tyres. I had a chat with a couple of them and they said that I’d best turn around. I wasn’t excited about having to go back through the 2 creeks again, but had no choice. Fortunately on the first creek I managed to keep enough momentum through the creek to get me up the other side, but there was wheel spinning involved. On the 2nd creek where I had bit the bottom on the rock I picked a route that saved me scraping the bottom again, but the greasy slope the other side was hairy. The slope of the road was to the right and fortunately I had aimed left and carried momentum, so when I started sliding sideways across the track I had enough of a margin to allow me to still be on the track when I hit more tractable soil.

With my confidence severely knocked I was ready to head home, but my girlfriend convinced me to take the safer Forest Road heading towards the Pines Camping Area where we turned left into Watagan Forest Road. That was a smooth easy drive up to the Heaton Lookout over Lake Macquarie.



From there we headed South to Gap Creek and Monkey Face Lookout.



By then we had both had enough and were ready to head home, so we headed South towards Cooranbong where I pumped the tyres up, had a drink, then hit the F3 freeway back to Sydney.

Cont...

[Arctra]

Cont...

All in all I must say the Tiguan handles the dirt really well. In spite of its stiff suspension, it took the rough roads really well. I was running my front tyres at 34psi and the backs at 33psi which worked well. Just to give you an idea of how well it did, for a lot of the time, even on the rough stretch after The Basin Camping area, we were playing CD’s and not once on the whole trip did it ever skip.

The Hill Assist and Downhill Brake Assist worked very well indeed. Offroad mode on the proper offroad sections worked really well, even though I felt it held the gears for too long. Most of the time it didn’t want to change gear even when up well over 3500rpm. Because of this I found myself using the Tiptronic mode a lot, primarily to change up a gear. On the well maintained gravel roads it was actually a pain and I found myself taking it out of Offroad Mode and instead keeping it in Sport mode. If you primary more of travel is maintained gravel I’d say you’d be better off getting a Haldex controller to adjust the front/rear bias than getting the Offroad pack.

There was a gravel pit where Boree Track and Yango Track intersect where I had a bit of a play around. Glad I did because it highlighted a big limitation of the Tiguan compared with proper 4x4’s, and that is the lack of Diff-lock. I tried to cross a little gully on a slope and ended up with 2 wheels firmly planted (fron right and back left), one wheel in the air (front left), and the 4th wheel only just on the ground. Because I didn’t have diff-lock I just coupld not put the power down to get across the rut so ended up letting gravity pull me back where I could then maneuver myself to safety.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIKlbgCk9lA

My only other gripe about the Tig is it’s ground clearance, but that being said, considering it’s a soft-roader and not a true 4x4, it does well.

I hope this helps give you an idea of what your Tig is capable of. I plan on doing more trips from the book, but think I’ll be waiting for dry weather for that. Let me know if your interested in doing these sort of trips too as I’d appreciate the company and peace of mind of a support crew.

[team_v]

Awesome write up Arctra.
It will definitely be of much help to anyone wanting to take their tig off-road in the future.
Glad to see you can put her through the paces on a challenging course and still come out of it okay.

I would be looking at some lifting springs if I was going to take her anywhere other than gravel as we all know they aren't really meant for the heavier stuff.

Are you running standard 16's on the Tig?

[Sanman]

Nice trip - how long were you actually on the trails for - 5 hours each day?
How was the fuel use - I understand the fuel consumption is quite high off-road.

The battery capacity of the Tiguan is quite poor. The AVC9000-1 if faulty can cause a flat battery, but so can leaving the tailgate open, not locking it, etc, as the CAN does not go to sleep. I flattened my battery in 20 min just by leaving the ignition on.

[Rocket88]

Arctra - Thanks for your excellent report. Your commitment to this forum is much appreciated.

[Transporter]

Great write up Dean, it was a good read.
When you get a flat battery in the morning, did you have the hatch door open overnight? The battery drain is higher if you leave the door open or even bonnet up.

It must've been a great trip. Thanks for sharing.

[Arctra]

Awesome write up Arctra.
<snip>
I would be looking at some lifting springs if I was going to take her anywhere other than gravel as we all know they aren't really meant for the heavier stuff.

Are you running standard 16's on the Tig?

Thanks mate.
Yeah, to be honest I'm not that keen on modding the Tig. There is a guy named JJJ on the MyTiguan forums that did this mod: http://www.mytiguan.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=5968
I would rather just stick within the parameters of what my Tig was designed to handle. Problem is, I have to find out what they are the hard way as there isn't a lot of data out there for me.

And yes, I'm running the standard 16" wheels.

Nice trip - how long were you actually on the trails for - 5 hours each day?
How was the fuel use - I understand the fuel consumption is quite high off-road.

Yeah, left Sydney at about 10:30 and got to Finchley at about 4pm I think. It was about the same on Sunday too. I haven't worked out the fuel consumption yet, but I expect it to be fairly high. A lot of the time the revs were in the 2000 to 3000 rpm range and we were in 3rd gear, so I don't expect great figures at all. I'll try fill up tomorrow and work it out for you though.

The battery capacity of the Tiguan is quite poor. The AVC9000-1 if faulty can cause a flat battery, but so can leaving the tailgate open, not locking it, etc, as the CAN does not go to sleep. I flattened my battery in 20 min just by leaving the ignition on.

Alright. Well, as you can see from the pics the tailgate was open for at least an hour or more, and we ran the radio while the tailgate was open. I thought diesels had heavier duty batteries than petrols and so it would handle it. Seems I was wrong. I still need to do an authoritive test on the AVC9000-1 to see if it is draining the battery before I make a move on getting it sorted. Waiting on Vincent to report hon how his replacement unit is going.

Great write up Dean, it was a good read.
When you get a flat battery in the morning, did you have the hatch door open overnight? The battery drain is higher if you leave the door open or even bonnet up.

It must've been a great trip. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks and no worries. No, the hatch wasn't up all night, but obviously long enough to cause me problems. A heavier duty battery is probably not a bad idea if I'm going to do much more of this sort of thing. That and a good set of jumper leads

[Transporter]

Slightly larger off road tyres, could help. I always like to keep a spare set of tyres for my car.
Friend of mine did Fraser Island in Subaru L series fitted with the largest off road tyres he could fit on.

[Sharkie]

Dedicated offroad tyres will make a big difference. I keep a set of big off-road tyres specially in the DC 4x4 for when I need to go to Fraser etc. Then switch back to roads for normal use.

Look for a spare set of Tig rims and get the best dedicated offroads you can find on them..... then get good at doing a quick switch ... ... I can do 4 wheels in under 20mins now .....

Also, the Haldex would be a definate option as would the H&R lift kit .... http://hrsprings.com/scripts/appguid...N%20|%20Tiguan

H&R raising kit gives you 1.2inch (30.5mm)front lift over stock and 0.6inch (15.2mm) rear. Just enough I suspect to stop you scraping the belly !!!!