4WDing is a sport, a hobby and a way of life that allows you to see so much that many people don’t ever get to see. Like everything in life though, there is an element of risk, and things do go wrong from time to time. Over the years we’ve had our fair share of things go wrong, and come across plenty of others who have too. Below are some of the photos we’ve captured.
You couldn’t get much closer to rolling the poor Suzuki Sierra at Mundaring!A big hill below. A quick winch and it was out of trouble againAs close as I ever came to rolling the old Hilux at Mundaring Powerlines
The old Hilux’s have a pretty high centre of gravity, and a line I thought it would make didn’t turn out so well. We used a snatch strap tied to the bull bar with a few people hanging off it, unlocked one of the front hubs and spun the rear around until it was in a better position!
At the top of the same hill the Hilux swung around and smashed the Kaymar rear bar into the rock. No damage, asides from paint!We came across this bloke on the way to Wedge Island. We jumped in along with others to helpIt was too late to avoid some salt water damage thoughMaxtrax and a pull from another 4WD had him up on safer groundThe Holland Track is pretty narrow and windy, and this old Defender clipped a treeAfter some panel beating (moving the bumper off the front wheel) we continuedThat’s what you get when you drive off the main track!This was one of the more serious incidents we came across, at Yeagarup’s Warren River
We heard 4WD’s driving around at night, and a bang later on, and the following morning came across this Land Cruiser, which had hit the bank of the Warren River at high speed and completely ruined the front of his 4WD. A few good blokes jumped in and pulled it away from the incoming tide.
Winching over a spare tyre with an anchor vehicleThis was the bank he had hit, which was probably 50cm tallThe last 48 hours had completely opened the Warren River, from a little stream to a full on flowing riverMajor damageThe passenger wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, and hit his head on the windscreenWhilst the owner went for help, it was the local attraction throughout the dayThe owner paid a local to bring his tractor down and skull drag it outAfter a little too much fun on the Brunswick 4WD Tracks the old Hilux ended up in a rather nasty positionSurprisingly we got it out with zero damageOn another trip I was a bit lazy entering a set of ruts and managed to dent and scrape the front quarter panel!With mud unbalancing the tyres a mate didn’t realise his wheel nuts had come loose. The resultA badly chopped out rim tooThe first (and hopefully last) vehicle roll-over of a good mate’s Patrol on a gravel road near Logue BrookWe hadn’t even made it to the 4WD tracks yet; and their young boy was quite traumatisedThe vehicle was winched back onto all 4 wheels, and then towed to the Logue Brook Caravan parkOne tyre had rolled off the beadPretty serious damage done; look how close the roof would have been to the driver
On this particular day, we had about 5 vehicles travelling in convoy along a reasonably well maintained gravel road. We were sitting at about 50 – 60km/h, taking it easy. The Patrol was the last vehicle in line, and moved over slightly to allow more room for an oncoming vehicle. It started to slide, and despite efforts to bring it back in line swung around, hit the bank and rolled right over. No one was hurt (thankfully!), but the vehicle was a write off for sure.
This poor bloke snapped a shackle on his camper trailer near Cape Leveque. We helped get it back to camp, and new springs were ordered soon afterSeriously bogged east of Esperance, about 40 metres into a salt lakeNot a very good position to be in after around 12 hours behind the wheel!Shovel, Maxtrax, lots of snatch straps and we were out (finally!)Cam rolled a tyre off his Lexus down at Brunswick; fun times changing the wheel!Oil leaking from the pinion flange after the nuts rattled looseTightened them up again and back to normalThe wrong place to turn around; this poor bloke was stuck asThis Patrol had driven into a seriously deep bog hole at Mundaring, and the recovery had begun when we arrivedAfter the two winching vehicles were getting pulled forward, 2 more 4WD’s were attached as anchoredWhen that failed, another two were brought in
I was pretty concerned with this recovery; there was a huge amount of force, and a lot of it was pulling the back of the Patrol down into the dirt, and not up and out. Luckily nothing broke!
Not long after getting the ELockers, I pushed through a water crossing at Lake Jasper that caught me out badlyAfter sitting in the water for a few minutes while recovery gear was set up the 80 started to fill up with water. I was very glad to be out!
There’s been plenty of other occasions where things have gone wrong, that were not captured on camera. There are times when things don’t go to plan, and you’ve just got to roll with it. Of course, always reduce the risk where possible, and make the best of a bad situation.
Aaron Schubert is a 4WD and camping nut, who's a qualified Maintenance Planner and Mechanical Fitter, and has extensive Industrial Maintenance experience.
He's done hundreds of 4WD tracks all over Australia and more than a thousand nights camping with several different 4WD builds and camping setups.
