Hey all,
Hope you're enjoying the summer. I was recently out on the trails (blue level), in the northeast, so very rocky, rooty, muddy, tight, up and down terrain. Overall had a great time, but ran into an insurmountable climb at the end that I'm wondering if my failure was due to a) general lack of experience and driver skill; b) incorrect vehicle settings; c) simply exceeded the capabilities of the truck? So, I'm reaching out to this community for some help with any suggestions on what I may try next time I hit such a situation.

It was a pretty steep climb, about 25-30% grade, with a 2-tiered rock / ledge at the top. In between the 2 ledges, about maybe 4 ft of a mix of roots and dug out slick dirt. I tried multiple terrain settings, all in low, but ultimately could not get good traction or power and had to back it down (which was also fun). Vehicles that had front and rear lockers were eventually able to make the climb after multiple attempts. Those that did not, could not.

After the fact, I thought about traction control but in the heat of the moment, it unfortunately did not occur to me to try searching for and turning it off. I read up on some past posts here where it seems traction control, in some cases, needs to be switched off for better results.

My question is should I generally turn traction control off when off road, or only in certain situations, possibly such as the one I describe here?

Also, for reference I am fairly new to offroad driving and definitely still a lot to learn; and I'm running Mickey Thompson Baja Boss tires, which are pretty aggressive A/T tires with good traction based on what I have seen so far.

I realize providing any suggestions based on such a high-level description of the situation isn't the best, but appreciate any thoughts?

Thanks all!

 

Tire choice and air pressure make a massive difference. What PSI were you running at? Even an aggressive AT can benefit a lot from proper pressure. As for traction, I leave it on. One needs to learn how to operate a vehicle with traction control. Generally it can help a lot. The mistake people make it letting off the throttle. As soon as you do, the system tosses out whatever it "learned" and you are back to baseline. The idea is to keep on the throttle as the system learns where to put power and then apply it. With this in mind, I traction control has gotten me out of mud and snow under light throttle. But there have been a few times were I did turn it off because I really did need to dig the tires down to more dense later for traction.

 

Thanks! Very helpful. Actually, the guy behind me commented on how impressed he was with watching the LR terrain response system in action but also noted that I seemed to be coming off the gas a second or 2 early, which seems to be exactly what you are suggesting as well (I think the tree at the top of the climb had me spooked). Will definitely be more mindful of this next time and see what happens.

Oh, I was running the tires at 24 psi. With the limited sidewalls on the 20s, hesitant to go much lower than that.