Offroading in a P5

I know this thread sounds weird, but when you send a WV driver to Arizona with a P5, if it looks fairly flat, you can bet I'm gonna try to drive on it.

Now, the notes are:
The front clip (facia) is not solidly mounted to the car. In fact, when you are on a bumpy road of any kind for an extended period of time, you will notice the hood and the quarter panels are chewing the plastic and paint at the points of the metal (see Pictures) Granted mine was an extreme case, but this could happen driving on an interstate in Detroit as easily as off road.

The car has EXCELLENT handling in packed sand, but because of the vehicles very high weight for the tire displacement, I had to drop to 2nd gear and keep feathering the throttle to keep the car from sinking up.

When I FINALLY got stuck (inevitable considering that I kept pushing the limits) it was just a creek bed. The ABS SUCKS in dirt, I mean REALLY sucks, so when I hit the brakes and slightly cut the wheel, I expected to stop.... I was wrong... Front frame barely eased up into the concrete-ish underlayer of dirt and my tires were in the silt with no grip. (thats why you have a friend along with tow-straps and an F-250) I tried digging the car out at first using what I had along with me (screwdriver, crowbar, sword) and accidentally stabbed the front too, so just ignore the strange hole on the drivers side on the bottom. Later!
 

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another pic.
I am taking it back out in the desert sometime this week, I'll post some pics, maybe a vid ;)
 

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liquidmagik said:
I know this thread sounds weird, but when you send a WV driver to Arizona with a P5, if it looks fairly flat, you can bet I'm gonna try to drive on it...(snip)...
Welcome, liquidmagik! Be prepared to be greeted by Sir Nuke soon; he's the official greeter.

I have to tell you that I'm a bit amazed that you decided to rock-and-roll in the desert. It's one heck of a way to trash a car. I live in Arizona and have never had the compulsion to bounce my baby amongst the cacti. It's hard enough keeping the nicks at bay on the roads here.

Anyway, best of luck with the excursions and welcome, once again.
 
wow....a P5 off road...thats the last thing I can think of doing with our P5's...........
Liquid......what made you decide to go off road with P5 ?
But its cool that you share this with us..........
And welcome to this forum...!!
 
What a crazy MoFo (yes, I'm secretly jealous)

I did some off-roading in my 93 Civic one time. Got it all scratched up on some trees driving on an old fishing trail and finally had to turn back. (had to turn around on a tiny table-top hill).

Can't say I'd do with with my P5...at least not for a few more years.
 
Whew, I would have never thought of using a P5 for this purpose either... :eek:

My roomate in college had a 1984 Toyota corolla with ~370,000 miles that we used to take out in the woods all the time. I guess it was our equivalent of a Winter beater car up North. He only drove it when we were going hiking, so he actually bought some all terrain light truck tires (14 inch) and off we went. It did really well in everything but deep mud. We only had it stuck once, that was because we were hiking for 4 days, and it rained really bad where we parked it. Oh well... Fun times.

Welcome to the board! Nuke should give you the official welcome anytime now.. ;)
 
Re: Re: Offroading in a P5

Syzygy said:
. I live in Arizona and have never had the compulsion to bounce my baby amongst the cacti. It's hard enough keeping the nicks at bay on the roads here.

Anyway, best of luck with the excursions and welcome, once again.

If you are near Tuscon over the next week or so, gimme a buzz :) After that I'm driving back to WV (29 hours of fun ;) ) Running the desert is a LOT easier than the terrain back home. You have lil shrubs, bushes, cactus and such, but we have mud, trees, swamps, and hills to deal with everywhere ;)
 
sundevilMP5 said:
yes...welcome to the club...

yet another crazy arizona driver...lol

are you a student down there in tucson??

Actually I'm just down here visiting friends for about a week and then I head back to WV. I recently got laid off by Worldcom so I have a bit of free time before I get back into the whole work thing ;)
 
I may end up wanting to see a rally-fied protege5, and I better get it! haha, thanks for taking the risks and sharing the info.
 
I have never tried off roading in the dirt.But I have done it in the snow(unintentionally) and I was surprised that the car handled like a trooper.I swerved to miss a stop sign,a telephone and two trees.All in one foot of snow with hard pack underneath.Now if the damn thing was any good on the ice I wouldn't have had to find out;)
 
Damn zulu.......u are one lucky bastard.........haha.......
I love drifting in the snow....especially in those BIG EMPTY parking lots........
But when the cops come..........I better have some ALL WINTER SNOW GRABBER tires.......haha
 
liquidmagik said:
I tried digging the car out at first using what I had along with me (screwdriver, crowbar, sword) and accidentally stabbed the front too

sword, One of offroadings most essential items!

Anyway, welcome aboard. :)
 

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