New boy alert!!

As goatboy said, only hardtops have the roof rails... i forget Jimnys are available with the soft top lol

The jimny is a very capable off-roader and one of the best ways to improve it is to fit as you said proper 4x4 tyres. I would in that respect go for a bigger size 215/75/15, I had no problems with this size on standard suspension with 32mm spacers. this will give you better clearance and will impress and surprise you over and over again.

CUJimny wrote: Having looked at the Jimny's out here I thought the ground clearance looked very good for a road vehicle.

Indeed it is, but if you are going on off road sites where the serious guys are playing in their modded landrovers you will find the ruts they make will have you bottoming out quite quickly.
but this will only be a problem if you are driving heavily used tracks. It will still clear an awful lot of stuff with ease.
£200 will sort you with a spring spacer lift kit and add and inch or so of clearance, coupled with some slightly larger than standard tyres you would see a reasonable improvement in ground clearance for not a lot of money.

MigCooper wrote: The jimny is a very capable off-roader and one of the best ways to improve it is to fit as you said proper 4x4 tyres. I would in that respect go for a bigger size 215/75/15, I had no problems with this size on standard suspension with 32mm spacers. this will give you better clearance and will impress and surprise you over and over again.

I know I'm in the minority but never been a fan of spacers, TBH they scare me.
This is largely due to most of my knowledge of vehicles being performance ones.
I have never and will never run spacers.
Perhaps in 4WD where the speeds are not so high the consequences wouldn't be so vast.
I've been reading about the modular wheels, these would be the way I would go for MT that will give the ability to run wide tyres if need be.
For Pure road driving I will be trying a narrow winter/mud tyre, always for the narrower the better in the snow and ice for traction.
Thank you for your advise, I'm not knowing it and I'm sure many will go this way.

goatboy wrote:

CUJimny wrote: Having looked at the Jimny's out here I thought the ground clearance looked very good for a road vehicle.

Indeed it is, but if you are going on off road sites where the serious guys are playing in their modded landrovers you will find the ruts they make will have you bottoming out quite quickly.
but this will only be a problem if you are driving heavily used tracks. It will still clear an awful lot of stuff with ease.
£200 will sort you with a spring spacer lift kit and add and inch or so of clearance, coupled with some slightly larger than standard tyres you would see a reasonable improvement in ground clearance for not a lot of money.

The current plan is not to get into offroad track driving.
I will do enough of this whilst shooting, fishing and boarding.
I have access to many off road tracks that no one goes down and you don't have to pay to play on these, this will be where I'll get my kicks if need be.

Apart from that I have plenty other ways to raise the adrenaline levels with snow boarding, Thai Boxing, Tarmac track days and working in Africa, ha ha.

For me most of the time the Jimny will get tested on snowy roads, it'll be set up to get the best out of it there. This will be a back up to my Audi.

Sounds like standard set-up with some AT or MT tyres will suit you just fine then!

you work in Angola and live in north east Scotland... would I be right to guess you work in the oil & gas industry?