Wading, what are the do's & don'ts

As you may have heard, up here in the northeast we had a bit of a down poor leading to some flooding.

After leaving work and getting to the end of the street and finding the road blocked due to flooding. I had to make a decision, either wade through it and get home in 10 minutes or drive around the diversion route that would have taken about an hour or maybe two.

Having absolutely no experience of wading with my Jimny or any other 4x4 for that matter I decided to wade through the flooding that was quite deep for a standard Jimny.

anyway I got through it and got home in 10mins but should I face a similar situation again (most likely will) what are the do's & don'ts of wading?

yeah its been great, been out playing in the floods all night!

might attitude has been choose a low gear- 1st for deep water, then keep at a steady pace keeping my revs high to keep water from entering my exhaust,

its seemed to work for me had bow waves splashing off my windscreen earlier and got through everything i dared tried!

oh my other method,

if in doubt, power out!

Sounds fun.

I just put it in L4 so I could keep the revs high but speed down, I was deep enough to cover the wheel arches. My main worry was getting water in the air intake. Don't know exactly where it is but think is in the right wing.

Whats the deepest a standard Jimny could wade through?

Wading is fun but there are a couple of do's and don'ts.

1st If you cannot stand in the water because of high flow, do not attempt to cross. The side of your vehicle is a lot bigger than you and you run the risk of being washed away.

2nd Walk across if it is safe to do so because you need to check for wash-aways which can gobble up a car very quickly, especially important near bridges or causeways. That is where having many kids (I have 6) comes in handy :whistle:

3rd All being safe and having crossed to the other side, was the water higher than your diff? If so, water may have entered through the diff breather and fouled the oil. This is caused by a warm diff hitting cold water and contracting, sucking water in. Most of us run diff breathers to a high point under the dash

Personally I avoid water where possible but everyone gets their kicks their own way! :evil:

I prefer dust and we sure have plenty of that over here.

ZookFastback wrote: 1st If you cannot stand in the water because of high flow, do not attempt to cross. The side of your vehicle is a lot bigger than you and you run the risk of being washed away.

This is really key ( I live around the corner from one of the countries more dangerous fords). Basically do not cross water that is flowing!

The most common victim of the ford are modified 4x4's as they think "I can cross that, its shallower than the lake at the off-road site". The flow puts high pressure on the side of the vehicle and off down the river they go!