Road use safe?

Got a 2007 Model jimny for the wife and at first I was asking the same questions . but to my surprise the car is a lot better than I thought. I find the car stable under normal driving with no real issues. My wife is using it daily and tells me she would rather drive the Jimny than her old Vauxhall Corsa as the Jimny Feels very safe with a good driving position.even fully loaded with 4 people the car still performs well and the Fuel Economy is very good. The only down side to this vehicle is the top speed.
But as the wife only drives down to Clacton about 69miles every now and then its a small price to pay. As for green laneing well we have not done any yet but im sure even in its standard form the Jimny would perform very well.
Welcome to the forum.

A couple of months back I had to avoid a car that just kept coming out of a side road and while I didn't crash the car felt and sounded like it was up on 3 wheels at one point but it also felt reasonably under my control even so. Equally dad was spun into a ditch by a motorcycle and it didn't roll even then though the impact bent much of the back axle. So yeah they can be a bit lively but they are quite stable even if provoked.

My wife and I had an SJ for fifteen years, the death trap model.
After a decade of boring family cars, I bought a jimny six months ago.

Before marriage, mortgage and babies the SJ took us all over the place, beaches/islands, rain forests and semi arid desert areas.

The only mods it had was an extra leaf spring in the front (as they were known to sag) with gas shock absorbers, and All terrain tyres.

We went with ford 250 trucks (4x4), hilux's, land cruiser's and Nissan Navara's. We never had a problem keeping up. In the early days they would laugh at the toy car, by the end of the day they stopped laughing and wanted a drive. So before you go throwing a lot of money at mods get the feel of the car and what are it's limitations, against your own skill level. No offence intended but even standard with just good tyres they can go almost anywhere.

Some people mod them for the look, not because they are hitting design limitations.
REAL 4wd's will never match a road car for handling or safety and the more you mod the balance is tilted further away.

Having done the road rocket thing in my youth, you find with low profile tyres and firm suspension, the car holds on longer, but when it let's go it's very quick with little warning.

In both the SJ and Jimny you get lot's of lean and tyre squeal before the back end let's go. If you take notice of the car giving feedback it's fine.

As said above with the coil springs instead of leaf the Jimny handles like a dream compared to older 4WD's.

My wife thinks the roil over thing is such a joke she gave me/Jimny this as a Christmas present. I know she doesn't like what she choose to replace her Vitara and is trying to make a move on the Jimny.

It's usually the 'Moose test' that is used as criticism of 4x4s - Wikipedia here - including how the Mercedes A class also failed it - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moose_test

The Jeep Cherokee failed it - www.teknikensvarld.se/jeepmoosetest-part2/

Personally never needed to avoid a moose though...

Ray

Jeez!
I must be tempting fate then, I have an hard driven 230bhp A class and a Jim. There's loads of mice round here as well.

Why would you swerve round a mouse anyway, surely just run it over, even if its name is Micky?

Oops! You said Moose. LoL!

as its a RWD the most common issue is oversteer rather than understeer although i have experienced understeer in my jim before oversteer, depends how youve taken the corner/roundbout.

i should imagine attemting to turn into a roundbout at way past a sensible entry speed will result in understeer first whereas powering on as you go round a roundbout will generally result in oversteer first, if understeer happens first when you lift off the gas to get the front to turn in this could cause oversteer (lift off oversteer).

while controlling the oversteer on a jimny isnt to difficult (the back comes back inline with a bit of opposite lock fairly easily) its the weight transfer which will cause problems as it can flick the back round the other way, resulting in you snaking down the road with a flailing rear end!!the most common cause of this is over correcting the initial oversteer, this is where practise and experience comes in. get yourself on a wet grass field and do some drifting to get a feel of how it handles when sideways and how much steering a throttle input is needed to sort things out.

being in an appropriate gear is crucial for drifting a car, you need the power there to correct things/prolong the slide to get you round the roundbout rather than fining youself in the middle on the grass. remember to point the front wheels where your aiming to go when "drifting".

PRACTISE MAKES PERFECT.

drive sensibly and you and your misses will be fine, they only drift if you make them.corner barely on the gas with no violent turning in and its fine.