I keep skidding!

Oh yes :woohoo:

There is a date stamped on the sidewall of all tyres. It's 4 numbers- the first 2 are the week and the last 2 are the year e.g. 1408 is the 14th week of 2008. You should be able to work out from this if they are original. I suspect they are and the rubber has gone hard. Changing them for a decent new tyre will make a big difference.

When you get new tyres fitted, make sure they don't put too much air in. At 26psi front and rear, the Jimny runs far lower tyre pressure than other cars and tyre fitters have a habit of pumping them up too hard.

I've been having similar trouble :ohmy:

The tyre pressures on my Jim are [strike]24[/strike] 23 front and 26 rear. Edited because I'm a moron and couldn't remember the front pressure should be 23 and not 24 :blush:

The only issue I have had with the duelers was when my fronts were down to 2mm and then they couldn't handle big piles of water at any sort of speed. Now they are new I'm not finding any ditches and come October November the back pair will be new duelers too. They're a bit pants on wet grass but so is everything else but for road and rock duelers are a perfectly serviceable tyre. That being said old tyres of any kind are a liability and if you are not doing the milage to wear an expensive low wear rate tyre down in 5 or so years then go for a cheaper tyre that will wear out before it gets old.

Oh and whilst I think on it might be prudence to take the jimny to a specialist mechanic who knows what they are looking at and get the suspension given a prod and poke as unfortunately even today an mot is barely worth the paper it is printed on. I'm not saying it has a problem but getting it looked at by a competent person would be sensible.

Just replaced my tyres because of age. The old ones had loads of tread but were over 5 yrs old and had gone hard.
There was also some fine age cracks but nothing illegal.
New tyres of any good make will make a difference but you have to drive smoothly especially on roundabouts in the wet.
It's a combination of rear wheel drive and the short wheelbase.
Select the gear for the situation then drive round the corner/roundabout on a steady throttle without accelerating until you clear the corner.
It shouldn't be stepping out on normal bends.
Martins suggestion of a bag in the back is a good one as it settles the suspension.
Because of our rural location my wife used to carry a couple of bags of salt/grit in the back and it made a difference.
As suggested check your tyre pressures. Tyre fitters/mechanics tend to put 30 psi + in the tyres as it's the average pressure of modern low profile tyres .
The Jimny is old fashioned and doesn't use low profile tyres so the pressures should be 23 front 26 rear.
I once had mine serviced at a Suzuki dealer and I thought they had removed the springs lol They'd only put them at 32 all round!!!