Thread: 70 series - what mod or what mod NOT to get

Originally Posted by Vault

Having a diff lock is great but if you didnt but had decent mud tyres reasonable tyre pressure you still might get out..

Id rather have them than not.

Electronic locking diff isn't a diff lock in the mechanical sense that you're talking about there - it uses the ABS system to limit individual wheel slip and basically helps to prevent the initial break of traction and wheel slip that gets you into the crap and stalled out in the first place. On wet clay, a mechanical locking diff just allows both wheels across the diff to spin equally, slip limiting on each wheel independently using the ABS system while noisy as heck basically allows you to roll straight out of the slick stuff without any throttle on and drive straight through. The old fashioned way of attacking this surface type was charge hard, with almost slick tyres aired down for maximum contact patch with the good people loading the brakes a bit to try and minimise break out. MT's are no use on clay they just tend to clog and dig, it's a crap of a stuff to drive on to be honest.

I'm also no longer a fan of airing down tyres in general - while the increased contact patch is effective and it does serve a purpose, modern tyres seem to be quite vulnerable to side wall damage and I've lost several tyres to sticks and rocks slicing straight through the side wall. Last one was on sand, a buried forked stick that rolled it's forked bit through the sidewall. Its bloody dangerous and difficult trying to change a tyre on sand where you can't get somewhere solid and you don't have something handy to increase the surface area of the jack base to stop it sinking!