[ms1991]

So im looking at buying a vit, as mentioned in my other thread.

I did a search and couldnt find much outlining exactly what the front cv's are good for..probably nothing?

anyway, i have read that afew blokes are commonly breaking them, and to be honest I really am starting to be put off buying a vitara because of this reason.

The one im looking at is running 31" muddies and stock cv's afaik.

So, whats your experiences and what do you recommend i do.. Considering that Im down grading from a twin locked jeep TJ on live axles and 33's..

Im sure the vit is a great car and all.. but its the front end that concerns me and sounds like a let down..

any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,Mark

[swifty_ano]

You can pick them up for next to nothing.
Take half hour to change and away you go.
Unlocked I broke 2 and they were both from when I was being stupid and bouncing. I knew they would break at the time.

Locked it seems more commonn but there is also a 4runner CV swap that I have read is quite effective.

[swifty_ano]

ms1991 wrote:

So im looking at buying a vit, as mentioned in my other thread.

I did a search and couldnt find much outlining exactly what the front cv's are good for..probably nothing?

anyway, i have read that afew blokes are commonly breaking them, and to be honest I really am starting to be put off buying a vitara because of this reason.

The one im looking at is running 31" muddies and stock cv's afaik.

So, whats your experiences and what do you recommend i do.. Considering that Im down grading from a twin locked jeep TJ on live axles and 33's..

Im sure the vit is a great car and all.. but its the front end that concerns me and sounds like a let down..

any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,Mark

I promise that once you buy a Suzuki, you will retract that silly comment.
It's a zook thing....

[Microwire]

I've been running mine for about 1.5 years and have driven mostly rock tracks. The worse it got was one started clicking so I replaced them both. Since you're upgrading from a jeep then you should be fine, only issue you might have is if you run a front locker and your driving style isn't the best.

31's and still open diffs you'll be fine as long as you don't thrash the shit out of it.

[Gwagensteve]

It is possible to break a vitara CV with a 31" tyre, under the following circumstances:

With a front locker. It's almost impossible without a front locker.
At full lock and full droop where they are weakest
If you add long struts and strut spacers so they basically fall apart from being overextended.
Driving like a tool.

Theres lots of vitaras running 31's with no CV problems.

The bigger problem with vitara's and 31s is that there isn't a solution for road gearing. Whilst it will be okish, if you put stock tyres back on you would be amazed at how much performance you get back. It's one of the reasons I advocate an automatic - you don't have to be hard on the clutch, and the slip in the auto smudges out some of the gearing problems.

Off road it's not a problem as you can fit crawler gears fairly cheaply.

Steve.

[ms1991]

lol, cmon guys dont get so hurt by the down grading comment

But in all seriousness, I dont drive like a nut case but I do like to give things a go, especially long rocky hillclimbs or rutted out climbs...and have had my tj bouncing before.

would the 31's effect the crawling capabilities of the vitara so much that id need to look into reduction gears?

[ms1991]

sounds pretty promising steve.

just how capable would the vitara be with a 2" lift and some muddies that around 29"?

Sorry for all the questions, I just dont want to make the mistake of something i wont be happy with. maybe i should drive my mates jimny to sway me a bit...

[eldo]

dont compare a jimny to a vitara, they drive very different, the jimny is very bouncy and tippy off road, the vitara in my opinion is a better compromise off road, rear locker and careful wheel placement with a set of 29's and a small lift will get you 90% of places, i now own a cruiser so i know what its like to own a larger vehicle, i would rather pilot a zook off road any day, however if your into hardcore extreme stuff i would recommend that you buy a sierra, or if your jeep is just so GREAT keep it!

[ms1991]

Settle down, were all you guys touched at childhood by a man wearing a jeep shirt or something/!

Reason for selling is to fund new house purchse, so it needs to go and i just want something small and fun..

Whats the Vitara's like on fuel economy with 29's?

thanks for your help so far guys.

[christover1]

All 4wd's can break front cv's, hence why some carry spares.

I broke 2 in my Vit, before I learned to drive smarter.
Over my years of off roading, most of my cv breaks were unlocked.

You can just get by without transfer case gearing,
but is so much better wuth it.

[christover1]

Fuel economy is ok stock,
but as you lift higher and put bigger tyres on,
economy suffers.

[ms1991]

hm, Dont really wanna get into gearing and everything, thats the problem.
although, whats the gearing worth and does anyone in melbourne fit the reduced gearing?

[Gwagensteve]

Yes, 31's need gears in Victoria.

Do 29's need gears? Maybe not, but if you drive hills you're going to wish you had them at some point.

I don't know what your gearing is like in the Jeep, but if you haven't driven a car with significantly lower than stock gearing - it's a revelation. It's not about "correcting" bigger tyres, it's about going to whole new level of control. Jeeps have lots of low down torque so they are more tolerant of big tyres. Suzuki owners are probably the most gearing savvy 4WD owners. We can't use power to pretend we are overcoming bad gearing, we have to gear the car correctly.

If you really, really don't want to run transfer gears, definitely get an auto. At least you can cheat some crawling ability with an auto even with crook gearing from bigger tyres - and if you haven't driven an auto off road, there's another revelation for you. Autos rule on hills in the bush.

Personally, because you can't easily lower the road gearing of a Vitara, and you keen on some fuel economy, I'd run stock tyres around town and run some aggressive 7.50R16's with transfer gears for off road use. Best of both worlds - a car capable enough to do hard tracks and stock drivability on road.

Steve.

[ms1991]

That would be a problem, as the car also comes with stock tyres, I could then just re gear to suit either the 31's that it has on it or to suit 29's and just sell the 31's.

Just not sure how to go about the gearing.

[eldo]

ms1991 wrote:

Settle down, were all you guys touched at childhood by a man wearing a jeep shirt or something/!

Reason for selling is to fund new house purchse, so it needs to go and i just want something small and fun..

Whats the Vitara's like on fuel economy with 29's?

thanks for your help so far guys.

no there was no touching, no malice intended with my comment on keeping the jeep, its just that most suzuki owners get laughed at by bigger 4wd owners, that is until they get shown up. unfortunately alot of jeep owners are arrogant, my point was, if your going to compare a jeep to a vitara your always going to have an issue.. if you want a great capable little 4wd buy a vitara, if your going to compare it to a jeep locked and lifted on big rubber your always going to be disappointed with a the little vitara. a vitara is a great cheep to run off road vehicle in stock form, keep adding stuff to it to make it more capable off road and its going to get expensive, if your not happy with it in stock form sell it i say, however i do think you will be surprised at where it will go. read buzbox's thread and even atari4x4, these guys have what i believe is what your looking for out of a vitara, read their issues etc that they have had to overcome and weigh up your options, in the end my friend it may be better to keep the old jeep and not compromise on your style of off roading, me on the other hand regret the day i sold my zook......

[ms1991]

Dont worry eldo, i know how capable the little buggers are, but havent really seen much of the vitaras, mainly sierras, etc.

I'll take a look at those threads you mentioned, cheers mate.

[atari4x4]

Gwagensteve wrote:

It is possible to break a vitara CV with a 31" tyre, under the following circumstances:

With a front locker. It's almost impossible without a front locker.
At full lock and full droop where they are weakest
If you add long struts and strut spacers so they basically fall apart from being overextended.
Driving like a tool.

Theres lots of vitaras running 31's with no CV problems.

The bigger problem with vitara's and 31s is that there isn't a solution for road gearing. Whilst it will be okish, if you put stock tyres back on you would be amazed at how much performance you get back. It's one of the reasons I advocate an automatic - you don't have to be hard on the clutch, and the slip in the auto smudges out some of the gearing problems.

Off road it's not a problem as you can fit crawler gears fairly cheaply.

Steve.

Steve's right.

There is a soloution to correcting the on-road gearing & that is by buying the last of the Vitara's which were the SV420 & SV620, these 2 can be re-gearded quite cheaply & easily using the diff ratio's from the earlier SE416 Vitara's.

[ms1991]

atari4x4 wrote:

Steve's right.

There is a soloution to correcting the on-road gearing & that is by buying the last of the Vitara's which were the SV420 & SV620, these 2 can be re-gearded quite cheaply & easily using the diff ratio's from the earlier SE416 Vitara's.

How is this so atari?

The one Im looking at is the earlier SE416 vitara..
So if you buy an later one, and put the SE416 ratios in, wouldnt it bring you back to having the same problem I would with purchasing the SE416?

not sure if that makes sense.. i think im missing something:S lol

[atari4x4]

The SV420's manuals have a 4.6:1 diff ratio, the SE416 run a 5.12:1 ratio... the higher the number the more reduction you get.

I'm running 31' tall tyres on my SV420 & with the 5.12:1 diff ratio's, it has returned the gearing back to standard when running the larger tyres so normal day to day driving is it quite zippy & drives like a stock one (with in reason) & low range is still very usable for most terrain with out having to skull fuck the clutch to keep it moving when crawling. Changing the diff ratio's will fix both Hi & Low Range as it's the "final" part of the drivetrain.

IMO people that say 31's are fine on a SE416 with stock ratio's are on crack, I drove for a week with stock diff ratio's & 31's & it was pretty bad. The people who've gone for a spin in mine all say how much go it has in Hi & Low range.

With the set up I'm running it's good for pretty much everything, gearing wise as an "all terrain vehicle". It will happily chew up the highway miles, belt through the dunes at mach 10 & be able to crawl & climb most things.

I'm hesitant to fit crawler gears as with the beach work we do down at Robe & Beachport requires a fair bit of speed/momentum & with crawler gears low will be to low & i won't get the momentum before running out of gears, even with the change in diff ratio Hi-Range still to tall for dune work.

The issue with the Vitara crawler gears is they only change the Low Range ratio due to the design of the transfer case & from memory there is only one option for crawler gears & with the 5.12's standard in the SE416 there aren't any real cheap easy solutions to regear them like you can with the SV420's & SV620 + the GV's... the extra power of the 2.0l J20a 4 cyl & H20a V6 does also make for a nicer base to start with.

Hope that makes sense Mark, it was typed 1/2 cut & slightly toasted on mu iPhone.

[ms1991]

aha, makes sense mate, clear as mud, haha nuh.

Funny you mention robe and beachport, been there a couple of times, bloody awsome fun.

So, im pretty much stuffed if i want to run 31's and dont have a SV420, and dont want to run crawler gears. hmm..

[larry]

imo, run 31s offroad with reduction gears (sold here: http://www.lowrangeoffroad.com/index.ph ... gears.html )
and run stockies on road

[ms1991]

Hi larry how do you find the reduction gears, do they affect on road performance much?

[christover1]

ms1991 wrote:

Hi larry how do you find the reduction gears, do they affect on road performance much?

Vitara reduction gears only affect low range gearing, high stays the same

[ms1991]

oh cheers for that christover. theyre abit steep in the price range though. I suppose its cheaper than changing diff ratios!

[christover1]

ms1991 wrote:

oh cheers for that christover. theyre abit steep in the price range though. I suppose its cheaper than changing diff ratios!

There are some 5:7 diffs for Vitaras advertised on a European site.
Not found anyone who has tried them.
No one wants to be the Guinea Pig

[christover1]

http://tr.4xfourart.com/4xfourarten/urunic.php?id=3

[christover1]

http://www.lowrangeoffroad.com/index.ph ... drive.html

And this for after winning Tattslotto

[ms1991]

Works out to be about 430 bux a set, then you have to add shipping..
Im no guinea pig either lol.

geeze that box would work wonders!

[christover1]

ms1991 wrote:

Works out to be about 430 bux a set, then you have to add shipping..
Im no guinea pig either lol.

geeze that box would work wonders!

its on my tattslotto list

Mines an Auto, it is ok with 31's.
But could go 33's with that

[DarkHorse]

Undertaker looks to be a good thing, but at $1400 plus shipping it's pretty steep.

31s on an early (SE416) Vitara are bearable on road without gearing... not great, but bearable. You lose a fair bit of the spritely acceleration off the mark, and run out of puff pretty quickly on long uphills, but freeway cruising is better than stock as the motor sits around 3000rpm instead of buzzing it's head off above 3500. For me that's worth the trade off - I'm not a traffic light dragster and do a fair bit of distance at 110km/h.

Economy-wise it does suffer, but you gotta look at it relatively - driving it from Melbourne to Sydney when I bought it I was nudging 500km to a tank (LWB, so tank is something like 45l) since mods, which include a fair bit of extra weight as well as the bigger tyres, I expect 420-440 on freeway stretches, less around town obviously. My old 4Runner got less distance from a 65l tank.

Off road is obviously different - crawling is hard, and chews through clutches in a manual. Can't speak for the autos as I'll never willingly own one. That's just me. You need to work the motor pretty hard, and use the clutch to feed the power on. This is one of the reasons that the front end often takes a lot of punishment and is sometimes prone to failure.

On that - I've been running 31s for most of the time I've owned the car, and a front locker for nearly as long. I've busted one CV. The front diff is more of a concern, that went almost straight away (pre-locker). There's an easy upgrade to a later model steel diff, but they are getting rare and expensive.

That all paints a fairly bleak picture, but it's not really. The consensus seems to be that 235 (29ish) tyres are the best balance/compromise point for an otherwise stock car. 2" suspension lift is cheap and easy, and won't put anything else outside it's comfortable operating range. Beyond that you're into snowball territory - 31s have implications including body lifting, more suspension lift, guard chopping, gearing, diff dropping... all great fun, and part of the reason I bought the car, but all come at a cost financially. If you don't want an ongoing build project, consider where to draw the line. If you do want a project - hang around and check out what can be done with these cars!

FWIW I'm a reasonably hard driver offroad, and since the diff haven't had any major breakages... and am constantly embarrassing my mate in his LC80 that cost 10x what I paid for the Vit.

Get one, you'll love it.