How to drive uphill gravel

• Select four-wheel drive low range and lock the rear diff to maximise traction.
• Pick the line that will provide the most traction, avoiding hazards such as ruts and loose rocks.
• Proceed at a steady pace that you feel comfortable with.

Video Transcript

G’ day it's Michael Guest here.

Just about to put the new Amarok through its paces this is the Pan Americana model, which is the off-road version of the new Amarok it comes with all terrain tires it's got a different steering tune it has different springs and also an upgrade shock absorber package as well, so designed for this sort of country for sure but there's a few little things we need to put into play.
So we'll look at look at what setting we need there's so many settings so much tech in the new Amarok, but I reckon it's going to be low range I reckon diff lock is going to come in play I check that check that hill here on my phone it's 34° so that's quite a steep angle and we'll look at how we're going to tackle it.

So it's time to pick the right setting to go up this steep hill it's about 34°, which is quite steep. So there's drive modes in the system here we're going to bypass those and go straight to four low, so I'll just put my foot on the brake go back to neutral and I'll turn the dial there around to four low and it's up on the dashing now it's shifting and it says that it's right to go, hit okay there and the other thing I'm going to do is down here there's what we call the diff lock button, so I'm going to lock the rear diff so we'll just turn that on, there it is there now so it actually comes up with an animation on the screen and shows the rear diff is actually locked so we've got four low and the rear diff is locked into gear so that means that both rear wheels will turn at the same rate there's no slip there, it's going to really give me the maximum amount of traction and that's what I want for this steep climb.

All right we're right to go there now so diff locks in it's all come up on the screen, so the big thing is just take things nice and steady you should always have a bit of a visual look before you climb a steep hill like this we want to pick the lines with the most traction so the swept lines there's a couple of big rocks off to the side there's some loose sort of areas where the rocks have all pushed in the smaller rocks and the water’s run down there we don't want to get into that but 600 newton-metre a torque low range, look at that just amazing how steep that is you can see the trees outside it's quite a steep hill this one and it is just doing it so easily. There's a couple of bigger rocks there what happens if you run your wheel up over one of those it'll spit that rock out it'll go down and hit the back wheel you could bounce It up and damage something underneath the Amarok, we don't want to do that, plus it'll cause you to lose traction so the biggest thing there is just to go nice steady pace keep as much traction as you can and always drive within your limits. This thing has got some amazing limits and I certainly haven't tested them there although that was quite a steep climb, it would go a lot steeper than that but stay within your limits that's the most important thing.

Well there you go, that was really easy, so take your time pick a line and let the Amarok do the work there 600 newton-metre lots of lots of traction diff lock in low range, there you go.