I took an Overland Experts (OEX) class... what a blast

(EDIT: Ive been adding a few more details I forgot to these posts)


Surprised I haven't seen a thread on this before. This weekend my son (13) and I went away for a boys weekend and spent Saturday down in Connecticut taking the one day off road fundamentals course from Overland Experts.

$300 for 8 hours of instruction in your own truck and a free lunch. My reaction was WOW. Probably the best fun Ive ever had in a truck, and without a doubt the best money Ive spent on the 4Runner.

Disclaimer - I've owned Toyota 4x4s for 15 years, and have been around 4x4s since I was a kid in the 80s - but living in southern New England actual "wheeling' locations are few so most of my experience was stuff that barely needed 4H, fire roads, deep snow and some mild water crossings.

The day starts with an hour of class covering the basics of vehicle systems and techniques that we will go learn in the field.

 

OEX has a fleet of training vehicles that you can rent if you want but they encourage learning in your own truck. They used a modified Rubicon for most of the demos but the head trainers personal vehicle is an FJ and he said off all their vehicles an old solid axle Land Cruiser is by far the best... he said its soo easy its like cheating.

We had a small group and good mix. Me in the Pro on Toyo AT3s, an older couple with an Ineos Grenadier on K02s (that is as cool as you have heard!!) who are practicing to take it out for an overland trip in Joshua Tree, a retired fellow in a stock 2 door manual wrangler with road tires and a couple young guys driving a Grand Cherokee Trailhawk with Falcon Wildpeaks.

So we had double solid axles, IFS, full independent and a mix of automatics, manuals, part time and full time 4WD and both AT and street tires. Really was interesting to see how they all behaved on the trail.

After class the instructor lined up our trucks and discussed differences in drivelines, demonstrated break over and approach angles, etc. How to drive an IFS vs. solid front differently over obstacles, etc.

 

Mid morning we went out to a gravel quarry and went though a series of obstacle situation training.

First was 10 minutes of just have fun in 4lo and try to get used to left foot breaking.
Then we go though scenarios in order. The trainers demo each in the Rubicon and then guide us throug 3-5 practice attempts.

- Cross a fallen log
- Breakover clearance exercise on a mogul (they showed me how to take it at an angle to clear hte stupid side steps - more later)
- A "slalom" with a bunch of rocks in the road that you had to put your tires ON to learn how to avoid slipping off and not gash a sidewall
- Failed hill climb recovery
- A steep hill climb
- A steep decent
- A short water crossing (up to the axles or so)


We did all of this in 4lo - No lockers, no traction aids or modes allowed. Didn't even air down ( though they explained situations where it would help) They demoed how to use left foot breaking and modulate the throttle and brakes to get out of spinning tire situations without resorting to ATRAC/lockers, how to choose lines over ditches and exposed rocks for best clearance and to keep the truck planted and avoid lifting tires, etc. I was AMAZED at what the 4R can do with none of the cheat buttons.


The hill climb was fun. Steeper than it looks and at least 20-25 degrees if I can believe the display on the dash. loose gravel and sand. The Ineos was first but chose a bad line and spun a bit. the Cherokee made it but was kicking up rooster tails. The poor guy in the wrangler really suffered from highway tires, he had to try twice. Amazingly we crawled right up in 1st gear without drama - the instructor was surprised and wasn't expecting us to do the best run.

Edit to add: The first thing we did on the hill was he had each of us creep up and stop then feet off the pedals to see what kind of hill hold system we had (or not), and demoed what was different in the manual Wrangler that only had a couple second hold to aid in declutching. Then we practiced going to reverse and letting it roll back on engine braking alone to see how the gearing is. Then hill fail exercises, then walking the hill and picking lines and then climb attempts. Really thorough.


But after 3-4 practices all 4 of us were making it up with zero trouble. One run i put ATRAC on for fun and it was like cheating.

 

After lunch is the fun stuff - we did a trail ride and hit bigger obstacles. A hill 3x as high as the quarry, a similar descent, an off camber go around to avoid a water pit, then though some narrow muddy V-ditches that had ALL of us putting wheels in the air.

 

The v ditch was the most interesting. Big mud pit in the middle and its hard to see but a deep hole you had to straddle your tire on a rock outcropping not to high center. Look at how much air the Cherokee gets.

 

And here is me going though. We did it twice and my son shot video of pass #2









The one thing we didn’t do much was rocks. They do have a bunch of ledges and rock crawling setups but it had poured rain all morning and the instructor said it was a little to slick for beginners in stock rigs.

 

End of the day... we had SOOOOO much fun. The 4Runner was a champ except those predator steps SUCK... Busted one before lunch. those are gonna go. We also took home a souvenir in the trailer hitch from an impromptu demonstration on the difference between approach (pretty decent) and departure (not so great) angles on this rig


Definitely have to do some research on wheeling sites and groups up here.

I can not recommend this class enough for you guys new to wheeling like me.

 

Looks like a lot of fun and I wish this was more widely taken seriously by people getting into offroading. There are some fundamentals that one need to understand before going out there and getting into difficult situations. Better be safe than sorry. Good one.

 

Very cool. Thanks for sharing!

 

Thanks for sharing! I’m new to the 4WD game and had been considering taking a course. This has nudged me in that direction. : )

 

Cool. CT is reasonable driving distance from me and looks like fun.

 

Very cool. I would like to take a class. Would help to gain confidence in the 4Runner's abilities and learn how to handle the various obstacles I might come across.

 

Shortly after I purchased my 2021 OR, I attended a weekend Class at Overland Experts facility in North Carolina. The weekend covered 4x4 design basics, recovery basics and then took us out on the course and trails to let us experience driving our own rigs. They also got their instructors rig “stuck” in several scenarios and we recovered the trainers rig using our rigs with our recovery gear plus what the instructors had with them.

it was a great learning experience and demonstrated how capable the T4R is in stock trim. We never used lockers or any of the electronic gizmo’s while on the course just to emphasize how to use the 4x4 system to negotiate various obstacles.

I highly recommend taking their weekend course…

Cheers,
Bob

 

Nice write-up. A good father and son get away.

 

Yeah, the weekender sounds fun with camping and all. I’m going to try and talk my brother in law and some old college buddies of mine into going as a group. My son already wants to go back as soon as he gets his license in a couple years.


For you guys interested, they have multiple locations. Lyme CT, Uhwarre (sp?) in North Carolina that Bobby above went to and someplace in Utah. They also do guided expeditions and military training.

 

Amen. I feel like I’m a 500% better driver than yesterday and most importantly far less likely to do something stupid I can’t get out of. It gives me the confidence to know what is doable, and keep ATRAC/MTS/crawl and the locker as a backup to get me out if we get stuck.

and the smarts to never do it alone.

It also demonstrated how important fundamentals like clearance, approach/departure angles and tires are and why all the fancy electronics in the world do very little if you don’t have that foundation.

 

love it.


So I kinda knew this already but watching even stock Jeeps articulate this weekend I can see how outclassed Toyota IFS is on rocks. If I lived in Colorado/Utah/etc I would totally be looking at Jeeps not Toyotas.

 

You referring to daily driver or specialty vehicle? I can't say that I've seen anyone prefer a Jeep over a 4R for everyday use.

 

Thank you for sharing!

 

Nice writeup. $300 is a good value for the training it sounds like you got. I wish everyone would spend a few hundred bucks on training; should be the first "mod" for most people probably.