It's Time To Stop Pretending Off-Roaders Are Comfortable

One of the biggest fallacies in motoring is the idea that off-roaders are comfortable. People look at them, see big cars on tall suspension and assume they must ride well. Well, that’s absolute nonsense, but first we have to separate the genres, because not everything that looks like an off-roader actually is one.

Yes, they’re often big, and yes, they’re usually on tall suspension, but proper 4x4s are cars built to do a rough job, unlike candy-ass soft-roaders that are just pretending. There’s a growing gap between those cars built to eat dirt and crap victory, and those built to take babies Tarquin and Arabella to Waitrose. But to the untrained, non-car-guy-eye they might look the same.

Lifestyle off-roaders (most SUVs, these days), aren’t built to take on mountains. Even the ones that can, like Mercedes’ GLE, have to be optioned-up beforehand with special off-road packs that upgrade key aspects of the car’s makeup. Softer standard suspension is great for cruising along pothole-scarred roads in town, but on trails a springy setup will just see the car’s underbelly kissing the mud, logs and rocks an unhealthy amount. You don’t want to start ripping parts off the chassis, do you? You just can’t call these cars off-roaders any more than you can say the same about a Volkswagen Golf.

There’s also a much greater chance of suspension damage. Slamming down off big drops too often could eventually punch pieces of the suspension through the bonnet, and if that happens you’d better hope it stays metaphorical.

Maybe when you look at what you think is a big, muscly, bearded off-roader, you might actually be looking at a big, comfy family bus. Then again you might be looking at a working man’s snot rag; a car built to take abuse; a car not to be looked after but to always carry on anyway. Take most modern double-cab pickups, for example, and any large SUV that’s actually built with the rough stuff in mind.

These cars are often about as comfortable as a night at the bottom of a well. Stiff, commercial vehicle-derived springs mean a lifetime of starry-eyed rock-hopping wonderment, but the shock that they transfer to the cabin over expansion joints, potholes and those nadgery little speed bumps can ultimately leave you on Christmas card terms with your chiropractor. Not ideal if you’ve got Junior asleep in his car seat, and even worse if your mother-in-law has a sensitive bladder.

The fact that big off-roady SUVs and pickups don’t handle well is a given. They’re too tall, too heavy and their steering is too slow. Sorry, Porsche, but even the hilariously mad Cayenne Turbo S feels too fat. The fact that so many SUVs are also damn uncomfortable most of the time makes their impressive sales figures all the more baffling.

The majority of Nissan Navaras, Volkswagen Amaroks and Mitsubishi L200s are sold as high-spec lifestyle-focused models, so they’re not necessarily working for their crust. There are so many other kinds of car that are better suited to daily life on Tarmac, and the problem isn’t limited to pick-ups. Get into a Jaguar F-Pace on 22s and after a few miles you’ll wish you’d bought something designed for your granddad.

On one side of the industry are SUVs that are built for comfort but could never hack it off-road, like the Lexus RX. On another are those that are built for pretend sportiness but still with no credible nod to off-roading. Then there are those that are built with roads as an afterthought; built primarily to take a beating on farms, mountains and coastlines around the world. Step forward, Isuzu D-Max.

What if you want the best of all worlds? Good luck finding that unicorn, because the Range Rover isn’t it. It’s hugely comfy, but too big for its own good on forest tracks. Just pick your poison and learn to live with it.