POTENTIAL TRAPS WHEN MODIFYING YOUR RIG

I take my hat off to those who spend a lot of money to make sure their modifications are legal.

When I say I’m not a big fan of modifying 4WDs to a crazy extent, I am talking about the trucks bouncing around with the 4” lifts and 35” tyres.

Before I get shot down by everyone, my reason for this is that vehicles have side intrusion bars built into the doors.

Imagine a 4WD hitting the side of a car in an accident and hitting the intrusion bars? And now imagine a 4WD hitting that same vehicle with a 4 inch lift and huge tyres?

Yep, instead of hitting the intrusion bars, that 4WD now comes right through the side window.

While they may perform in the heavy stuff out on the tracks, if all we need is a tourer then do we really need something that big?

We had a Nissan Patrol GU come into our shop the other day. It is sitting on Marks 4×4 Portal axles and running 315 tyres but it is all legal and has been mod plated for these modifications.

The customer likes to test his skills driving difficult offroad tracks. To his credit he has done it all legally but it seems it hasn’t quite helped.

He was driving back from a trip and got pulled over by the police and was issued with a defect notice for “Wide Track and Suspension”. He carries all of the paperwork for his modifications and has the engineers plate fitted to the vehicle, but he still got defected.

In this case the customer told me that he showed the officer all the paperwork and mod plate but it was still not good enough for him and the customer was told by the officer that to him “it all means nothing.”

So the customer is left with no choice but to get a roadworthy certificate in order to remove the defect.

In terms of carrying out a roadworthy inspection? Well, his modifications were all legal so I confirmed all of the modifications outlined on the mod plate with Vic Roads and then conducted a normal roadworthy inspection on the 4WD.

He had rims fitted, which he was told were ADR approved, but when we checked them through we could not confirm any correct markings on them, so the customer will fit up his old rims with a good set of tyres which will be perfect.

After having the roadworthy certificate my customer was able to go to Vic Roads and have the defect removed. What we fail to recognise though is that the defect was issued for a wheel track change, which the vehicle was engineered for.

Anyway it’s all sorted from my end and it was pretty straightforward but for the customer it was a pretty upsetting situation when he had paid around $35,000 to have it legal.

GO NUTS!

Adam