Discussion
I've always had a soft spot for Skoda Yeti - ever since they were first released. I have typically for the last few years bought something as a winter 4x4 shed - the year before this was a Panda 4x4, the car before this one was a Passat 4motion and with the fuel consumption of the Passat combined with doing some extra miles becoming a bit hard to accept it was time for something different. I started perusing ebay and was surprised to see how well these hold their value - was going to have to find a moon miles example or something categoried.
We live in the sticks and it can get hairy in the winter, we have a old range rover for the winter but like to have two 4x4 type cars for the winter, first world problems i suppose!
So Long Passat 4 Motion! Great car. Smooth, reasonably fast, seriously thirsty. Ferocious heated seats.
After a few weeks searching on ebay, this one popped up in Essex:
This was a 2016 / 66 plate 2.0 TDI 4x4 "Laurin and Klement" which I had to google at the time but basically means high spec. Pano roof, brown leather, heated seats, sat nav etc. All the toys. 6 speed manual. The previous owner was a process server who had used it mainly on motorways and the mileage just shy of 160,000 at the time of purchase reflected it's use. It benefitted from having had x4 new injectors, a new turbo and a new clutch and flywheel fitted at 140k by the previous owner at a cost of £4k.
With a bit of light haggling on a cold Sunday in November, WN66 FRJ was mine for £4950. I thought pretty decent bargain..
First impressions were good on the drive home also - a smooth cruise back around the M25, torquey engine with a bit of go if you wanted it, smooth and easy gear change and an indicated 50mpg for the motorway cruise. Not at all bad for a 4x4 diesel.
Also hardly a "shed". That's okay though, good things come to those who wait, read on.
"Skody" as christened by Mrs IS was soon put to work doing important tasks like collecting Christmas paraphernalia. Far less ostentatious than strapping it to the roof of a Porsche I think. For anyone that's got one of these, the rear seat design is fantastic. Easy fold up job and a one hand release to remove them completely and turn it into a van. Come to think of it, it's strange to think why they didn't release a commercial version, think it would have been really popular, especially for country types, vets etc.
Middle of December soon approached and with 5,000 miles added to the clock already since the middle of November (don't ask!) we were en route to Zermatt for a few days of pre-xmas skiing as a treat. I was lucky enough to receive a positive response to my request for Mrs IS' hand in marriage on this trip so a very special one for us.
An impressively gritty looking Yeti after 1500 continental miles on well salted roads, always satisfying to see.
The next few months was just general life - we were lucky enough to get another skiing trip in february to France with some friends so again took Skody, and other than that some relatively trouble free miles until:
Ah. The dreaded glow plug light of doom. Given it had recently enjoyed four new injectors, a turbo etc I was a bit worried about what this could be. I took it to my trusty mobile mechanic in the barn who had a look on the computer and eventually found that the issue was related to the adblue pump not supplying the correct dose. We had a worrying moment on the way back from France around the Adblue where basically it asked to be topped up which we did so (that is a total ballache by the way, you have to empty everything from the boot and remove the boot floor carpet - not ideal when on a trip), afterwhich it decided not to update the quantity and was threatening to isolate the engine! Not ideal on the french autoroutes on the way home..
The error code did clear that time but with this one, we opted to remap the car. Likewise the DPF.
Shortly after the car was driving fantastic again, albeit with a strange burbling/bumping noise at some revs which we assumed was from the now free breathing DPF. More on that...later...
The modifications gave a 15% uplift in economy - and that's true when I check the Fuelly app, up from circa 42 combined to nearly 50 combined.
Yes, it took me nearly until May to realise the car has Carplay as long as you plug your phone in by USB. Still doesn't beat the time my Dad realised his Focus Ghia had a 6 CD changer under the front seat the day he sold it, after driving it for 9 years. I do think it's a bit tight that these modern cars don't do carplay over bluetooth when the stereo is bluetooth enabled
Otehr than that, the Spring and early summer was spent doing Yeti things. It really is a fabulous all rounder. Comfy, quick enough, economical enough, fit loads of gear in, doesn't look w
ky. Pretty ideal.
And then a good mate of mine called me up and asked me if i fancied doing the Tunisie Challenge in October (www.tunisiechallenge.com). Yeah sounds good, i said. Of course the sensible person would buy an old cruiser or a pajero (or like him, a £1500 Shogun Sport). But I thought.... hmmm why not do it in this yeti?
A few calls to the organisers and a plan was made. The route would be 1400km or so mainly off road and on sand in Tunisia. The total mileage for the trip to and from home would be in excess of 3500 miles. Essentially the requirements (at their most basic) for the trip were:
- permanent 4X4
- reinforced under engine/sump guard
- lift for low vehicles (like mine)
- nobbly high profile tyres to allow for adjustments on sand
- Reinforced recovery points at front for dune recoveries
- Modify the breathing system so as to prevent sand from entering the engine
I have a mate who is a very keen fabricator and he was game to tackle this with me, so we thought... fk it, why not.
The last photo of Skody before the adjustments were made
Let the fun begin
We live in the sticks and it can get hairy in the winter, we have a old range rover for the winter but like to have two 4x4 type cars for the winter, first world problems i suppose!
So Long Passat 4 Motion! Great car. Smooth, reasonably fast, seriously thirsty. Ferocious heated seats.
After a few weeks searching on ebay, this one popped up in Essex:
This was a 2016 / 66 plate 2.0 TDI 4x4 "Laurin and Klement" which I had to google at the time but basically means high spec. Pano roof, brown leather, heated seats, sat nav etc. All the toys. 6 speed manual. The previous owner was a process server who had used it mainly on motorways and the mileage just shy of 160,000 at the time of purchase reflected it's use. It benefitted from having had x4 new injectors, a new turbo and a new clutch and flywheel fitted at 140k by the previous owner at a cost of £4k.
With a bit of light haggling on a cold Sunday in November, WN66 FRJ was mine for £4950. I thought pretty decent bargain..
First impressions were good on the drive home also - a smooth cruise back around the M25, torquey engine with a bit of go if you wanted it, smooth and easy gear change and an indicated 50mpg for the motorway cruise. Not at all bad for a 4x4 diesel.
Also hardly a "shed". That's okay though, good things come to those who wait, read on.
"Skody" as christened by Mrs IS was soon put to work doing important tasks like collecting Christmas paraphernalia. Far less ostentatious than strapping it to the roof of a Porsche I think. For anyone that's got one of these, the rear seat design is fantastic. Easy fold up job and a one hand release to remove them completely and turn it into a van. Come to think of it, it's strange to think why they didn't release a commercial version, think it would have been really popular, especially for country types, vets etc.
Middle of December soon approached and with 5,000 miles added to the clock already since the middle of November (don't ask!) we were en route to Zermatt for a few days of pre-xmas skiing as a treat. I was lucky enough to receive a positive response to my request for Mrs IS' hand in marriage on this trip so a very special one for us.
An impressively gritty looking Yeti after 1500 continental miles on well salted roads, always satisfying to see.
The next few months was just general life - we were lucky enough to get another skiing trip in february to France with some friends so again took Skody, and other than that some relatively trouble free miles until:
Ah. The dreaded glow plug light of doom. Given it had recently enjoyed four new injectors, a turbo etc I was a bit worried about what this could be. I took it to my trusty mobile mechanic in the barn who had a look on the computer and eventually found that the issue was related to the adblue pump not supplying the correct dose. We had a worrying moment on the way back from France around the Adblue where basically it asked to be topped up which we did so (that is a total ballache by the way, you have to empty everything from the boot and remove the boot floor carpet - not ideal when on a trip), afterwhich it decided not to update the quantity and was threatening to isolate the engine! Not ideal on the french autoroutes on the way home..
The error code did clear that time but with this one, we opted to remap the car. Likewise the DPF.
Shortly after the car was driving fantastic again, albeit with a strange burbling/bumping noise at some revs which we assumed was from the now free breathing DPF. More on that...later...
The modifications gave a 15% uplift in economy - and that's true when I check the Fuelly app, up from circa 42 combined to nearly 50 combined.
Yes, it took me nearly until May to realise the car has Carplay as long as you plug your phone in by USB. Still doesn't beat the time my Dad realised his Focus Ghia had a 6 CD changer under the front seat the day he sold it, after driving it for 9 years. I do think it's a bit tight that these modern cars don't do carplay over bluetooth when the stereo is bluetooth enabled
Otehr than that, the Spring and early summer was spent doing Yeti things. It really is a fabulous all rounder. Comfy, quick enough, economical enough, fit loads of gear in, doesn't look w
ky. Pretty ideal.And then a good mate of mine called me up and asked me if i fancied doing the Tunisie Challenge in October (www.tunisiechallenge.com). Yeah sounds good, i said. Of course the sensible person would buy an old cruiser or a pajero (or like him, a £1500 Shogun Sport). But I thought.... hmmm why not do it in this yeti?
A few calls to the organisers and a plan was made. The route would be 1400km or so mainly off road and on sand in Tunisia. The total mileage for the trip to and from home would be in excess of 3500 miles. Essentially the requirements (at their most basic) for the trip were:
- permanent 4X4
- reinforced under engine/sump guard
- lift for low vehicles (like mine)
- nobbly high profile tyres to allow for adjustments on sand
- Reinforced recovery points at front for dune recoveries
- Modify the breathing system so as to prevent sand from entering the engine
I have a mate who is a very keen fabricator and he was game to tackle this with me, so we thought... f
k it, why not.The last photo of Skody before the adjustments were made
Let the fun begin
Dave. said:
Have you see what Darkside did to theirs?
Surprisingly capable!
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLz_nHs7o9ueVG...
Yes i have and Darkside were very helpful with the prep for mine - supplying lift kit, wheel spacers, stud bolts etc.Surprisingly capable!
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLz_nHs7o9ueVG...
I can confirm the haldex is extremely impressive considering its an e-diff, and the car is relatively light which helps.
CKY said:
Nice idea with the Yeti, and kudos for your choice of B5.5 - I had a PD130 4motion estate for a while, superb car. Did 40k miles in it, on the 'all season' tyres I never got it stuck anywhere.
Yes it was a cracking runabout, but that 2.8 engine was thirsty. So smooth though. Lovely to drive, built properly.d_a_n1979 said:
Kodiaq L&K
Still not entirely sure why Skoda were so insistent on discontinuing the Yeti, think it was pretty charming in a kind of ugly way...!!So with a shopping list organised, and with thanks to Darkside who gave me some great advice on tyres, offsets, rims to buy etc, I had a flurry of deliveries:
- Insa Risko Turbo knobblies
- Steelies off a caddy
- 25mm rear / 20mm front spacers
- 30mm lift kit
- 3mm alu plate under tray
- heavy duty recovery hoops from a 4x4 supplier
- Couple of Lazer Sentinel 9" Spotlights from marketplace
215 / 65 / 16 Insa Turbo Risko tyres (remoulds) - circa £80 a piece from the ebay. Impressive knobbliness!
This was a 3mm alu bash plate from a supplier off ebay in Romania. About 200 euros.
All of the bits and bobs locked and loaded and ready to go to Toby my mate and excellent fabricator, with some very vague instructions / ideas.
I'd basically been under the car and realised the only place we were going to be able mount any kind of recovery points with any modicum of usefulness would be onto / through the crash bar which was attached by 5 heavy bolts either side. Toby agreed that bracing up each crash strut, and then drilling through and welding these hoops through would give a pretty solid and robust recovery platform for strap recoveries we were anticipating in the desert.
Toby's work was as always tidy, precise and very confidence inspiring.
Even his dremel skills are quite something to admire, and the end result was exactly what I had thoguht we might achieve, a nice job indeed.
The next step was the breathing system. When I first thought of taking the Yeti I simply hadn't considered it at all, but a scare story from one of the organisers about a Subaru with sand blasted bores on last years event made me re-think that straight away.
I had suggested to Toby we could possibly copy Darkside's snorkel assembly and he agreed it was a good idea. We bought the air box from Darkside and Toby fabbed up the rest. He wasn't a fan of Darkside drilling directly into the panel above the passenger window so came up with another solution which utilised the screw mounting point for the forward left roof bar, really neat.
80MM alu - not drain pipe I'll have you know! Anyway, I'll let the pictures do the talking, the end result was fantastic to say the least:
lovely bit of fabrication for a breather pipe ahead of the MAF, the stock skoda airbox is a typical modern thing with loads of plastic boxes, tunnels and flexi hoses and various pipes coming off it, so as not to throw engine faults we wanted to keep the breathing as stock as possible - albeit raising it by three feet.
The two mounting parts - the first bracket is for a direct screwpoint into the n/s wing and the last photo demonstrates the neat connection to the roof rack mounting point
The full assembly before and after having been painted. Yes quite a bit bigger than a typical snorkel you might find on a normal overland type car, but that's just the reality of accessing the air box - punching through the wing wouldn't have been possible and definitely not enough room under the bonnet to negotiate through the rear of the bay forward.
Next up was working how best to fit these mega 14,500 Lumens (each) spotlights to the front of the car. Of course, Toby had an idea to make a bracket and attach to the crash bar through the front grille, with the entire bracket being held together by the mounting screws for the lights themselves, neat.
First up was to cut a couple of the fins from the radiator grille to allow the bracket to protrude
Then assemble the various pieces of flat steel
And then bring it all together using the lights themselves. We used Lazers own loom (each light requires it's own) for this, and cut into the N/S headlamp full beam circuit so there was no unnecessary switches etc
After this it was to my other mate who's got a few lifts in a barn to do the lift, tyre swap and engine protection fitment, and the end result:
We were all really really happy with how this turned out. Initial driving impressions:
- Lot of induction noise above the passenger. Amusing to the point of hilarious on boost. We were planning to use the old hosiery trick for Tunisia - cable tying socks / tights over the inlet so as not to behave like a giant hoover for sand.
- Dynamics somewhat....for want of a better word - ruined? Jokes aside, not too bad, but as to be expected with knobblies like this - very loud and unrefined on tarmac, higher revs to carry speed etc, 65mph the new cruise in this car...
- Tyre scrub on a full lock - solution - don't use a full lock
Some size comparison against recently restored Renault 5 and our land rover - it really does look and feel a lot bigger now. 30mm lift + the tyres gives almost SUV style ground clearance and driving feel.
The final touch was some amber lens covers from Lazer Light for the sentinels a) for Euro cool b) to prevent smashage of the sentinels from road stones, add to that a paper map of Tunisie "just in case" and with just a few weeks to go we had transformed the Yeti from M25 warrior to (hopefully) sand warrior.....
The car was bought in November 2022 for £4950 with just under 160k miles on it. At the point of the modifications in September the car was just shy of 180k miles, and we left for Tunisia on the 9th October. I will collate together photos etc from the trip, as it was the most epic driving experience / road trip i have ever had - and i've had a few! I will write up a trip report, there are plenty of bumps and BANGS along the way.
IS
Bill said:
Good effort! Although I'd be a bit concerned about the bottom of the snorkel being vulnerable in a minor knock.
I've been eyeing up (small!) driving lights for my Yeti but have been out of by internet chat about messing up the canbus. Was it simply a case of splicing them in?
As you'll read when I get round to uploading the report from Tunisie, that was the least of our worries!! I've been eyeing up (small!) driving lights for my Yeti but have been out of by internet chat about messing up the canbus. Was it simply a case of splicing them in?
Had no issues splicing directly into the full beam circuit.
Easternlight said:
Yeti, I have a pair]
Absolutely love this. People used to think I was mental for having two Mondeospoppopbangbang said:
Absolutely excellent work OP! I'm a very big fan of this and the Tunisie - please post lots of details about how it goes, I'm very keen to do it in my Cayenne.
Will do in the coming days. There was a NA 4.5 Cayenne on last yearts Tunisie. They said it was very capable but electrical gremlins caused issues (sand in the fuse boxes)keeling54 said:
Guess you've at least doubled the values of your Yeti.
I do like them though. Top work.
Got them for £450 for the pair from Marketplace. I've had a T-16 lazer bar i bought in 2015 on 5 cars now so the quality is worth the premium, buy once mentality. These Sentinels really are overkill though, on the autoroute at night you light it up like its day timeI do like them though. Top work.
Scoobydrew95 said:
That looks absolutely fantastic! Was there absolutely nothing you could do to aid clearance of the tyres?
Didn't really want to do more than a 30mm vertical lift, and spacers maybe could have done an extra 5mm at the front - but really it was only on full lock and in reverse you'd get any scrubbingTheJimi said:
Somewhat, apropos - what are Yetis like in terms of NVH?
They are reasonably well refined, i don't know about vag group cars really other than coming out of that old Passat, i think Skoda plastics are a bit cheaper than in other vag group but the engines are the same, a5 platform is basically the golf, a3, yeti, various others. Good suspension, comfy seats, good HVAC, not much road noise (until you lift it 30mm and put on huge knobblies and a snorkel)Russ_16v said:
How are the driveshaft angles looking with that lift? I am super tempted with a 40mm lift but I need to check driveshaft angle first.
Make sure you keep on top of Haldex servicing - do you have the Haldex 4 or 5 in the Yeti?
Lastly, if you need any advise please ask - I know these pretty well and worked for the group for over a decade.
Hi Mate,Make sure you keep on top of Haldex servicing - do you have the Haldex 4 or 5 in the Yeti?
Lastly, if you need any advise please ask - I know these pretty well and worked for the group for over a decade.
The angles on the drive shafts not greatly affected - only a marginal change, no issues at lock either way
Haldex 5 - we did a oil and filter service on it before heading off for Tunisia
With about 10 or so days to go before the event the organisers sent out the maps, gpx files and waypoints files.
At first I was slightly perplexed at how best to manage the files but a quick text to my contact at the event - Andy - an english speaking expat in Spain (the tour company is Spanish) resulted in a long phone call with clear, in depth instructions on what software they use, what the options were and basically how best to do it. What it boiled down to was you wanted a big clear screen sat nav for the navigator and a smaller one for the driver (for two person crews). As I was going with my mate Wil this was the option we went for.
You'll hear me rabbit on and on about how great the organisation is on this trip - which it really is. No, it's not a cheap trip, but the organisational support goes above and beyond let me tell you. More on that later.
Anyway, I settled on using an iPad Air 3 with Cellular function and GPS chip that I found in the warehouse, and downloaded the free "2nav" App and then upgraded it to the full version for 10 euro. I added a 19 euro map of tunisia and got to uploading the GPX files and way points. I also had my bike garmin which I added just the plain route and not the waypoints for as a second reference point.
Tada!
Basically, depending on what vehicle class you are, you have one of about three routes (one for lightweight 4x4 - us, one for full size - our friends in the Shogun sport, and a RAID category for the hardcore cars and the seasoned pros)
The waypoints are all there to keep you on course but are also quite often linked to speed requirements, time limits etc all things that will get you penalties if you disobey them. You must pass a waypoint directly within 50metres and stay within 200 metres of the defined track at all times else you get points. That kind of thing.
With all that set up on the iPad, it was time to hit the road and meet our friends in Dover - en route to Marseille for the ferry the following day
Arrived at Dover in good time albeit now enjoying fuel consumption down in the mid 30s. Ride and road noise was now something we were used to, and not too worried about.
En route to our overnight stay somewhere south of Troyes in the fading light and the first (of many) fuel stops on the trip. Our friends thirsty Shogun Sport has only a 60 litre tank so sub 200 miles between fills..!
Next morning and en route to Marseille - a view of our setup before adding the Stella III tracker unit in Tunisia.
Arrived at the port of Marseille (anyone that thinks Dover is a sthole needs to come here) and having a look around at some of the competition. Most of the Panda 4x4s were coming from Italy on the Genoa ferry
Finally boarding the ferry (took over 2 hours!!) and a nice Citroen DS plus some suspect looking load practices on some of the outbound traffic....
Settling into to the 26 hour crossing to Tunis onboard the CTN Carthage - a very tired old ship - we christened it the ashtray of the seas owing to the fact that you can smoke inside in Tunisia so it was quite fumy...!! But I do love a cross channel ferry, and it was good to get to know the organisers and some of the other competitors.
After getting off the ferry in Tunis we were supposedly being met by an insurance rep who subsequently didn't show up, so we rendezvoused in a dodgy car park up the road to meet a guy that the organisers use for sim cards - for 20 euros we were given a sim card that included 42GB of data and 150 minutes of calls within Europe/UK, much cheaper than the rip off rates from uk suppliers. Also with modern phones it's great being able to retain your UK number for whatsapp/imessage etc whilst using the data on the Tunisia sim card. Travel is so much easier now.
We then had to wing it without insurance to the hotel (naughty I know..) as frankly it was a sthole area in the middle of the night and we were all tired. The hotel was in Hammamet - about 40 minutes drive away, where we had two nights there so as to get the technical checks out of the way in a spare day and get the Stella 3 installed in the cars - as well as getting insurance.
The trip was laid out like this:
The next morning and a wander around the hotel car park and a taste of some of the other vehicles. There were circa 20 Pandas on the tour, mainly from Italian teams. There was even a garage on the tour as well that set up a mobile workshop every night for Panda owners.
We needed insurance so got chatting to the organisers who hooked us up with a guy from the Tunisian equivalent of the AA. We explained we had no insurance so he said no worries, follow me, let's get lunch and go and get insurance. What car are we taking, he said. We don't have insurance, we said. No worries, let's take the Yeti, he said!
After a quick lunch (80p) with our new friend, we found the insurance office above a petrol station and got some insurance - about 30£ for the week.
We filled up with diesel (around 45p a litre) and Paul petrol (around 60p a litre) at the same petrol station. What a bargain..!
Stickered up, stella 3 installed, classification checks done, signed off and ready to go!
A couple of nerve easing beers and an early night - the first day stage included a long trek down a beach and given I had never been off road in the Skoda, let alone on sand, we basically did not know how it was going to go. The ultimate test was basically the first stage... We had made some friends already - a father and son team from Maidenhead, a father and son team from Belgium and a couple of Romanian guys in a Dacia Duster. As the trip would progress our friendships would develop and a much needed support network would be built...!!
At first I was slightly perplexed at how best to manage the files but a quick text to my contact at the event - Andy - an english speaking expat in Spain (the tour company is Spanish) resulted in a long phone call with clear, in depth instructions on what software they use, what the options were and basically how best to do it. What it boiled down to was you wanted a big clear screen sat nav for the navigator and a smaller one for the driver (for two person crews). As I was going with my mate Wil this was the option we went for.
You'll hear me rabbit on and on about how great the organisation is on this trip - which it really is. No, it's not a cheap trip, but the organisational support goes above and beyond let me tell you. More on that later.
Anyway, I settled on using an iPad Air 3 with Cellular function and GPS chip that I found in the warehouse, and downloaded the free "2nav" App and then upgraded it to the full version for 10 euro. I added a 19 euro map of tunisia and got to uploading the GPX files and way points. I also had my bike garmin which I added just the plain route and not the waypoints for as a second reference point.
Tada!
Basically, depending on what vehicle class you are, you have one of about three routes (one for lightweight 4x4 - us, one for full size - our friends in the Shogun sport, and a RAID category for the hardcore cars and the seasoned pros)
The waypoints are all there to keep you on course but are also quite often linked to speed requirements, time limits etc all things that will get you penalties if you disobey them. You must pass a waypoint directly within 50metres and stay within 200 metres of the defined track at all times else you get points. That kind of thing.
With all that set up on the iPad, it was time to hit the road and meet our friends in Dover - en route to Marseille for the ferry the following day
Arrived at Dover in good time albeit now enjoying fuel consumption down in the mid 30s. Ride and road noise was now something we were used to, and not too worried about.
En route to our overnight stay somewhere south of Troyes in the fading light and the first (of many) fuel stops on the trip. Our friends thirsty Shogun Sport has only a 60 litre tank so sub 200 miles between fills..!
Next morning and en route to Marseille - a view of our setup before adding the Stella III tracker unit in Tunisia.
Arrived at the port of Marseille (anyone that thinks Dover is a s
thole needs to come here) and having a look around at some of the competition. Most of the Panda 4x4s were coming from Italy on the Genoa ferryFinally boarding the ferry (took over 2 hours!!) and a nice Citroen DS plus some suspect looking load practices on some of the outbound traffic....
Settling into to the 26 hour crossing to Tunis onboard the CTN Carthage - a very tired old ship - we christened it the ashtray of the seas owing to the fact that you can smoke inside in Tunisia so it was quite fumy...!! But I do love a cross channel ferry, and it was good to get to know the organisers and some of the other competitors.
After getting off the ferry in Tunis we were supposedly being met by an insurance rep who subsequently didn't show up, so we rendezvoused in a dodgy car park up the road to meet a guy that the organisers use for sim cards - for 20 euros we were given a sim card that included 42GB of data and 150 minutes of calls within Europe/UK, much cheaper than the rip off rates from uk suppliers. Also with modern phones it's great being able to retain your UK number for whatsapp/imessage etc whilst using the data on the Tunisia sim card. Travel is so much easier now.
We then had to wing it without insurance to the hotel (naughty I know..) as frankly it was a s
thole area in the middle of the night and we were all tired. The hotel was in Hammamet - about 40 minutes drive away, where we had two nights there so as to get the technical checks out of the way in a spare day and get the Stella 3 installed in the cars - as well as getting insurance.The trip was laid out like this:
The next morning and a wander around the hotel car park and a taste of some of the other vehicles. There were circa 20 Pandas on the tour, mainly from Italian teams. There was even a garage on the tour as well that set up a mobile workshop every night for Panda owners.
We needed insurance so got chatting to the organisers who hooked us up with a guy from the Tunisian equivalent of the AA. We explained we had no insurance so he said no worries, follow me, let's get lunch and go and get insurance. What car are we taking, he said. We don't have insurance, we said. No worries, let's take the Yeti, he said!
After a quick lunch (80p) with our new friend, we found the insurance office above a petrol station and got some insurance - about 30£ for the week.
We filled up with diesel (around 45p a litre) and Paul petrol (around 60p a litre) at the same petrol station. What a bargain..!
Stickered up, stella 3 installed, classification checks done, signed off and ready to go!
A couple of nerve easing beers and an early night - the first day stage included a long trek down a beach and given I had never been off road in the Skoda, let alone on sand, we basically did not know how it was going to go. The ultimate test was basically the first stage... We had made some friends already - a father and son team from Maidenhead, a father and son team from Belgium and a couple of Romanian guys in a Dacia Duster. As the trip would progress our friendships would develop and a much needed support network would be built...!!
Thanks for your comments guys
RE: Insurance - not going to get into tit for tat on a forum about insurance and mods etc, all I will say is my insurance is my personal issue to deal with and I believe i'm suitably covered. In Tunisia it was naughty to drive 40 km without it, but we just wanted to get to the hotel. We know now the full process and some contacts there, so next time we go to Tunisia on the next challenge, we will get it sorted at the port.
Day 1 of the Tunisie Challenge then!
Good photo of us prepping the car the day before from the on-tour photography team. You had an option to pay a premium package and get extra coverage of your teams adventure - we decided not to do this, but still ended up with good photos!
388KM for the first route, 50/50 on and off road for the first day purely because the organisers want you to get far south as possible on the first day. The start of the stage was 24KM down Hammamet beach which was both exciting and very daunting...!!
Some of the other competitors cars and a view down Hammamet beach, which is a public beach with loads of fishing huts, boats, people milling about etc.
Papped
The briefing then took place on the beach, which was in depth and kind of confidence inspiring. Andy, the UK expat and one of the main organisers took care of any english speakers as Rui the owner of the company juggled between Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese... pretty impressive stuff.
Wil and I then watched the departures take place. Due to the big RAID vehicles and full size SUV being more capable / faster (in theory) they were the first to go, with small SUV and then us, and then finally the Pandas to go last. Andy expressed his differences with this method and we soon saw why - the entrance to the beach was getting more and more churned up, leaving huge ruts and walls of sand in place. Some of the bigger cars - Shoguns and Cruisers - were even getting stuck, albeit we think due to operator error. None the less, it was a stressful few minutes.
We had already lowered our pressures to 10psi, jumped in the car, turned off all traction control and awaited our turn. Annoyingly Wil got loads of the above on video on his INSTA360 but then lost it on the beach - a gift to Africa... So you will have to make do with my pretty bang average description.
We patiently queued in a line of smaller cars and made our way to the start line. When the flag lowered and our timing system went live, I gunned the throttle in first, then second and kept my foot planted at Wil's instruction. We entered the deep sand of the beach and crashed straight through a sand "wall" that had been made by the bigger vehicles, we found a line quickly and kept the turbo on song in 2nd - around 2500rpm / 40kph. Wow, this Yeti could cruise through the Sand! We were grinning like cheshire cats as we held a steady speed on the turbo power band. Two slower moving cars ahead soon came into view and we observed the very strict rules of the event - you must gain permission using your Stella 3 unit in order to pass another vehicle.
See below some instructions of how this system works. It also uses Iridium to keep our position on the map very clear to friends and family at home, as well as in case of breakdown or emergency so that the organisers can attend asap.
We approached firstly Dirk and Vincent, the belgian father and son in their Shogun who had bogged down at the rear, we got permission to pass and went about. As the event would show as we got more confident, you don't really need to ask for permission from a stopped vehicle unless they are in dire straits when you are duty bound to stop. It's only really for moving scenarios.
The second vehicle was Vali and Bobby in the Romanian Duster. Vali's mentality was "first, everywhere, I drive like hell" - and that was apparent as we passed and even with the windows shut could hear his 1.6 petrol screaming away at 30kph.
As we passed these two, we noticed the engine temperature climbing on the Yeti.
We were 5KM in. 5KM! I slowed the throttle to take the turbo just under the boost power band and sure enough the temperature immediately dropped.
Panic over. For Now.
Exiting the beach at the quite narrow exit - 24km of beach driving - done!! You can see the mounting point at the rear where Wil's insta360 used to be.
Heading through the mangroves towards the end of the first part of this stage, and just before discovering our first problem.
As we got to the end of the stage, we could see our friends in the Shogun Sport adjusting their pressures ahead along with "Vitara Mat" from Maidenhead. Mat immediately waved us down - "guy's water, from your radiator, water!"
Ah. fk.
Naturally assuming we had bust the rad at the start of the stage we took a look underneath and sure enough a lot of water was pouring out. fks sake. One stage, not even 10% of the way through. oh well. No sense in sitting around moaning. Paul had a few bottles of radweld in his car and we had a spare bottle of coolant. We nicked a few bottles of radweld, poured one in and chased it with 5 litres of coolant. Ran it for ten mins with the heaters on - no drips so far, fk it time to crack on - it's a time trial after all.
The next 150KM went fine. Engine temp was normal, getting up to speed fine, car was phenomenal on the salt flats and on the rock climbs we had to do that day. Sorry, again no photos.
our friends in the Shogun passing through one of the many small villages that we got to see on our journey on the first day.
We had stopped in one such village and bought 15 litres of water just in case. That was a prudent choice
Nice view.
Ah bks.
Sure enough, the leak had re-sprung and our engine temp had soured on the cruise up this mountain pass. We had somehow managed to get ahead of our friends in the Shogun though and we had signal so they knew where we were and woudl be with us soon enough with some more radweld.
Fingers crossed.
We were now managing about 20-30km between fillups. So clearly the leak was not getting anywhere and we just needed to get to the hotel, if possible.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/l_PMqQMm3EI
It was kind of daunting, kind of liberating at the same time. Helps being on a nicely organised tour though - but still doesn't take away those natural anxieties.
Shortly after this, we passed Dirk and Vincent again - this time they were rebuilding a shock that had broken and luckily they had 5litres of coolant as we had used our last water other than a few litres for drinking. We were losing the light, we'd missed our target time, racking up penalties by the minute so we decided to get the 5 litres of coolant in and see how we got.
I decided to take a leaf out of Vali's book and for the last 20km of the stage which was a dusty/sandy trail through the starts of the desert, I "drove like hell". Petter Solberg i am not but damn it felt good. The car has a decent front rear bias through the haldex and I was able to get some decent sideways action, it really goes well.
We passed the final way point and immediately the temperature started to climb, we were in the middle of nowhere with no signal at all so we had no choice but to press the SOS button on the Stella and await assistance.
I mean. Worse places to break down? I broke down on the M40 the other day. I can confirm that's worse than here. We were in the middle of nowhere with a few farm shacks nearby and that was it. Moments later a pickup truck with four Tunisian dudes turned up and they stopped, we exchanged some french and they just wanted to make sure we had food and water. Such hospitable people. They have barely anything, but were willing to help.
The Stella started ringing and we had a conversation with the sky. It works by sending yes or no answers to the central control place (in Spain), who then relay the collated messages via satellite phone to the organisers who bring up the rear of the event every day to make sure noone is stranded. After a few messages back and forth, the reassuring "HELP IS ON THE WAY!!" showed on the screen.
Sure enough 10-15 mins later, the two Javea Auto Sales sponsored Cruisers with Andy and Roy at the controls with their flashing yellow beacons appeared over the dusty horizon and were roaring towards us. What a beautiful sight.
Big Nath - the organisations own mechanic - had a quick look over the car and quickly saw why radweld hadn't fixed it. This car has a radiator pack comprising the AC condensor / cooling radiator and a third radiator which is the water intercooler for the turbo pack. The left hand side mount which holds the entire pack into the car is actually plastic formed and attached to the intercooler. It had snapped clean off, exposing a hole about the size of a pea - under pressure and this was spewing coolant out. The good news was Nath reckoned if we could get the rad out for him, he could epoxy it back together at the hotel.
Luckily the lads had plenty water so we refilled the car and limped it - hoping to make it some of the way to the hotel (75km on road).
The Lazers at work with the two cruisers bringing up the rear, we were lighting up the sky. Also a good shot of the normal readout you get from the STELLA 3. It will also shout at you if one of the waypoints is marked as dangerous - can be quite a noisy affair in the car at times.
Made it to Tozeur, refuelling and buying coolant and water before heading to the hotel to crack straight on.
Now before I go on I should state that we were not expecting even this kind of assistance (an escort). The organisers lay out expectations rather brutally that you can expect to be towed to the side of a road whereby it's your own responsibility to find onward recovery or travel. What we experienced in terms of mechanical assistance and advise over the course of the evening that followed and the subsequent days was absolutely unbelievable.
Wil and I wrestling with the (very heavy!!) under tray and locating screws for the bumper.
At this stage, Nath and his lad could see we were game happy to graft but we were not as mechanically clued up in the head as he was. I genuinely appreciate his approach with this. He barked instructions and shouted tools, spanner, socket, do this, do that. We carried on, appreciative of his guidance and help - it probably saved hours.
One of the Javea cruisers drafted in for workshop light. Thankfully we had brought a 200 piece halford set which was more than ample for everything we needed on this evening.
The main man Big Nath himself helping with the fiddlier bits. With his and his lad Tyreece's help, we managed to get the intercooler out without removing the entire rad pack.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/894PTS0NB6Q
Preparing the rad pack for Epoxy and letting it dry.
Midnight - Wil taking a candid photo of me covered in grit, oil and coolant waiting for the epoxy to go off before we could get it back together. Nath and Tyreece helped us until half ten at night. I mean, what lads. Wil and I got the car back together just before 1am - holding coolant okay and albeit with about 6 or 7 screws that we hadn't manage to find corresponding holes for - we headed for bed. It was a 8am briefing the next morning at Mos Espa (star wars) which was 40 minutes drive away.
What a day it had been, a hell of an introduction into the Tunisie challenge and an eye opening reminder of the fragility and built in obsolescence so often occuring in modern car design.
RE: Insurance - not going to get into tit for tat on a forum about insurance and mods etc, all I will say is my insurance is my personal issue to deal with and I believe i'm suitably covered. In Tunisia it was naughty to drive 40 km without it, but we just wanted to get to the hotel. We know now the full process and some contacts there, so next time we go to Tunisia on the next challenge, we will get it sorted at the port.
Day 1 of the Tunisie Challenge then!
Good photo of us prepping the car the day before from the on-tour photography team. You had an option to pay a premium package and get extra coverage of your teams adventure - we decided not to do this, but still ended up with good photos!
388KM for the first route, 50/50 on and off road for the first day purely because the organisers want you to get far south as possible on the first day. The start of the stage was 24KM down Hammamet beach which was both exciting and very daunting...!!
Some of the other competitors cars and a view down Hammamet beach, which is a public beach with loads of fishing huts, boats, people milling about etc.
Papped
The briefing then took place on the beach, which was in depth and kind of confidence inspiring. Andy, the UK expat and one of the main organisers took care of any english speakers as Rui the owner of the company juggled between Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese... pretty impressive stuff.
Wil and I then watched the departures take place. Due to the big RAID vehicles and full size SUV being more capable / faster (in theory) they were the first to go, with small SUV and then us, and then finally the Pandas to go last. Andy expressed his differences with this method and we soon saw why - the entrance to the beach was getting more and more churned up, leaving huge ruts and walls of sand in place. Some of the bigger cars - Shoguns and Cruisers - were even getting stuck, albeit we think due to operator error. None the less, it was a stressful few minutes.
We had already lowered our pressures to 10psi, jumped in the car, turned off all traction control and awaited our turn. Annoyingly Wil got loads of the above on video on his INSTA360 but then lost it on the beach - a gift to Africa... So you will have to make do with my pretty bang average description.
We patiently queued in a line of smaller cars and made our way to the start line. When the flag lowered and our timing system went live, I gunned the throttle in first, then second and kept my foot planted at Wil's instruction. We entered the deep sand of the beach and crashed straight through a sand "wall" that had been made by the bigger vehicles, we found a line quickly and kept the turbo on song in 2nd - around 2500rpm / 40kph. Wow, this Yeti could cruise through the Sand! We were grinning like cheshire cats as we held a steady speed on the turbo power band. Two slower moving cars ahead soon came into view and we observed the very strict rules of the event - you must gain permission using your Stella 3 unit in order to pass another vehicle.
See below some instructions of how this system works. It also uses Iridium to keep our position on the map very clear to friends and family at home, as well as in case of breakdown or emergency so that the organisers can attend asap.
We approached firstly Dirk and Vincent, the belgian father and son in their Shogun who had bogged down at the rear, we got permission to pass and went about. As the event would show as we got more confident, you don't really need to ask for permission from a stopped vehicle unless they are in dire straits when you are duty bound to stop. It's only really for moving scenarios.
The second vehicle was Vali and Bobby in the Romanian Duster. Vali's mentality was "first, everywhere, I drive like hell" - and that was apparent as we passed and even with the windows shut could hear his 1.6 petrol screaming away at 30kph.
As we passed these two, we noticed the engine temperature climbing on the Yeti.
We were 5KM in. 5KM! I slowed the throttle to take the turbo just under the boost power band and sure enough the temperature immediately dropped.
Panic over. For Now.
Exiting the beach at the quite narrow exit - 24km of beach driving - done!! You can see the mounting point at the rear where Wil's insta360 used to be.
Heading through the mangroves towards the end of the first part of this stage, and just before discovering our first problem.
As we got to the end of the stage, we could see our friends in the Shogun Sport adjusting their pressures ahead along with "Vitara Mat" from Maidenhead. Mat immediately waved us down - "guy's water, from your radiator, water!"
Ah. f
k.Naturally assuming we had bust the rad at the start of the stage we took a look underneath and sure enough a lot of water was pouring out. f
ks sake. One stage, not even 10% of the way through. oh well. No sense in sitting around moaning. Paul had a few bottles of radweld in his car and we had a spare bottle of coolant. We nicked a few bottles of radweld, poured one in and chased it with 5 litres of coolant. Ran it for ten mins with the heaters on - no drips so far, fk it time to crack on - it's a time trial after all.The next 150KM went fine. Engine temp was normal, getting up to speed fine, car was phenomenal on the salt flats and on the rock climbs we had to do that day. Sorry, again no photos.
our friends in the Shogun passing through one of the many small villages that we got to see on our journey on the first day.
We had stopped in one such village and bought 15 litres of water just in case. That was a prudent choice
Nice view.
Ah b
ks.Sure enough, the leak had re-sprung and our engine temp had soured on the cruise up this mountain pass. We had somehow managed to get ahead of our friends in the Shogun though and we had signal so they knew where we were and woudl be with us soon enough with some more radweld.
Fingers crossed.
We were now managing about 20-30km between fillups. So clearly the leak was not getting anywhere and we just needed to get to the hotel, if possible.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/l_PMqQMm3EI
It was kind of daunting, kind of liberating at the same time. Helps being on a nicely organised tour though - but still doesn't take away those natural anxieties.
Shortly after this, we passed Dirk and Vincent again - this time they were rebuilding a shock that had broken and luckily they had 5litres of coolant as we had used our last water other than a few litres for drinking. We were losing the light, we'd missed our target time, racking up penalties by the minute so we decided to get the 5 litres of coolant in and see how we got.
I decided to take a leaf out of Vali's book and for the last 20km of the stage which was a dusty/sandy trail through the starts of the desert, I "drove like hell". Petter Solberg i am not but damn it felt good. The car has a decent front rear bias through the haldex and I was able to get some decent sideways action, it really goes well.
We passed the final way point and immediately the temperature started to climb, we were in the middle of nowhere with no signal at all so we had no choice but to press the SOS button on the Stella and await assistance.
I mean. Worse places to break down? I broke down on the M40 the other day. I can confirm that's worse than here. We were in the middle of nowhere with a few farm shacks nearby and that was it. Moments later a pickup truck with four Tunisian dudes turned up and they stopped, we exchanged some french and they just wanted to make sure we had food and water. Such hospitable people. They have barely anything, but were willing to help.
The Stella started ringing and we had a conversation with the sky. It works by sending yes or no answers to the central control place (in Spain), who then relay the collated messages via satellite phone to the organisers who bring up the rear of the event every day to make sure noone is stranded. After a few messages back and forth, the reassuring "HELP IS ON THE WAY!!" showed on the screen.
Sure enough 10-15 mins later, the two Javea Auto Sales sponsored Cruisers with Andy and Roy at the controls with their flashing yellow beacons appeared over the dusty horizon and were roaring towards us. What a beautiful sight.
Big Nath - the organisations own mechanic - had a quick look over the car and quickly saw why radweld hadn't fixed it. This car has a radiator pack comprising the AC condensor / cooling radiator and a third radiator which is the water intercooler for the turbo pack. The left hand side mount which holds the entire pack into the car is actually plastic formed and attached to the intercooler. It had snapped clean off, exposing a hole about the size of a pea - under pressure and this was spewing coolant out. The good news was Nath reckoned if we could get the rad out for him, he could epoxy it back together at the hotel.
Luckily the lads had plenty water so we refilled the car and limped it - hoping to make it some of the way to the hotel (75km on road).
The Lazers at work with the two cruisers bringing up the rear, we were lighting up the sky. Also a good shot of the normal readout you get from the STELLA 3. It will also shout at you if one of the waypoints is marked as dangerous - can be quite a noisy affair in the car at times.
Made it to Tozeur, refuelling and buying coolant and water before heading to the hotel to crack straight on.
Now before I go on I should state that we were not expecting even this kind of assistance (an escort). The organisers lay out expectations rather brutally that you can expect to be towed to the side of a road whereby it's your own responsibility to find onward recovery or travel. What we experienced in terms of mechanical assistance and advise over the course of the evening that followed and the subsequent days was absolutely unbelievable.
Wil and I wrestling with the (very heavy!!) under tray and locating screws for the bumper.
At this stage, Nath and his lad could see we were game happy to graft but we were not as mechanically clued up in the head as he was. I genuinely appreciate his approach with this. He barked instructions and shouted tools, spanner, socket, do this, do that. We carried on, appreciative of his guidance and help - it probably saved hours.
One of the Javea cruisers drafted in for workshop light. Thankfully we had brought a 200 piece halford set which was more than ample for everything we needed on this evening.
The main man Big Nath himself helping with the fiddlier bits. With his and his lad Tyreece's help, we managed to get the intercooler out without removing the entire rad pack.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/894PTS0NB6Q
Preparing the rad pack for Epoxy and letting it dry.
Midnight - Wil taking a candid photo of me covered in grit, oil and coolant waiting for the epoxy to go off before we could get it back together. Nath and Tyreece helped us until half ten at night. I mean, what lads. Wil and I got the car back together just before 1am - holding coolant okay and albeit with about 6 or 7 screws that we hadn't manage to find corresponding holes for - we headed for bed. It was a 8am briefing the next morning at Mos Espa (star wars) which was 40 minutes drive away.
What a day it had been, a hell of an introduction into the Tunisie challenge and an eye opening reminder of the fragility and built in obsolescence so often occuring in modern car design.
Bonefish Blues said:
Excellent stuff! Also interesting to see/know what cars other people were running
Full list here:https://www.tunisiechallenge.com/competidores-wint...
lots of pandas
some people went to town with prep on their cars, others - like our friends in their shogun - went completely stock with no prep whatsoever.
Will get another update up hopefully today, then off on hols for a week and will get the rest of it written up and loads of videos etc posted.
Day 2 of the event started at 6am at breakfast, about 4.5 hours since we had made it to bed, but we both felt fresh as a daisy. Adrenaline, or trepidation, or a bit of both I think...
We had left the coolant cap off over night and were relieved when we got to the car to see that the level had dropped only slightly, meaning that most of the air had hopefully had a good chance to escape. Being a wet intercooler on this car, it was actually a real pain in the arse to bleed it properly and had to resort to running the engine up late the night before with one of the hoses off the intercooler matrix and wasting a bunch of coolant, but we got there in the end and got it all back together.
The route and plan for the day:
235KM all in all, not including the route to the briefing at Mos Espa. Starting with a 10 metre dune bank and then heavily sanded tracks on and off through the day, this would certainly put our cooling system to good test...!!
Sunrise over a drastically different landscape from what we had left behind the day before.
The vast and open expanses of world you get on road trips that most of us europeans rarely get to experience - other than in choice parts of Spain I find..
Arrived at the briefing without a hitch (and the air con still working which we were impressed by given we had properly jostled the rads around the night before) and the camel checking out the competition. From here on in (not that it hadn't been the case yesterday) we would be watching that temp gauge like an absolute hawk. Thats something i'm used to anyway - having driven 4,000 miles round Europe in a 1981 Lancia Beta with the radiator fan wired into a bathroom light switch on the dashboard, and limped my round the world Mondeo across Australia with no fan in mid summer earlier this year - it just becomes part of the routine...!
I do admire camels, stubborn beasts. We keep horses and for the most part they are relatively compliant in most scenarios but these bad boys will decide when they want to work. And if it's a no, it's a no. Not uncommon to see these being lifted into the back of Hilux or L200s round these parts when they've decided that's their day over with.
Right star wars nerds - I have to admit, I have never watched any Star Wars and I am not a fan! However, today we started here in Mos Espa and would take in Luke Skywalkers house. That;s all I can offer.... feel free to fill in the gaps!!
A pointy thing. Wil was interested, being a star wars nerd himself, but I was more preoccupied with our first challenge of the day
This.
It's hard to put a scale on it in photos, but it was 12 metres high and at what felt like quite a scary angle. Just walking up it was hard so the nerves were beginning to set in for sure. A quick chat with big Nath and he thought we "would piss it" - his words not ours. Gun it in 2nd and hit it at 30-40kph on boost and we would be fine - he said. There was also the chickens route up a shallower bank if we didn't fancy it. We decided to watch the first few vehicles head up and see how they got on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE51vAv24-c
Our friends in their £1500 Shogun Sport - second attempt. Honestly a lot of vehicles were struggling - and I realised why afterwards - heading straight at what appears like a wall is disconcerting, you naturally wash off speed and then get stuck. Plenty of the bigger cars were going at it with some trepidation and immediately getting stuck, power was definitely the answer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV2zlTe3760
Other vehicles did it with out much effort at all....
Once again we patiently waited our turn to attack the Dune, mulling over whether to take the easy route or not. We had dropped the pressure to 8PSI to give us as much surface area as possible and agreed second gear on boost was probably the best option. Sadly we were just about to discover yet another "benefit" of the safety systems of modern cars.
We set off through the timing trap and picked a path of what we thought would be least resistance, picking up speed in second we held the revs at 2.5k RPM with the turbo ready to work, heading straight towards the sand wall and just before our front wheels hit the lip of the dune I gunned it and the Yeti shot up the dune like you wouldn't believe. Losing only marginal speed we continued flying up the 12metre wave of sand only to be bitterly disappointed as we reached the crest of the hill. As the front wheels touched the top lip/overhang, the engine died. Weird. Roleld back down, tried again, faster this time. Same impressive progress, same disappointing result.
What we discovered later was there is some form of tip angle sensor on the block that prevents it from attacking inclines like this, whether that be oil related or just anti-roll over - who knows. Sadly for us it meant the easy route was the only option and a penalty of 50 points !
Anyhow, after that slight disappointment we got onto some easier stuff and soon came across the only other competitors in our class - a 1994 Audi Quattro who had some issues. With no English between them and no Spanish between us we broke out the google translate and established soon enough that their gearbox had failed. They urged us to get going and we did so, up here was a bit of a motorway of tourist cruisers and other vehicles, a perpetual dust cloud.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRhczoAK0KY
A movie set or a gateway to the dunes? Maybe a bit of both.
We were making fantastic progress and the yeti was really coming into its own. We hit a 3km stretch of soft sanded track and whilst the Yeti was riding it like a Range Rover handles the M40, we did notice under boost the temperature was creeping up. Just loosening the pedal and dropping off peak boost sorted it right out. After the section was over and we were heading back onto asphalt for a stretch we checked the car for leaks and levels - no problems at all. I just don't think these cars are really designed to do this. On boost in tricky conditions in high temps, the water cooled intercooler sharing the engine coolant can't keep up and ends up throwing a spanner in the works.
How many British plate Yetis have been to Luke Skywalkers house?
Wil took the wheel here and it was my time to navigate, this is the view and a good overview of all of our kit. That's the Stella unit in the middle. Now I was the navigator, I was fully appreciative of Wil's navy background and his previous navigation to me. It's not easy!
The route at this stage was a mix of salt flats, undulating sandy tracks and rocky lanes, soon to be sandier, rockier and bumpier..!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H4HgSn9Zv0
Beautiful salt flats - an easy cruise at nearly 50mph. The limit for the trip was strictly 80kph off road. And road limits on road. Big penalties for exceeding them.
As well as physically navigating and advising the driver what he can expect, the waypoints are also extremely important as quite often there are zones of a few hundred metres or several kilometres with strict speed limits that must be obeyed. We had set up the twonav so that it beeped like crazy 300m before a waypoint, the stella would beep like mad regardless if the waypoint was considered dangerous - of which there were plenty on this day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WlSvrMCo4w
Making fantastic progress on the stage and really happy with the way the Yeti was going. At the 190km mark, we split off onto our Adventure C route, leaving the 4X4 to take a tricker dune track and us taking a flatter route.
Said tricky stage with a photo from Paul, lots of recoveries going on. Mat and Scott in the blue vitara actually had further issues - the gear selector / diff selector is all electronic on buttons and sand got into the electronics, later on in the stage they ended up totally stranded and had to be road towed to a garage near the hotel. I believe someone bodged the electrics to force it into 4 high at all times, which they'd have to make do with for the rest of the trip. Mat got back at around 1am, much to everyones relief.
The last 15km or so of the stage were some loosely marked dunes so don't have any pics other than this one. Wil was doing a great job getting us through them and frankly the Yeti was doing amazing. We passed two stranded Jeep Wranglers which goes to show how capable the Yeti is. You just have to pick what looks like a good line, just so long as you're within 250m of the planned route on the twonav/stella and within 50m of any waypoints. We really were starting to become amazed with the ability of this soft roader.
We made fantastic time in the end and finished the stage with 100 penalty points (for missing the waypoint and a small fine for speeding). The coolant hadn't moved an inch and the car was okay, although we did lose the right hand wheel liner - presumably we didn't secure it well enough and the sand ripped it off.
Another good hotel in the middle of nowhere. I am not sure if I mentioned but we booked all of the hotels directly through the organisation and it was really well organised, all included dinner and breakfast and one of them was all inclusive....!
We grabbed a beer and waited some of our acquaintances to arrive. We could see from the tracking that there were big gaps - some people stuck in places and others closer to the finish, including Vali and Bobby who rolled in shortly afterwards....
Holy st. Yes that’s the top engine mount, power steering pump exploded and I cannot imagine what it must have been like to drive that the last 75km including the dunes with a belt in that state. Fair play to them… Luckily, they had one way of dealing with the stress of the situation:
Bobby is a keen alcohol maker and had brought 3 cases along of various fruit schnapps he has made in Romania. It certainly seemed to take the edge off their stressful situation.
A few to and fro between the local garage that the organisers recommend (each day they provide contact details for garages that can be used) and a visit from a mechanic confirmed they thought they could fix it overnight. Vali wanted it done so they could start the stage at 8am the following morning and requested it to be welded back together but the mechanics were insistent on sending someone to tunis to pick up a Dacia part from a dealer. We would see how this would turn out…
The organisers provide this truck that shadows the entire rally and is included in the fees you pay to get you out of danger. It was dispatched and took Vali and Bobby’s car away to the garage. Whether they would make the stage at 8AM, time would tell…!
So overall an eventful and exhilarating stage 2, onwards to the next stage – a sand only stage ending at the Bivouac in the middle of the desert.
We had left the coolant cap off over night and were relieved when we got to the car to see that the level had dropped only slightly, meaning that most of the air had hopefully had a good chance to escape. Being a wet intercooler on this car, it was actually a real pain in the arse to bleed it properly and had to resort to running the engine up late the night before with one of the hoses off the intercooler matrix and wasting a bunch of coolant, but we got there in the end and got it all back together.
The route and plan for the day:
235KM all in all, not including the route to the briefing at Mos Espa. Starting with a 10 metre dune bank and then heavily sanded tracks on and off through the day, this would certainly put our cooling system to good test...!!
Sunrise over a drastically different landscape from what we had left behind the day before.
The vast and open expanses of world you get on road trips that most of us europeans rarely get to experience - other than in choice parts of Spain I find..
Arrived at the briefing without a hitch (and the air con still working which we were impressed by given we had properly jostled the rads around the night before) and the camel checking out the competition. From here on in (not that it hadn't been the case yesterday) we would be watching that temp gauge like an absolute hawk. Thats something i'm used to anyway - having driven 4,000 miles round Europe in a 1981 Lancia Beta with the radiator fan wired into a bathroom light switch on the dashboard, and limped my round the world Mondeo across Australia with no fan in mid summer earlier this year - it just becomes part of the routine...!
I do admire camels, stubborn beasts. We keep horses and for the most part they are relatively compliant in most scenarios but these bad boys will decide when they want to work. And if it's a no, it's a no. Not uncommon to see these being lifted into the back of Hilux or L200s round these parts when they've decided that's their day over with.
Right star wars nerds - I have to admit, I have never watched any Star Wars and I am not a fan! However, today we started here in Mos Espa and would take in Luke Skywalkers house. That;s all I can offer.... feel free to fill in the gaps!!
A pointy thing. Wil was interested, being a star wars nerd himself, but I was more preoccupied with our first challenge of the day
This.
It's hard to put a scale on it in photos, but it was 12 metres high and at what felt like quite a scary angle. Just walking up it was hard so the nerves were beginning to set in for sure. A quick chat with big Nath and he thought we "would piss it" - his words not ours. Gun it in 2nd and hit it at 30-40kph on boost and we would be fine - he said. There was also the chickens route up a shallower bank if we didn't fancy it. We decided to watch the first few vehicles head up and see how they got on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE51vAv24-c
Our friends in their £1500 Shogun Sport - second attempt. Honestly a lot of vehicles were struggling - and I realised why afterwards - heading straight at what appears like a wall is disconcerting, you naturally wash off speed and then get stuck. Plenty of the bigger cars were going at it with some trepidation and immediately getting stuck, power was definitely the answer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV2zlTe3760
Other vehicles did it with out much effort at all....
Once again we patiently waited our turn to attack the Dune, mulling over whether to take the easy route or not. We had dropped the pressure to 8PSI to give us as much surface area as possible and agreed second gear on boost was probably the best option. Sadly we were just about to discover yet another "benefit" of the safety systems of modern cars.
We set off through the timing trap and picked a path of what we thought would be least resistance, picking up speed in second we held the revs at 2.5k RPM with the turbo ready to work, heading straight towards the sand wall and just before our front wheels hit the lip of the dune I gunned it and the Yeti shot up the dune like you wouldn't believe. Losing only marginal speed we continued flying up the 12metre wave of sand only to be bitterly disappointed as we reached the crest of the hill. As the front wheels touched the top lip/overhang, the engine died. Weird. Roleld back down, tried again, faster this time. Same impressive progress, same disappointing result.
What we discovered later was there is some form of tip angle sensor on the block that prevents it from attacking inclines like this, whether that be oil related or just anti-roll over - who knows. Sadly for us it meant the easy route was the only option and a penalty of 50 points !
Anyhow, after that slight disappointment we got onto some easier stuff and soon came across the only other competitors in our class - a 1994 Audi Quattro who had some issues. With no English between them and no Spanish between us we broke out the google translate and established soon enough that their gearbox had failed. They urged us to get going and we did so, up here was a bit of a motorway of tourist cruisers and other vehicles, a perpetual dust cloud.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRhczoAK0KY
A movie set or a gateway to the dunes? Maybe a bit of both.
We were making fantastic progress and the yeti was really coming into its own. We hit a 3km stretch of soft sanded track and whilst the Yeti was riding it like a Range Rover handles the M40, we did notice under boost the temperature was creeping up. Just loosening the pedal and dropping off peak boost sorted it right out. After the section was over and we were heading back onto asphalt for a stretch we checked the car for leaks and levels - no problems at all. I just don't think these cars are really designed to do this. On boost in tricky conditions in high temps, the water cooled intercooler sharing the engine coolant can't keep up and ends up throwing a spanner in the works.
How many British plate Yetis have been to Luke Skywalkers house?
Wil took the wheel here and it was my time to navigate, this is the view and a good overview of all of our kit. That's the Stella unit in the middle. Now I was the navigator, I was fully appreciative of Wil's navy background and his previous navigation to me. It's not easy!
The route at this stage was a mix of salt flats, undulating sandy tracks and rocky lanes, soon to be sandier, rockier and bumpier..!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H4HgSn9Zv0
Beautiful salt flats - an easy cruise at nearly 50mph. The limit for the trip was strictly 80kph off road. And road limits on road. Big penalties for exceeding them.
As well as physically navigating and advising the driver what he can expect, the waypoints are also extremely important as quite often there are zones of a few hundred metres or several kilometres with strict speed limits that must be obeyed. We had set up the twonav so that it beeped like crazy 300m before a waypoint, the stella would beep like mad regardless if the waypoint was considered dangerous - of which there were plenty on this day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WlSvrMCo4w
Making fantastic progress on the stage and really happy with the way the Yeti was going. At the 190km mark, we split off onto our Adventure C route, leaving the 4X4 to take a tricker dune track and us taking a flatter route.
Said tricky stage with a photo from Paul, lots of recoveries going on. Mat and Scott in the blue vitara actually had further issues - the gear selector / diff selector is all electronic on buttons and sand got into the electronics, later on in the stage they ended up totally stranded and had to be road towed to a garage near the hotel. I believe someone bodged the electrics to force it into 4 high at all times, which they'd have to make do with for the rest of the trip. Mat got back at around 1am, much to everyones relief.
The last 15km or so of the stage were some loosely marked dunes so don't have any pics other than this one. Wil was doing a great job getting us through them and frankly the Yeti was doing amazing. We passed two stranded Jeep Wranglers which goes to show how capable the Yeti is. You just have to pick what looks like a good line, just so long as you're within 250m of the planned route on the twonav/stella and within 50m of any waypoints. We really were starting to become amazed with the ability of this soft roader.
We made fantastic time in the end and finished the stage with 100 penalty points (for missing the waypoint and a small fine for speeding). The coolant hadn't moved an inch and the car was okay, although we did lose the right hand wheel liner - presumably we didn't secure it well enough and the sand ripped it off.
Another good hotel in the middle of nowhere. I am not sure if I mentioned but we booked all of the hotels directly through the organisation and it was really well organised, all included dinner and breakfast and one of them was all inclusive....!
We grabbed a beer and waited some of our acquaintances to arrive. We could see from the tracking that there were big gaps - some people stuck in places and others closer to the finish, including Vali and Bobby who rolled in shortly afterwards....
Holy s
t. Yes that’s the top engine mount, power steering pump exploded and I cannot imagine what it must have been like to drive that the last 75km including the dunes with a belt in that state. Fair play to them… Luckily, they had one way of dealing with the stress of the situation:Bobby is a keen alcohol maker and had brought 3 cases along of various fruit schnapps he has made in Romania. It certainly seemed to take the edge off their stressful situation.
A few to and fro between the local garage that the organisers recommend (each day they provide contact details for garages that can be used) and a visit from a mechanic confirmed they thought they could fix it overnight. Vali wanted it done so they could start the stage at 8am the following morning and requested it to be welded back together but the mechanics were insistent on sending someone to tunis to pick up a Dacia part from a dealer. We would see how this would turn out…
The organisers provide this truck that shadows the entire rally and is included in the fees you pay to get you out of danger. It was dispatched and took Vali and Bobby’s car away to the garage. Whether they would make the stage at 8AM, time would tell…!
So overall an eventful and exhilarating stage 2, onwards to the next stage – a sand only stage ending at the Bivouac in the middle of the desert.
Edited by idealstandard on Thursday 14th December 15:19
Edited by idealstandard on Thursday 14th December 15:41
Fishy Dave said:
I bought a Yeti last month
I prefer the look of the earlier cars, good buy.J4CKO said:
Hmm, reminded me of,
One of my favourite sketches from the fast show ha ha haferret50 said:
What an adventure, I do hope that you will not leave us all hanging like the Everest thread!
Will do my best to get the next few stages written up this side of the new year!EmBe said:
I shouldn't read threads like this on a Friday, I'll go to the pub tonight and start hatching palns with friends.....
Do it..!Fraser-c3mn0 said:
Any updates?
Hi mate, sorry for the slow updates... Xmas/new year and also had a robbery at work just before the holidays so been a bit full on!But I just downloaded some videos from the GoPro we took on Day 3 (which was all off road in the dunes to an off-grid bivouac night), will write up that day and it'll be mainly pics and videos.
Cheers
Sorry for the slow updates all, been a hectic few months at work and doing various other bits and bobs.
So Day three of the Tunisie Challenge was the shortest day of the trip - mainly due to the organisers wanting everyone to have as much time to enjoy at the Bivouac as possible.
The Bivouac is located off grid, about 60 miles from the Algerian border, in quite literally the middle of the Sahara.
The day started with a fuel stop at the only place in town where we bumped into our Italian friends
Burning about 300 litres a day, they needed their twin 250 litre fuel tanks. Still at Tunisian prices, 500 litres of diesel was only around £240.
Arrived in convoy at the start point - a camel racing track to the south of Douze.
Pandas, assemble!
And then it was time for the off. Today was a relatively straightforward easy day as i already explained, I have put together the start of the day and entry into the easy bits into a 3 minute youtube video, and also a view into how each stage starts. take a look:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wasFO9gXt7s
The start for the most part was really a case of maximising forward progress but staying far enough behind whoever was in front so as not to be completely enveloped in a giant dust cloud
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/2HerL89ZRvw
And whilst I say it was easy, it wasn't without it's challenges with pockets of fine sand on the roadway that would feel similar to hitting standing water on the motorway, definitely a two hands on the wheel job.
Soon we cleared the first sand stage and found a fast section of tarmac that linked us to the flats that would take us to the dune fields and the overnight stay.
After stopping to check this matey was okay - yet another failed fuel pump - we entered the wide open flats that would lead to the dunes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kon3e_O0RCQ
We were making good time and so of course we had to have a little play.
Once we were in the dune fields it was just a case of trying to pick a decent line - as long as we stayed within the allowed metres of the route, we would not get a penalty and it was really good fun. With 5km to go to the Bivouac we found about 10 stranded Pandas blocking the entire route - regrettably I did not have any charge left in the gro pros at this point because the route we forged around the Pandas was epic, sand flying everywhere and the yeti ploughing through some what felt like impossible stuff to get through with ease. Great car.
The Bivouac coming into view...
Like a campsite on Mars. this place was awesome.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/TXKtj_xmnJ4
^^ Great short of the view from the top of the dune, and the unspoiled Sahara all around. No mobile phone coverage here either which was great.
Sunset and the playground for the evening coming into view...
What was very cool was the organisers basically allowed anyone that wanted to unlimited attempts to try and get up the Dune, some with more success than others..!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7xot69Hbkg
Dodge RAM up the dune. Great success!
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LK8zosnc73g
M57 Patrol up the dune, not a great success although it did make it up shortly afterwards.
Vali and Bobby finally made it at sundown after their mechanics drove to Tunis overnight to get a new engine mount for their Duster.
Of course they gave the dune a go!! Also Yeti acting as a flood light at this point..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28wa_vie8Z4
Overall a fantastic night was had by all. And the field kitchen here turned out probably the best food of the entire trip. Cracking night.
I will write up the remainder of the trip and journey home as one when I get a chance as the next day onwards things didn't go entirely as planned!
Cheers
IS
So Day three of the Tunisie Challenge was the shortest day of the trip - mainly due to the organisers wanting everyone to have as much time to enjoy at the Bivouac as possible.
The Bivouac is located off grid, about 60 miles from the Algerian border, in quite literally the middle of the Sahara.
The day started with a fuel stop at the only place in town where we bumped into our Italian friends
Burning about 300 litres a day, they needed their twin 250 litre fuel tanks. Still at Tunisian prices, 500 litres of diesel was only around £240.
Arrived in convoy at the start point - a camel racing track to the south of Douze.
Pandas, assemble!
And then it was time for the off. Today was a relatively straightforward easy day as i already explained, I have put together the start of the day and entry into the easy bits into a 3 minute youtube video, and also a view into how each stage starts. take a look:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wasFO9gXt7s
The start for the most part was really a case of maximising forward progress but staying far enough behind whoever was in front so as not to be completely enveloped in a giant dust cloud
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/2HerL89ZRvw
And whilst I say it was easy, it wasn't without it's challenges with pockets of fine sand on the roadway that would feel similar to hitting standing water on the motorway, definitely a two hands on the wheel job.
Soon we cleared the first sand stage and found a fast section of tarmac that linked us to the flats that would take us to the dune fields and the overnight stay.
After stopping to check this matey was okay - yet another failed fuel pump - we entered the wide open flats that would lead to the dunes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kon3e_O0RCQ
We were making good time and so of course we had to have a little play.
Once we were in the dune fields it was just a case of trying to pick a decent line - as long as we stayed within the allowed metres of the route, we would not get a penalty and it was really good fun. With 5km to go to the Bivouac we found about 10 stranded Pandas blocking the entire route - regrettably I did not have any charge left in the gro pros at this point because the route we forged around the Pandas was epic, sand flying everywhere and the yeti ploughing through some what felt like impossible stuff to get through with ease. Great car.
The Bivouac coming into view...
Like a campsite on Mars. this place was awesome.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/TXKtj_xmnJ4
^^ Great short of the view from the top of the dune, and the unspoiled Sahara all around. No mobile phone coverage here either which was great.
Sunset and the playground for the evening coming into view...
What was very cool was the organisers basically allowed anyone that wanted to unlimited attempts to try and get up the Dune, some with more success than others..!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7xot69Hbkg
Dodge RAM up the dune. Great success!
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/LK8zosnc73g
M57 Patrol up the dune, not a great success although it did make it up shortly afterwards.
Vali and Bobby finally made it at sundown after their mechanics drove to Tunis overnight to get a new engine mount for their Duster.
Of course they gave the dune a go!! Also Yeti acting as a flood light at this point..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28wa_vie8Z4
Overall a fantastic night was had by all. And the field kitchen here turned out probably the best food of the entire trip. Cracking night.
I will write up the remainder of the trip and journey home as one when I get a chance as the next day onwards things didn't go entirely as planned!
Cheers
IS
Bonefish Blues said:
ETA
Worth the wait, thanks. Out of interest why so many fuel pump issues?
Edited by Bonefish Blues on Sunday 17th March 13:01
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