Does The Suzuki Samurai Pass or Fail the TFL Slip Test?

Check us out on:
and classic cars as well at:

[chucki]

Note to Suzuki: PLEASE BRING THE JIMNY TO THE US AS THE NEW SAMURAI! WE MISS IT!
I'd love to have an old Samurai, they are still cool to me.

[mrfingers]

A few mins with a welder and that little truck would blow your mind.

[BenjaminKehtler]

Good video but not a real life test. I own an 1986 Suzuki Samurai and it outperforms all terrain vehicles. I have never gotten stuck, I can go up hills with ease on gravel, dirt, mud, or snow. No problems whatsoever. Extremely capable offroad machines. The Jeeps go and hide when they see me coming!

[Nikephorus]

Such a cool little 4x4...wish they would bring the new Jimny to North America.

[tylerw]

The camera angle at 8:00 makes him look about 10'6" tall

[lavapix]

Those little things went anywhere. A friend had one back in the early '90s here in Hawaii. Uncomfortable as hell when 4 wheeling unless you stood up in the back or on the rear bumper. Super easy to do repairs. They were also popular rentals in the '80s and '90s. We would take it from sea level to 13, 700+ feet no problem.

[garyblatt]

Honestly, the little (Nathan Approved) Sammy is one tough 4X4. If this were off-road, you could work the terrain and rock the vehicle to get all the traction that you need. Great Video!

And... Happy Thanksgiving.

[jbird]

Once the wheels are spinning fast eventually the rollers start to slightly bind relative to wheel speed which would almost be like having traction. That's when the truck starts moving forward on the rollers

[HoosierDaddy_]

I'm patiently waiting for you guys to take the samurai on the dirt. Run every trail you can with it!

[davidblalock]

Two Detroit truetrac diffs and that little samurai will be the ultimate off road toy.

[mrad]

Love these roller slip tests. Can help to illustrate the difference powertrains and their strengths and weaknesses. Keep them coming!

[johnsimpsoniv]

I own a 1988 samurai JX with 10 inches of lift and 33/15.50/15's on it with all stock motor and trans/ t- case except for gasket matching the top end some mild porting and a aftermarket carb and even with the full open difs front and rear will outdo full size 4X4 's all day long. If you are a experienced driver it makes little difference to performance.

[OptimisticPessimist]

You guys oughta test out a Sidekick, Tracker, or Vitara one of these days! It’s a little bigger than the Samurai, but that size comes with a bigger engine as well. Coil spring on all 4 corners too, though they have independent front ends instead of being solid on both ends.

[abouttime]

HAPPY TURKEY DAY TFL. Can’t wait to see the Samurai on a true off-road trail. Gold Mine Hill maybe. Light weight is key.

[fredbrackely]

It reminds me of the Topgear police car episode "Ladies and gentlemen, officer Barbie has arrived." LOL

[PatrickRich]

The old left foot braking trick doesn't really do much without an LSD unfortunately. off roaders use it to force the good traction wheel to slow down and regain static grip on the good side but thats really more about managing wheelspin vs moving torque around. It worked so great on the hummer because the torsen LSD's had a super high bias ratio ~4:1 so X amount of force applied to both brakes produces 4X-X = 3 to the other wheel. With an open diff the equation is X - X = 0. You know what I would love to see Tommy? I would love to see the sami with both front wheels on the rollers compared to a crossover with the same setup, ideally one where you could press a "lock" button. And do it on the hill, I think it will be very telling.

[danielnagy]

Hello, and thank you for the test. I don't know what you ment as brake trick for a car with open differentials. Applying brake will take the same ammount of torque from both sides if brakes are good, so does close to nothing. This "trick" works with Torsen, Torsen-2 and the kinds of differentials, which will send a multiply of torque from the spinning wheel to the grabbing wheel. So if the ratio is e.g. 4:1, and you apply the brake with say 100Nm, then you take this 100Nm from the spinning one, but sending 400to the grabbing one, so achieving 400-100=300Nm of traction on the grabbing one.

The "trick" which might help with open differential is the following: Open diffs send equal torque to both wheels, so if no traction on one wheel, no torque on the other (only a little, by internal friction). But torque is required to spin up the spinning wheel (dynamic situation, rotational momentum). So if you try to increase the spinning wheel's rpm as quick as you can, during this period, the more torque will be seen by the grabbing wheel. So spinning the wheel from zero up to as high and as quick as possible, will send a certain amount of torque to the grabbing wheel and might unstuck the vehicle. (Sorry for possible terminoligy mistakes, I'm not a native speaker.)

[jameshall]

great little test for a little vehicle. put a lunchbox locker in the rear of that thing and you will have a completely different animal.

[santjojo]

Hi very comprehensive test..great. Can you please do these tests on the new Suzuki Jimny too.

[usergonemad]

Wish Suzuki would come back. The new Jimny might even pass crash tests, and some of the cars like the Kizashi and SX4 were remarkably good values.