I stuffed my spare tire pretty badly and it isn't fool proof underneath like I thought lol. I had it in off-road height and Sand mode well before this section in the center bottom of the pic. Turned off Sand mode to Normal, waited for the mode change confirm message in the DIC, then stared at the off-road height icon reflecting UP position. Stared at it even longer, then even more. It never changed position so I start driving and forget all about the f Sand mode to Normal mode drops the suspension later?
Not sure but you can see the spare tire ring in the dirt when it hit and bottomed out in the rear. It stopped the truck even though it wasn't going that fast lol Thinking about it in hindsight, the automatic suspension raise mechanism didn't fire. Maybe that is only for the front to raise up if it detects high centering?
I was thinking about putting a water tank underneath where the spare tire is now and then retrofit a battle bumper with nato water and fuel can mounts lined up across the width. The water tank would need to be pretty beefy if I make another mistake like that. The spare came loose and bobbled around. It will go through the washout fine in off-road height.
@powershift
That (back end "snow angel" in the dirt) has happened to me too - only in deep sand (so no risk of breaking anything down there in the wheel well). My fault (as usual): I basically dug myself into the sand.
So you bring up a couple good points and advocacy for the "rear tire carrier" debate.
First, the tire can get banged up down there...but they seem to do alright (I don't personally know of anyone who has wrecked a spare). That said, the stupid gear/wheel winch assembly CAN break and HAS broken on me (NOT my fault this time...some dumb person used a drill drive and striped it when changing the tire). That makes that part useless if you do strip it.
Second, there is a very excellent argument (which I support in concept) to be made in order to use the under-body space for something else (like water or fuel). That would be the best place to put heavy stuff given the center-of-gravity for the truck. However, I do not personally know of someone doing water tanks there (great idea though!) and have only read of one person with an LR4 who put a secondary fuel tank there (which was apparently really complicated since it was for a diesel DISCO3 in AUS).
Finally, for those who think putting a spare tire on the roof (rack) is a good idea: I disagree. I have done this myself and my conclusion is that it is the least preferable option. If ever, I would recommend putting just a tire (carcass) up there. To begin, a full sized wheel and tire is a lot of weight up that high. This puts a lot of weight on your roof rails (too much) and again messes with your CoG. Then, if that thing gets loose - you have a really heavy identified flying object...which cannot possibly end well. And for the last thought on that...getting it up there and then getting it back down really sucks (and is a little bit dangerous) and is a two-man only job (unless you throw the thing off...which I would also not recommend). Whenever I was taking the wheel off of the LR4 (with all the glass everywhere), I had visions of me dropping it and shattering a window. Over time, those visions cured me of that idea (to put big, heavy things up there and contributed to me getting the heavy duty bumper with carrier).
All of those instances are good reasons why to use the carrier in addition to not having to pull all of the junk out of the back - photo of me changing out a tire I shredded (driving too fast) in Africa (years ago) below. This was a long-distance, off-road trip and so the back was full...meaning what you can't see in this photo (next-to the passenger side rear wheel) off in the ditch on the left is all the junk I had to pull out of the back in order to get the spare wheel down. So I know and am well versed in that particular need!
But in the end, the steel bumper just looks the coolest.
Still no regrets for me getting the bumper. You get used to using the swing arm (but my wife refuses and still detests it). It is really not that big of a deal (and even better for those folks who dismount it).
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