Our Jimny month draws to an end with one last jaunt - up Klondyke Road near Port Waikato and into the strange and gnarly back blocks of the north Waikato.
We usually get media drive vehicles for a week or so, and that’s enough for first impressions to be noted. This longer exposure to a vehicle is an excellent way to gain insight into what it’d be like to own it and use it on the road and off.
It’s been an interesting month, using the Jimny as an owner would – day to day duties mixed with offroad excursions.
Let’s be clear. The lightest 4WD on the New Zealand market might be great fun as a three door, but it’s as a five door that it proves its all-purpose worth. More legroom, better cargo space and yet this is achieved without detracting from the vehicle’s essential ‘Jimnyness’.
Jimny – a tiny ball of fun – is totally unlike the 2.0-litre turbodiesel double cab 4WDs many of us drive – or desire.
It’s one of a vanishingly few ways to go offroading using a petrol engine. It’s available as a manual or auto. And it’ll go pretty much anywhere a diesel double cab 4WD ute will. In fact, its size means it’s often easier to guide through narrow tracks or bush trails, and its ‘wheel at each corner’ design means it’s absolutely painless to drive or park in the wop-wops or down at the supermarket.
Jimny’s size and its Swift-derived inline four-cylinder engine mean the driver is an active, engaged part of any drive. This is no torque monster. It rewards a driver willing to pay attention to what the vehicle is telling them
Sure, among the universe of aftermarket tweaks and accessories there are companies offering to turbocharge the engine. Good on them. A turbo powerplant adds grunt, but upsets the clever balance of the standard products, and invites the owner down the infinite wormhole of other stuff that ‘needs’ tweaking.
It’s better to save the turbo money and enjoy the Jimny as it stands. Buy a set of all terrain tyres instead.
For our final Jimny drive, we are heading down into the Waikato to try the Jimny – stock tyres and all – on a road beloved of adventure motorbike riders and stock trucks. There are also Lord of the Rings film locations here, where scarred limestone outcrops stick out of grassy fields like the bones of massive dinosaurs.
So. Klondyke Road connects Port Waikato with Onewhero, climbing steeply up into the hinterland and passing through the ancient volcanic caldera that built the high ground west of the Waikato River. Here, there are small blocks, big farms and forest blocks, all jammed together willy-nilly. The road itself is vulnerable to extreme weather events, and is never the same twice. Pheasants, goats, rabbits and quail burst out of the bush at every second corner, old derelict farm buildings abound, and every now and then there’s an ancient earthmover slowly rusting into the roadside. Everyone who drives this road and writes about this stuff has the guitar theme from Deliverance trickling through their heads.
Up and up we climb, with views north over the Waikato estuary and up to Manukau Harbour. A gaggle of touring riders passes, all on big BMW adventure bikes.
Around another corner we meet a boke in a ute coming down, turns out he’s acting as ‘point man’ for a big digger heading down to a transporter we saw at the intersection with the road to Port Waikato. Jimny squeezes in tight against the bank to let the digger pass.
We divert down into a skid clearing alongside one of the area’s big forestry block, grab 4-lo and tackle some interesting dozer-cut tracks. In low range the Jimny crawls along without a fuss. The low range switches off stability control, always handy in slippery going where a DSC system will clamp the brakes, interpreting wheel speed differences as a bad thing.
Another fun advantage of Jimny offroading: it’s usefully narrower than the average 4WD diesel double cab ute, meaning sticks and branches at the side of the track have minimal chance of creating unwanted ‘pinstripes’ in the clear-coat.
Fuel economy is a topic owners will debate endlessly over a beer and BBQ. The Jimny has been edging down the fuel stats since we’ve had it. We didn’t reset the fuel computer when we picked it up, preferring to deal with the existing fuel numbers. For the final week, though, we zeroed out the computer.
A couple of mostly-motorway drives in this final week brings a pleasant result. Not only is the Jimny’s manufacturer quoted figure absolutely achievable out in the real world, but for around 120km we actually got the number down even lower. The rated figure is 6.9l/100km. Pretty good, in fact the best number we’ve seen in a petrol 4WD.
And better than pretty much all the diesels we’ve driven this century. So it was fascinating to watch that number drop away on the motorway, ending the trip showing 6.5l/100km. Exceptional. The nicely modulated ‘feel’ of the accelerator helps, but we didn’t do any of the stuff they do on economy runs like folding in the mirrors, banning air conditioning or trundling along at 70km/h on the open road.
Conclusion
The five door Jimny is a refreshingly engaging drive, on or off the road. Its 4WD prowess is enhanced by its light weight and compact, wheel-at-each-corner dimensions. The driving position gives an excellent view of the road (or bog) ahead and the steering clearly communicates the terrain to the driver.
The three-door version has been an offroad legend forever. Now the five-door delivers more day-to-day practicality, more cargo space and more room for humans. As an alternative to the diesel double cab, this wee SUV really delivers.
