5 ways to save weight with your 4X4

GVM concerns keeping you awake at night? Or just trying to cut the fuel bill? Here's 5 tips and tricks to save weight with your 4X4

We’re not trying to fat shame you here, we’re not that kind of publication. But we can all agree that our 4X4s are starting to lean a little on the fluffy side. There’s no judgement. It’s easy to let slip when you’re not paying attention. A new roof rack here. A flash set of storage drawers there. Before you know it your 4X4 needs to punch a few extra notches in its belt and you’re dodging the weighbridges like your dodgy mate Kenno hiding from the bookies on payday. Sooner or later it’s going to end in strife.

So what’s a 4X4er to do? Surely we’re not suggesting you leave that extra case at home right? And ditching your trick custom front bar for an alloy unit isn’t going to get the job done either. We’ve got a few unique ideas you can employ to save weight depending on your budget.

Step 1 – Think about what you’re packing

This is probably the cheapest modification you can make to cut down weight, but it’ll seriously add up. Stop for a minute and think about what you’re packing. The weight of an empty bottle of beer is around 200g. For a typical case of 24 that’ll be just under 5kg alone in dead weight. By comparison, an empty beer can is around 14g. You’d need to carry 342 beer cans to get to the same dead weight.

Sure, beer cans alone won’t save your back side. But look at all the odds and ends you’re loading up. Heavy jackets rather than thermals. Multiple quilts instead of a decent sleeping bag. Gas bottles and big cookers when a camp fire bbq plate could get the job done. There’s a lot of weight savings to be had before you start looking at big ticket items.

Step 2 – Leave the tanks empty

When you’re travelling through the back of Bourke decent fuel range is an absolute must-have. But realistically you won’t need that extra capacity until you’re well out there. Take an Everest for example. Stock, they run an 80L tank. Ford reckons you’ll get nearly 900 kays out of a tank stock. Knock that back to a more realistic 600km for a loaded tourer and you’re still golden without the extra 44kg of weight filling a 125L fuel tank will add.

The same goes for your water tanks. If you’re boogying to the Simmo at a rate of knots and camping up in a caravan park or out the back of a pub every night you don’t need 100L of water on board. Fill your tanks at the last reliable source and you can easily save 100kg of weight for most of your trip without costing you a dollar.

Step 3 – Take a look at lightweight gear

Alright, we’re starting to run out of free options. You’re going to have to swipe the credit card here. Camp furniture weighs an absolute tonne. A big flash camp chair can weigh up to around 6.5kg alone. Throw four of them for the family in the back of your rig and you’ve quickly eaten up around 25kg of payload just in camp chairs. By comparison, a lightweight camp chair can weigh as little as 1.3kg. Across the family that’s nearly 20kg of savings just by using a different camp chair.

Tables are a bad offender too. That cheap $40 moulded plastic table from Bunnings on your roof rack will give plenty of storage, but will run you around 12kg for the pleasure. Using your tail gate and a smaller lightweight table can weigh less than 1kg. So far, by being a little creative and spending a few hundred you’ve been able to knock nearly 150kg off your payload. When most 4X4s have anywhere between 600-1000kg max that’s a huge savings.

Step 4 – Modern recovery kit

If you’ve skipped lunch and made sure to use the loo before setting off and your rig is still overweight it’s time to start getting serious. If your winch is running old-school steel cable strip that straight off and drop it into your local metal recyclers. Swapping a steel cable out for a synthetic offering is not only significantly safer when placed under load, it’s also up to 15kg less hanging off your front bar.

That’s just the tip of the spear though. There’s weight savings to be had by running kinetic recovery ropes over snatch straps. Soft shackles over steel bow shackles. Alloy receivers over steel. You can easily save around 30kg here and give yourself a safer setup in the process.

Step 5 – Switch to lithium

Let’s get one thing clear right from the get-go. This one ain’t going to be cheap. There are a few factors at play with lithium power that makes the weight savings far larger than they might first seem. Comparing lithium batteries to absorbed glass matt (AGM) amp hour to amp hour gives lithium a massive lead. The AGM Century battery C12-105XDA has a weight of 29kg for 105Ah. By comparison, the lithium Century battery C12-100XLI weighs in at 13.5kg for 100Ah. That’s less than half the weight.

The major difference though, is you can draw a lithium battery down far lower than an AGM or lead acid battery. Realistically, that 105Ah AGM will only give up around 50Ah before it switches off. Vs 80-90 for the lithium. To get 200Ah of usable power, you’d be looking at 33.75kg with lithium, or 116kg with AGM. It’ll cost you a small fortune, but give huge savings.