My first was driving over someone's lawn, but that's another story :wink: . I'm doing a video for a literacy group that sends book buses out into the country surrounding Appomattox, VA. The program director and scriptwriter had a cute idea using "over the river and through the woods" to illustrate their outreach. She wanted a picture of one of the buses forging Washout Gap on the Appomattox river. She offered up her Jeep, but I wanted to test the Element. She drove and I hung out the back videoing the bus driving through the woods and over the river. It's been raining here for a couple of days and the water was up but ahead we went, going and coming without incident. Afterwards the bus driver told me she couldn't see my back bumper and the lead Jeep reported the same for the front. That's why I bought the E! Woo hoo!

I'd say you had better rinse out the underside of the E really really well to get all the mud and muck off the suspension etc.

I have been mudding in 4x4s and its amazing how much weight you can gain doing that!

Very important to get all that stuff cleaned out as winter and salt is coming soon!

Rinse the undercarriage at least 2 or 3 times to get all the nooks and crannies clean. Also check the boots to make sure they did not get ripped.

Yeah definitely do that. I took a Liberty off-road the first day I got it and had mud under there for months! You think you might have it clean but you don't. I had rocks get wedged in the brake rotors I thought I had a broken caliper but it was just a rock.