The friends I wheel with and I have had a few notable incidents. None of these were "end of the world" type of problems, but they are examples of the types of small issues that can be a hassle.
- At night on the way to Niagara Rim the power steering pulley on my old ZJ exploded and it threw the belt. There was no possible trail fix, but luckily it happened outside of Manteca so I was drug into town using a recovery strap and then called AAA to get towed home.
- Another time on the way to the Sourgrass Trail the thermostat on the ZJ seized in the open position and it started majorly overheating. Luckily I had a spare thermostat and some RTV and was able to fix it.
- Then the shaft of a shock on the ZJ broke at the beginning of the Deer Valley trail. It was a rear shock so I pulled it off and drove the trail and then all the way home without it.
- A friend had the alternator fail on his Pathfinder in the middle of Death Valley. The solution was to swap batteries with another truck periodically until he could reach a town.
- The same friend had a front shock mount tear out of his fender resulting in the top of the shock smacking all over when he drove (also in Death Valley). Solution was to pay the guy who maintains the golf karts in Furnace Creek a few bucks to temporarily weld it back in place.
- Same guy had his radiator fail way out in the backcountry in Death Valley (noticing a trend here?). He and a friend were driving alone, and ended up putting all their drinking water into the radiator and then shutting off the engine when going downhill until they made it to the hot springs where they loaded up on more water and eventually made it into a town.
- Same guy broke a front half-shaft on the Elephant Hill trail in Canyonlands. It was over 100 degrees out so we had people hold umbrellas up for shade while we removed the broken part of the shaft so that he could continue in 2 wheel drive. Later that same trip he had a tire go flat and had to run a 31" spare with his three 32" tires. This is rough on your differential since it has to compensate for the different diameters. The moral of the story is to have a spare tire that is the same size as your other tires.
- A friend's Trooper had a habit of spitting out springs when the rear end was heavily flexed out. Solution was to high lift up the rear and use a pry bar to get the spring back in. This happened near the north end of the Slick Rock trail. That same trip he tore off his front bumper cover (we tied it on his roof) and tore one end of his rock slider off the truck's frame.
- On the Barney Riley trail a friend's XTerra stripped out all the bolts on a front locking hub leaving him with only 2wd. Luckily I had brought a drill and some ez-outs and he had spare bolts.
- The same friend pinched his exhaust tip shut on Golden Spike in Moab and the engine had too much back pressure to run. We had to cut the end off with a hacksaw.
- Another time the same friend ran over a stick which jumped up and tore out the air lines for his lockers, leaving him with open differentials. This could have been prevented by routing the air lines up higher and putting them on top of or inside the frame so they were protected. Also, be careful when driving over large branches in the trail, if you only drive on one side the other side can lift up and damage the bottom of your truck.
- Another friend's spindle nut was improperly torqued and the resulting wear on the bearing almost caused his 39" tire to fall off at night on highway 4. He had to be flat towed home.
I've also been involved in the recovery of 2 rolled vehicles. Both had to be towed, and both rolls could have easily been prevented by a little common sense.
After taking the time to write up this list it makes me realize that in my experience major issues are somewhat rare, but there a lot of small issues that can really ruin your trip if you aren't prepared to deal with them.
