High and bumpy
When facing the Daily 4×4 for the first time, one aspect that immediately strikes is its impressive height. One must literally climb into the cabin, and it’s higher than you would expect as seen on the photo. Although the common Daily is a van, the 4×4 version definitely is and feels like a truck, offering a fantastic panoramic view on the road.
But everything has its pros and cons. Sitting on a driver’s seat some 1.7m above ground level, in combination with a relatively short wheelbase and harsh suspension, especially on the rear axle, results in a rugged and shaky ride on certain roads. On my test drive with a ute version of the Daily, the seller told me that the ride would become considerably better with a load on the back. This wasn’t really the case, as I experienced later. My first long distance ride, from the bodybuilder in Germany with an empty cabin on the back, was really disappointing.
Driving the Iveco home from the bodybuilder
Even after furnishing the interior, which meant another substantial addition of weight, the overall feeling behind the wheel wasn’t fundamentally altered. Especially concrete slab roads, as you find them a lot in Belgium and Germany, soon earn a bad reputation among any Daily 4×4 driver. The standard two-stage rear leaf springs turned out to be the main source of this stubborn behaviour. With the constant load of the cabin on its back, the rear leaf springs work precisely in the area where the first three linear springs touch the lower fourth, which is a heavy duty stiff spring.
Lovelier leaf springs
I found a partial solution through the installation of reinforced rear springs with a linear characteristic. They really made a big difference, but still didn’t resolve the problem completely. Nevertheless, the truck behaves reasonably well on tarmac, and somewhat unexpectedly, it does very well on dirt roads. Slightly deflating the tyres makes an immediate and huge difference, resulting in a much more supple suspension in cooperation with the highly twistable frame. So, the truck masters what it is meant for: effortlessly tackling demanding dirt roads and driving off-road.
Before buying a truck like the Daily 4×4, I would recommend that you take your time for a substantial test drive and adapt your expectations: in the sense that driving a 4×4 truck is something completely different than driving an off-road car. If you’re happy with that, then don’t hesitate to buy probably one of the most capable 4×4’s on the planet.
Although I didn’t test it, I expect the on-road ride of the new Daily 4×4 2019 to be completely different in a positive sense, as its front suspension very much resembles that of my previous Iveco 40.10WM (the military version), though comprising some disadvantages in terms of ground-clearance and overall off-road capability.
Long distances
As soon as you leave the bumpy concrete slab roads which I mentioned before, the ride of the Daily 4×4 feels much better. Once you’re used to how this truck behaves, it soon becomes a joy navigating it effortlessly over any terrain. On highways, a speed of 90 to 100 km/h feels very comfortable and at ease. Although this 10 km/h difference might already result in a steep curve of fuel consumption and tyre wear, mostly without arriving sooner at your destination. It seems better to adopt an unhasty overlander’s attitude and adapt to the rhythm of your fellow truckers on the road, whilst having enough power to overtake them when necessary. Indeed, in a way as fast as necessary and as slow as possible is definitely the right attitude, even on normal roads.
As the interior of the driver’s cabin is very comfortable, with firm suspended seats, a powerful air conditioner and very reasonable sound insulation (it’s only the Michelin XZL tyres that start singing at 80km/h), the Daily 4×4 turns out to be an eminently suitable and performant vehicle for overlanding purposes.