Brimont Brutt Experiences

We bought our Brutt last Summer and since December we are living in it… It’s the one with the strong VM motor… only very few of those exist… I like the power and coudn’t imagine having less power… 

With this thing you can climb up very steep hills without the need for the low gear. And in the sand you REALLY need that extra power… Especially if you put in all the differential breaks… you can’t believe how much more power you will need in sandy situations! 

We don’t have a shower, but that’s ok! 
We don’t have graywater, but that’s ok! 
We don’t have a real toilet, but that’s ok! 

We have a lot of space… 

A few things to consider if you travel into hot countries:  If you have a compressor fridge it’s going to consume A LOT of power! So much that it drains the batteries very quickly! 
We have a 280W solar panel and 3 105Ah Batteries and that’s not enough!  We met some people from the netherlands and they had the same problem… we have to turn off the fridge every night. it all worked in europe but down here it get’s really hot! 
Also: you need a lot of ventilators! We bought a very big 12v standard size for homes and that’s just enough. We also have several small ones for the cabin and while working.  Now we are comfortable… Don’t underestimate the heat :) 

We broke our rim 5 times! The roads are so bad and the car is a little to heavy so the rims kept breaking… so we were really lucky we had tires WITH tubes… fixing a tube is much easier than fixing a tire… speaking of rims: they are very hard to get… do you know a place to get them in europe? 

Before leaving we had to fix all the breaks (we bought new ones from bosh). we had to change the clutch (we revised it). The main break cylinder we took from a renault… 
with a little time you can get all the spare parts. and in spain we had to get a new cylinder head… luckily and suprisingly they had one… but VM has a lot of spare parts, so no problem… the transmission is from ZF… so no problem there as well.  I guess you still need a little guidance from above… otherwise traveling can be hard. 

And one time the pole from the differential to the wheel in the back broke:

So they had to take the whole axel away, go to a factory and fabric a new piece… it only took us 5 days, in the middle of the jungle..  The mechanic came only with a hammer and a screw driver… so take a good set of tools with you… luckily we had all the tools… 

It’s a fun car and people are not offended by it… for us the exterior looks a little rocked down… but for African people it looks like new… I guess it’s good that it doesn’t look that new… 

We had to get a new roof window… because cables are sometimes very low… then, in one situation we didn’t know where we were, so I’ve decided to put in the reverse gear and I still had the window on the top open… it cut off the top window… so we had to order a new one from home… it’s expensive… but luckily it wasn’t rainy season. 

Speaking of the rainy season: it’s bad! very bad! Never stay next to the sea because your car will rust faster than you can look… 

we like to be at the sea, but it comes at a ceratain cost: My Laptop is only working half. The radio broke.. everything rusts very very quickly! You will love everything that is in aluminum or stainless steal :)

and also: chemical toilets are not great… if you travel for a long time you will run out of chemicals… I would prefer without…

We only had 2 months of preparation and in that time we had to get the car up and running… only 2 days before we started our travel the car passed technical inspection… OMG… so my test ride, was to Africa :) but we only got to the middle of Spain where we had to change the cylinder head and the 4x4…

Speaking of that… our pump for the differential blocks is broken again! this thing is really not reliable… and also: we always have to put in the low gear manually… and if you plan to go into the sand: get a good pump, because you absolutely need to deflate the tires… our pump works great… without deflating the tires to about 1.5 bars, you get stuck instantly… that said: I wish we had other rims and tires… I wouldn’t put the originals on there again… they are way to small…

So I hope somebody can avoid some mistakes we’ve made and that you can fully enjoy your travel! 

But still: every breakdown of our car got us closer to the people! They can fix everything everywhere. No panic… It’ll happen and it won’t be bad… These are the adventures you’ll remember and you have to treat them that way :)