Regardless of where you’re reading this from, if you’re in North America you’re probably freezing your ass off right about now. The only people getting off easy this year are in Southern California, Florida, and parts of Georgia and Alabama. My relatives in Houston are having to freeze-proof their house for the umpteenth time this winter, and Los Angeles didn’t reach 70° F in all of February for the first time in modern history.
That means many places have enjoyed more snow-covered days this winter than they’ve had in the past few years combined. And as off-road enthusiasts, we’ll take any excuse to break out a four-wheel-drive vehicle and spin some tires. It’s got us thinking about how sweet those donuts would sound with open exhaust and how muddy the local trails must be right now, and it turns out we’re not the only ones.
This is Roxor Weekly.
Taking Delivery of a Pallet Full of Roxor Parts
We’ve all dreamt of getting an entire pallet full of parts in the mail. Lucky for us, people like Red, White, & Roxor are out there living the dream with camera in hand.
In this video, we follow Ryan’s trek through the rice fields of Louisiana to his local FedEx distribution center where a tightly-packed pallet of parts is lifted into his truck via forklift. Why a forklift? Because this shipment of goodies weighs a little over 200 pounds – and the heavy-duty bumpers are the main reason why.
Ryan estimates that “you could back over trees with these things,” and considering their combined weight is somewhere around 140 pounds, that’s probably not far from the truth. The pallet is so large that it doesn’t even fit in the bed with Ryan’s toolbox, but save for a repairable dent on the exhaust everything made it home just fine.
Here are all the goodies in Ryan’s order:
At 11 minutes in we see the finished product: Project Woodrat is looking like a proper off-road machine.
As we see throughout the video, the bumpers and hitch are a trouble-free installation. If you’re a DIYer yourself, Ryan says you can install all these parts without needing much in the way of instructions. What you do need you can get from this video – Ryan is full of advice and suggestions to make your installation go even smoother than his.
Want to see the exhaust in action? Sit tight, we’re saving the best for last.
Cold Starting a Roxor in Frigid North Dakota
This ridiculous winter means that many of you have probably tried to start your Roxor (or your car) in lower-than-usual temperatures, but unless you live as far north as Abiez you probably haven’t been exposed to temperatures at or below -5° F. And as this video shows, trying to start a car in those frigid temps without taking the proper preparations may not end the way you hope.
What are the proper preparations, you ask?
A block heater, for starters. A block heater is a nifty device that replaces a freeze plug in the engine block with a heating element. It plugs into shore power at the other end. In other words, it allows you to use any 120 V power source from your home, work, or anywhere else to keep the engine block warm enough that it’s much easier to start in cold weather.
It would also help to buy an improved battery with higher CCA (cold cranking amps) than the factory battery. Mahindra offers a higher-capacity battery through dealers, but it’s most likely going to be cheaper to get one somewhere else instead. Finally, switching out your warm-weather oil for a less viscous oil, like 5w40, will aid in cold starts. You’ll just want to switch that out again come summertime to maintain optimal performance levels.
Installing Dirt Legal’s Roxor Heater Kit
Speaking of freezing, the team at Platinum Off Road has just completed a heater installation on a client’s Roxor. Which heater kit did they choose? The Dirt Legal Gen 2 Roxor Heater Kit, of course!
The #1 question we get about this kit is “Do I have to drill into my Roxor?” There’s no getting around it – you definitely have to bore a few new holes in that precious metal. But overall, installing this kit is something the regular DIYer is perfectly capable of achieving. This video shows every step of the installation in extreme detail so that anyone can install this kit with ease.
If you’re considering installing one of these kits in your Roxor, watch this essential walkthrough first. The Platinum team describes in detail drilling the mounting holes for the heater core, running the coolant lines, creating new holes in the dash for the vents and switchgear, and tidying the job so it’s indiscernible from a factory installation.
So go ahead and drill those holes. Your fingers, toes, and face will thank you, and you’ll be free to explore the winter wonderland without fearing the frigid winter air.
Exploring Snow-Covered Nevada by Roxor
Now that you’re on the road in your warm and cozy Roxor, the world’s your oyster. That also means this winter’s record snowfalls in the American deserts shouldn’t stop you from taking in some of the most sweeping views this country has to offer.
There’s beauty in every corner of the world – chances are there’s something you’ve never seen before just around the corner from your house – and there’s no time like the present to go out and discover it.
This short clip should inspire anyone with a pulse to get off the sofa, get in their car, and drive somewhere cool.
Outdoing UTVs Off-Road in Arizona
Speaking of the desert, father of the year Arizona 1266 is back again. This time, the Roxor community’s favorite father-son duo are taking on partially-melted mountain trails in what they’ve quite accurately dubbed Slushmageddon.
As you watch no less than three side-by-sides fail to climb a slush-covered hill in the first minute of this video, you might not believe this Roxor has stock tires, stock suspension, and stock open differentials. As the white paint turns to brown, several slop-covered side-by-sides fall victim to the treacherous trails – but not the Roxor.
Driver and passenger soon encounter what appears to be someone going the wrong direction in a UTV, only to come across a pair of oncoming Jeeps just moments later. Turns out people were going back down the mountain en masse after the trail got too slick for anyone without locking diffs to proceed. And though the Roxor soldiered on undefeated, it was eventually forced to turn around.
Near trail’s end, nearly a dozen vehicles were bunched up at a high-altitude water crossing. Some were turning around, but according to Arizona 1266 that crossing was about an hour away from swelling up so high they’d all be sitting in water. Wisely, the Roxor headed back down to more stable ground, having conquered most of the Backway to Crown King in about the worst conditions imaginable.
So if you’re sitting at home making excuses – “I’ll go off-roading once I get my locking diffs” – it’s high time you got out there and got muddy.
This Straight-Piped Mahindra Roxor Sounds Like Freedom
We’re back to the goodies Red, White, & Roxor picked up in the first video, and there’s an entire second video dedicated to what’s possibly the most exciting thing on the whole pallet: a RXR Performance 2.5” Straight-Pipe Full Exhaust.
This video starts with a complete walkthrough that explains how to install the exhaust. It’s a fairly straightforward affair with stock hardware reused in many places. The most difficult parts of the installation appear to be removing the stock muffler and lifting the new downpipe into position if you’re by yourself. Just be sure to not tighten anything down until the entire system is positioned where it needs to be.
This free-flowing exhaust is proven to make higher power and torque numbers on both stock and chipped Roxors, but the real reason most people will want one is because of the noise. The beautiful, patriotic, unmistakable noise. Anyone in a half-mile radius will know there’s a diesel around, and that turbo whine is a dead giveaway that the Roxor is most definitely not a Jeep.
If you just want to hear this baby purr already, skip to 9:15 for some straight-piped turbodiesel goodness.
New Videos Every Week
That concludes a very cold edition of Roxor Weekly, brought to you by Dirt Legal.
If you’ve been tempted to drive your Roxor on the road this winter, Dirt Legal can help. We’ll get you a title, license plate, and registration to help make your Mahindra Roxor street legal anywhere in the United States. You’ll receive a title in your name, registered to your home address, all in a matter of weeks. No inspections and no trips to the DMV. Click the button below to learn more.
Follow Roxor Weekly
You can follow our blog through the Dirt Legal Facebook page, and be sure to tag us in your Mahindra Roxor pictures and videos for a chance to be featured in upcoming articles.
Cover image courtesy of @on_the_rox_fab
Buckle up as we recap the best Roxor videos, news, and speculation of Summer 2019 so far.