01About DownThunder
DownThunder is an Australian community for 4WD owners: member rigs and build sheets, a forum, places to camp and drive, aftermarket parts and reviews, and news. It is owned and run by Torsten Schmidt.
By using the site or creating an account you agree to these terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you don’t agree, please don’t use the site.
02Your account
Anyone 16 or older can join for free. A username is fine, but the details you give us, like your email address, must be true. One account per person, and keep your login to yourself: you are responsible for what happens under your account. Tell us straight away through the contact form if you think someone else is using it.
Your account is yours alone. You can’t sell, lend or hand it over. We may refuse a sign-up, and accounts that were closed for breaking these terms can’t come back under a new name.
We write to you at the email address you signed up with: account emails (confirming your address, login links, password resets) and, unless you switch them off, a few notification emails like a trophy you unlocked or a weekly digest of what you missed. Newsletters only come if you sign up for them. You choose under Lightnings; every newsletter has an unsubscribe link.
03Community rules
Keep it about 4WDs, offroading, camping and the gear that goes with it, and treat other members the way you would at a campfire. In particular, don’t:
- post spam, advertising or affiliate links outside the places meant for sellers
- abuse, threaten or harass anyone, or post anything obscene, racist, extremist or illegal
- post other people’s personal details, or photos and text you don’t have the rights to
- pretend to be someone else, or mislead people about a vehicle, part or place
- scrape the site, run bots against it, or try to break or overload it
04Your content
What you post stays yours: photos, rigs, reviews, forum posts, places and stories. By posting it you give DownThunder a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to show it on the site, to resize and crop it, and to use it to point people to the site, for example your rig as “build of the week” in our weekly round-up email or in a post about member builds, always with your username. The licence ends for anything you or we remove, except where it has become part of a thread or someone else’s post.
You promise you took the photos or have permission to use them, and that what you post is true as far as you know. Don’t put number plates, your home or other people’s faces in photos unless you’re happy for the whole internet to see them.
We don’t check everything members post before it appears and can’t vouch for it. Places and stories you send in are checked by a moderator or editor before they go live; they may shorten or correct them, or decline them with a note.
Some tools use AI. If you polish a rig photo, the new picture is made by Google’s Gemini from your photo; check it before you use it, and it’s yours like any other photo you post. Staff use Anthropic’s Claude to help write up places and news from public sources, and a person checks every one of those before it goes live.
05Gears, trophies & the Gear shop
Gears are points you earn for taking part: adding a rig, logging mods, reviewing parts and places, posting in the forum. You can spend them in the Gear shop on looks for your name and profile, and you unlock trophies along the way.
Gears have no cash value. They can’t be bought, sold, swapped for money or moved to another member, and they end with your account. We can change what earns Gears, the prices in the Gear shop and the trophies at any time, and take back Gears earned with content that was removed or by gaming the system.
06Sellers
Businesses can open a seller account to show their parts and details. Sellers give their business name and ABN when they sign up; we check the ABN’s format and a person verifies the business before it’s marked as verified. Verified means we believe the business is real, not that we recommend it.
Sellers must describe their parts honestly, keep prices and contact details current and follow Australian Consumer Law. Anything you buy from a seller is between you and the seller; DownThunder isn’t part of the sale.
Seller accounts are free today. If paid plans come, their price and terms will be shown before anything is charged.
07Places, tracks & safety
Place details, track notes, fees and reviews come from members, staff and public sources, and conditions change: tracks close, fire bans start, crossings rise. Always check with the land manager and current conditions before you go, and drive within your and your vehicle’s limits.
Nothing on DownThunder is professional advice about vehicle modifications, roadworthiness or insurance. Check mods with your state’s rules and your insurer.
08Ending your account
You can leave any time: ask through the contact form and we delete your account. Your profile, rigs and photos go with it; forum posts stay in their threads without your name, so the conversations still make sense.
We may suspend or close an account that breaks these terms, acts unlawfully, or puts other members at risk, and remove its content. Unless it’s spam or urgent, we usually tell you why first.
09Liability
DownThunder is provided as it is. We work to keep it running and correct, but we don’t promise it will always be available, error-free or complete, and we may add, change or remove features.
As far as the law allows, we aren’t liable for loss or damage from using the site or relying on what’s on it, including what members and sellers post and sites we link to. Nothing in these terms takes away your rights under the Australian Consumer Law.
These terms are governed by the laws of Queensland, Australia.
10Changes to these terms
We may update these terms as the site changes. The date at the top shows the latest version. If a change matters for how you use the site, we tell you on the site and by email at least 14 days before it applies; if you don’t agree, you can close your account before then. Small fixes, like clearer wording or a new feature’s rules, apply from the date at the top.
11Contact
Questions about these terms? Use the contact form and we’ll get back to you.