4X4 Advice

[timf2009]

I've driven the Freelander 1 for the last 3 1/2 years and had no trouble with it. Here in Hungary many of the roads are dirt once you're outside the cities and it snows every winter.

When the main roads jam up I often take to the hills with it saving 1-2 hours of traffic jams. When the snow comes it's great to still be able to head uphill when most everything else can't! When this last lot of snow came I was away from home and drove back through it. It didn't once occur to me that I wouldn't be able to get home.

At the same time it's comfortable enough to handle long journeys - in 2009 I did two: 12 hour drive Budapest to Dubrovnik and 11 hours Budapest to Stresa in Italy.

Now I'm changing it and I looked at 2 possible replacements - the Freelander 2 and the Volvo XC60. The XC 60 has more toys but the Freelander 2 feels far more capable off the road and incidently addresses most of the niggles I had with the original one - namely basic inside and old fashioned styling.

The Freelander 2 gets delivered in 2 weeks or so.

Unless your girlfriend wants to go rockclimbing in it the F2 will do it. If not she needs a Defender!

Hope this helps

Tim

 

[Big Geordie]

Like DOC, I went for a Suzuki. A Grand Vitara. Fantastic. Does everything I ask it to do. When I lived on Jura & Islay it was superb on dirt tracks that used to peter out for a while.
In this snow its both light & strong with only a 1600 engine. Don't buy big buses unless you really need them! By the way I love Landys too.
G

 

[backwoodsman]

i have a rav4 and here in the scottish borders the past 3 weeks with all the snow, england the worse is still to come!!! it has performed exceptionally well, yes it has no low box but the gearing is different so 1st is a really low 1st ect.
and it gets 44mpg doing 55mph!!!!

 

[rancid badger]

got to agree with matt..the hilux range are very very good , felt like id lost my man bits when i sold mine ,but had to have a kiddie friendly motor so i baught a 3.2 frontera
lee

,Oh dear, have you seen this Lee?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCAWsVmrPqQ

sorryokenest:

I'll get my anorak now

The bloke driving it claimed 'it just went'. Well, its a totally flat piece of road, so he's either been going too fast or got very poor tyres fitted. They were certainly looking a bit cooked, by the time he got out of there anyway.

R.B.

 

[swagman]

Interesting that the best options so far all come from Japan, and mostly have the Toyota badge on the front. Lets also not forget that in Oz the Toyota is the desert barge of choice, so it must to pretty well in the hot/sand as well.

To the Hi Lux owners out there; what sort of MPG do you get and how big is the boot?

Chris

You are very right Chris . I have just come back to Tassie from a 3 month trip on the mainland and the vehicle of choise is nissan patrol or toyota land cruiser. Ask the locals why not land rover they will tell you because your life depends on your vehicle and sadly how ever good they are when there going right they are very unreliable.

But saying that out of the 4x4s mentiond and for the uk i would go with the suzuki vitara.


Rob.

 

[lee2205]

,Oh dear, have you seen this Lee?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCAWsVmrPqQ

sorryokenest:

I'll get my anorak now

The bloke driving it claimed 'it just went'. Well, its a totally flat piece of road, so he's either been going too fast or got very poor tyres fitted. They were certainly looking a bit cooked, by the time he got out of there anyway.

R.B.

what a doghnut id agree he was probebly going way to fast and it looks like he has a trailer hitched up which wont have helped matters
heres a couple of pics of mine
before major mods

after major mods

god i miss that truck
lee

 

[rancid badger]

Dear Me!

a lot less to bend after the mod's anyway

I rather like the look of that
Don't know about doughnuts but there was certainly some toasting!

atb

Steve

edited due to a dead link

 

[lee2205]

Dear Me!

a lot less to bend after the mod's anyway

I rather like the look of that

btw; did you check out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFIKa5WYaD4?
Don't know about doughnuts but there was certainly some toasting!

atb

Steve

definately less to bend lol. unfortunately i cant get the link to work mate
lee

 

[rancid badger]

Not sure whats off there but I can't get it to work either

Oh well, if you try the first link, then click on: 'more from: mrstalch' you'll be able to view it that way

atb

steve

 

[lee2205]

Not sure whats off there but I can't get it to work either

Oh well, if you try the first link, then click on: 'more from: mrstalch' you'll be able to view it that way

atb

steve

what a t**t lol i reckon there definately road tyres he running
lee

 

[Alexlebrit]

It's a bit hard to give any real advice when we don't know what she'll be using it for. If 95% of the time it's for on road then obviously that'd be a very different vehicle from something that's going to be seriously green-laned every weekend. You don't mention what she's driving now either. Is this for instance a response to the snow we've had recently?

But I'm going to put a +1 in for the Fiat Panda. If most of the time it's for nipping to the shops then the small size won't matter; Get the 1.3 MJ Diesel and get 45+mpg. Get the Panda Cross for something a bit chunkier, with Electonic Locking Diffs and you've got a very capable little off-road machine, epecially with the right tyres.

I'm hugely happy with mine, and it's been used off-road, both mud, and sand plenty of times. The winch isn't standard mind, and it's also had a lift and larger tyres.

And if you're not convinced, here's some curly-haired beardy bloke from Fifth Gear playing with a Range Rover and Panda in a quarry.

 

[_scorpio_]

my dad owns a land rover company so im obviously biased towards them, but some of these more road styled cars, like the one above, are the best if its only for the occasional muddy boot fair car park, so something like that one above, or a freelander 2 which is actually slightly worse off road than the rubbish freelander 1. and all though clarkson and folk call people who drive range rovers only to never use them off road all kinds of scum and the vast amount they are moaned about for their polar bear killing skills they are a great car for the school run and stuff because they are comfortable and spacious, and ours has helped countless passers by on our steep icy road (though everyone will start having a go at them again when their G-whiz isnt stuck and cold). they are good off-road to an extent but if you want the paintwork and style to still be there at the other end of the off-road track then your out of luck. and you may be put off by the price for a new high spec one at around £60,000 - £80,000 but you would have to be pretty careless with your money to buy a new one, when they de-value by 30%+ as soon as they have left the showroom. our 5 year old 2nd hand range rover was £11,000 and has very few scratches and it could look new after a good scrub if you didnt look at the number plate. for hard off road you want a defender 90 that has had a 2" lift kit fitted, decent tires, snorkel, etc. or a lightweight defender which you can pick up for about £3,000 or a suzuki of some kind, those things really fly over bumps but their lightweight-ness can have some drawbacks.
blah blah blah blah landrover blah blah blah off road blah blah blah.
dont panic buy for snow conditions, if its just for that get a good gripping pair of boots.

 

[Ironside]

The Rav is a good one. Myself I have a Kia Sorento. Brilliant car for the money and it has done evrything I want for the last 4 years, towing, offroad and has been great in the recent snow.

 

[Alexlebrit]

Don't want to get into a slanging match, but do want to leap to the defense of the "more road styled car" and its abilities to get far beyond a muddy boot fair car park. It's not for nothing that the Italian police use Pandas to get far into the Alps.

Yes, I know it's not a Landie, but with the right boots on for the job mine's been a godsend this last week getting me through all sorts of snow and ice and managing to yank some other soft-roaders far bigger than itself out of ditches and snow banks. (Although attempting to winch the EdF's Unimog out did defeat it I'll admit).

That said in the deepest snow we had (2 foot plus) the one car that went anywhere was my Barbour converted 2CV 4x4.

But then that may be because she's currently shod with tractor tyres.

http://www.studioru.co.uk/morvan2009videoa.html

 

[delbach]

Being fair to my girlfriend she was talking about a 4x4 before the bad weather.I'm sure there is a lot of people who are considering getting one after this bad weather.The reason she fancies one is more room,plus we are on the verge of starting work on a small holding with her sister and her family so it will have to work for it's keep.If it was up to me we'd get a Defender with a crew cab,but i don't drive and she earns the good money so to be fair it is her desicion
Andrew

 

[delbach]

Don't want to get into a slanging match, but do want to leap to the defense of the "more road styled car" and its abilities to get far beyond a muddy boot fair car park. It's not for nothing that the Italian police use Pandas to get far into the Alps.

Yes, I know it's not a Landie, but with the right boots on for the job mine's been a godsend this last week getting me through all sorts of snow and ice and managing to yank some other soft-roaders far bigger than itself out of ditches and snow banks. (Although attempting to winch the EdF's Unimog out did defeat it I'll admit).

That said in the deepest snow we had (2 foot plus) the one car that went anywhere was my Barbour converted 2CV 4x4.

But then that may be because she's currently shod with tractor tyres.

http://www.studioru.co.uk/morvan2009videoa.html

That is brilliant a 2 CV 4x4
Andrew

 

[Martyn]

Ahhh, to hell with it, get her a defender, they are just so much fun....

and those flat wing tops are just made for one job....

 

[jonnno]

I'd have a vague vote for the Hyundai Tucson. We have one and it's great for long road drives, has loads of room inside and does me nicely down the odd forest track or getting the canoe to the water side.

Was blummin brilliant in the snow too. We had it across Scotland at Xmas and with some of my dodgy navigating we ended up down some untreated country roads and it was great.

 

[swyn]

Alexlebrit reminded me of the Fiat Panda. For folks that are not in the loop of information on the Panda.

Steyr Puch are the engineering and manufacturing company.

This little vehicle has a BIG BROTHER.....sold as the Mercedes Unimog a virtually unstoppable lorry.(like the Bedford MK but better) Its cousin is the Pinzgauer and in early guise was the fantastic and fun Haflinger (c 1959!) which are sometimes seen at off road trails and if competing, always take the top trophy. Watch the passengers face to see the expressions when going over a difficult obstacle!

I'm not up on the new model but would consider the older model if I was looking for a small reasonably inexpensive 4X4. I think that there is a wealth of spares in second hand world too as they did suffer from that Italian disease....Rust! Worse than any LR!

 

[Peter_t]

the Steyr Puch vehicles really are the muts nuts!
i work with a guy who has a pinzgauer with a tipper truck convertion. it really is unstopable and reliability is seccond to none.

i will have to get a picture somtime...


imo unless you need the towing capasity of a big 4x4 stick with the small suzukis or similar. if you are just worried about snowy roads but need a big car how about a 4wd estate car? much more practicle


pete