The 4WD Blog

In a shrinking market for offroad vehicles,  illustrious 4X4 specialists manufacturers Jeep and Land Rover have announced plans to save costs by co-developing future models.    Perhaps spurred by the acclaimed success of the Toyota/Subaru sportscar collaboration that produced the 86/BRZ, the companies today released a joint press statement outlining details of the new venture.

Why is buying a new car sometimes so hard?

Manufacturers go to great lengths to acquire customers.  That's what all that advertising, public relations and carefully cultivated brand image is all about.  Every manufacturer has teams of people dedicated to the task here in Australia, at the corporate head office, and in every country around the world.  Aside from the internal team there's yet more money spent with all manners of agencie from designers to advertisers to brand managers, and of course apparently paying journos like me all manner of bribes.  Public relations and marketing is a big business and very important to the manufacturers as it is how they gain that ever so critical market share.

Land Rover has revealed Australian specifications and pricing for the much-vaunted new Range Rover.

Hi newbie here, I have a question: I have a NP Petrol Pajero, which I want to take off road, I am about to get a 2 inch lift kit fitted, but was wondering if I can improve the footprint of my tyres ( I am aware of increased footprint with decreased pressures ) , I have 265/70 R16s (112S) at the minit can I increase the footprint without having to increase my rim size and without screwing up my wheel arches and driveability?

Time for another set of tyres for the Discovery, and this time the experiment is switching from mud-terrain to all-terrain, and a more road-oriented than most all-terrains.  In fact, this set of tyres be the most road-oriented I have run on the Discovery, or for that matter sany other 4WD I’ve owned.   I’m doing this based on interest in the switch, and because I’m finding the newer vehicles are amazingly capable on road-pattern tyres. 

Every tyre wears out, and at that point you need to make a decision about what the replacement will be, not just the brand but also the tread pattern and construction.  The first tyre we ran on the D3 was the 255/55/19 Goodyear MTR, but as I’m not a fan of low-profile tyres those were quickly replaced with General Grabber AT2s, in passenger-reinforced construction and a sized of P-XL265/65/LT17 (passenger construction, extra-load).

General Grabber AT2s

In an interesting development Ford have re-rated the 4X4 and 4X2 Hi-Rider Rangers to an maximum trailer towing rating (ATM, or Aggregrate Trailer Mass) of 3500kg from 3350kg, an increase of 150kg.  Obviously this is in response to the increasing competition in the ute market for towing capacity, with the Colorado's 3500kg rating as one example.

This new rating applies to new Rangers with a build date post November 1st, 2012.

There is no way to re-rate older Rangers because Ford days "the upgraded towing capacity is the result of structural chassis changes including changes to the welding patterns and welding points."

The Amarok has an unusual button.  It's maked "Offroad", and it's incorrectly named as it should be called "Dirt Roads and Stuff". 

The button has two functions - first of it it enables the "downill driving assistant" which is better known to everyone else as Hill Descent Control, which is Land Rover's name for it.  The second function it performs is to recalibrate the ABS system so it performs better on dirt roads.

ABS is there to prevent wheels locking when you brake.  This is so that you can retain steering control when braking hard, as a locked wheel means you've lost any hope of steering.  The ABS system has wheel speed sensors which detect a wheel about to lock and release the brakes fractionally and momentarily,

Volkswagen’s Amarok TDI420 is an offroad car of the future, and it has annoyed me.

Offroaders are lovable people so naturally you’d want to buy them a gift or three.   But before you go madly spending truckloads of cash, please take heed of some gift-buying advice so your efforts to put a smile on that 4WDer’s dial are well rewarded.

The problem is that offroading is a technical hobby which means there’s lots and lots of gear to buy, and that means it’s easy to make the wrong choices, with “wrong” being not what’s wanted.   And it gets worse, because every 4WDer has their own special preferences about brands, types, models and everything else you can imagine.  

Read this first:

http://www.theherald.com.au/story/406646/opinion-a-plague-on-all-4wd-outhouses-on-wheels/?cs=308

I've seen some bizarre things on the roads but yesterday was a first.

Cruising at 110 on the Calder.  Sunny day.  Dry.  We're on our way to a nice little gathering.  All's well.  

Then we notice a couple of cars slewed to a halt in front, stationary.  Not good.

It's been a long while coming, but at last there's a light-truck construction tyre for an 18" rim, as opposed to the weaker passenger construction (P) or extra-load (XL) tyres we've had till now.  This is the Bridgestone D697, the successor to the D694.

Here's a question recently posed on the Facebook page:

This vehicle is stuck and needs a 1500kg pull to move. A bridle has been used as part of the recovery system. What is the total load on each of the recovery points?
a) 3000kg
b) 1500kg
c) somewhere between 750 and 1500kg
d) 750kg
e) something less than 750kg

In a move that has been on the horizon for some time, Land Rover Australia have dropped the 2.7L TDV6 option from the Discovery 4 lineup for MY2013.  The 2.7L engine has been around since the first days of the Discovery 3, and indeed lives on in a form as the diesel Territory’s powerplant.  Other markets such as UK have never had the 2.7 in the D4, where the vehicle is offered with only the 3.0L turbodiesel in two states of tune, 155Kw / 520Nm and 180Kw / 600Nm.   Australia has had the 180Kw version (well, no

This Pajero is winching a tree away from a track.

Everyone makes mistakes.  I’ve made some in my book, which is why I have an errata page.   Automotive manufacturers are no different, which is why cars are recalled on occasion.  But sometimes the error isn’t about a manufacturing fault, as was the case with the recent Holden advert for the new Colorado.  Several people jumped all over Holden, including me, and rightly so.

UPDATED 11/10/2012:  Nissan’s Y62 Patrol, the successor to the popular GU was released to the world back in 2010.  But it’s taken three years to make it to Australia, surprising considering that 25% of all Patrols ever sold have been Australian.

Land Rover’s DC100 concept has been around for just over a year now, so it’s an appropriate point to reconsider the design, now we’ve had the time to get used to it, and perhaps a little of the shock has worn off. And what a shock it was!

The humble tent peg has been around ever since tents were invented, and it’s remained the same through the ages. It’s simple, works pretty well and hasn’t desperately needed improving. But now there’s two better pegs, and that’s good news for all campers.