Land Rovers

Honestly I didn't realize how tough the roads out there were. The locals drive on thinner higher profile tyres with less air in them than we are used to. They also carry 2 spares on rims. It was a real education. The guy in the Pink Roadhouse at Oodnadatta was a real card with plenty to say on the matter. Also, the owner of Mt Dare told me a Range Rover with 19" rims had pinched a tyre on a rock on his way out of the desert a day earlier....bye bye big bucks and no spares for 100's of kms

You are absolutely correct.
I spent some good down time in and around Coongie Lakes, Big Red, Chambers Pillar and Lake Eyre, but otherwise it was pretty full on for the rest. I purposely left a lot like the Dig Tree for my next, longer and more relaxed trip which will definately cross the Simpson.
I had 2 weeks and a stong desire to actually see what the area was like and if my FL2 could handle it. I was constantly ready to turn around if the going got too hairy. I ended up doing far more than I anticipated simply because I was enjoying the experience and the car was magic.
I also nearly cried when I realised just how many km's I had racked up, I could feel the depreciation crushing me.

Cheers

Thanks Mark,

I am sure you will have a great time out there, I feel like going again right now. The new Landrovers are built by Ford and have Peugot and Volvo components. The TD4 diesel is out of a Peugot 408 I think. Really, you can't beat the European diesels for economy. They've had predominantly diesel for a long time and fuel costs a bomb over there so economy is paramount.

Still theres no way my car could take what Top Gear did to that Hilux. The Jap 4bys can really take a hiding and still keep going. I still have my 98 Pathfinder 400,000 km's later. Its on LPG and has never had a dealer service. I change all the filters and oil every 6 mths regardless of kms. Timing belt every 100,000. Unfortunately it drives like a truck compared to the great drive the FL2 gives me.

Once again, have a great trip

True, I hear what you are saying and my fingers are well and truly crossed. However, I think I now know whats going on in the heads of Landrover fanatics. There is some sort of evil fascination that has developed and hasn't happened with my previous cars.

Its very hard to make any sense of it, because I don't normally care that much about cars. This one does everything so well, my wife even likes it and she has never liked driving in any 4wd I have had.

If your wife likes driving it , well thats the most important thing Mike , mine drove the whole Simpson last year and this year wants to do some more and I'm feeling deprived.

Just keep an Eprib in the glove box and all will be cool !

Amen to that, the country is awesome. I told some friends where I went and a lot said 'why would you want to go there?'. I guess they just don't understand.
I thought it was brilliant.

Steve !!!!!
Wash your mouth out with soap & water !

Never thought I would hear you lament about LR

Took a while but welcome to the enlightened side :-))

KK

All of us LR owners seem to be living on the edge with our fingers crossed. I know that servicing and parts cost an arm and a leg. I have been keeping the dealer services up so that my warranty is not affected. The warranty is supposed to be good in that it involves free towing from anywhere to the nearest dealer in the event of a breakdown. My Nissan's that I have owned have been wonderfully reliable. I never worried about dealer services or warranties with either of them.
My story is that I had a Patrol, then a Pathfinder and got sick of driving truck like objects around the majority of the time. I'm not a rev head but 0-100 in 20 seconds etc wore a bit thin. Shopping car parks were a trial also. I tried a Subaru Outback which performed excellently on road but couldn't go anywhere much off road. The Subaru used surprisingly a lot of fuel as well. I test drove an X-Trail but found it 'trucky' too...why drive a small gutless truck that has limited off road ability? I wanted a real cross over car good to drive on and off the road. The FL2 does this in spades. It performs better than the Subaru on road (that was hard for me to believe). It uses less fuel and its so much better off road than I expected. At Stockton the other week it got up some massive hills that pulled up a couple of Land Cruisers and a Pajero. One of the LC's gave up after 6-7 tries. FL2 went up first try. I got some surprised looks out of that. All the FL2 lacks is good clearance, if I get stuck in someone else's ruts then I bottom out with horrible expensive sounding scraping noises.
So, in short, I know the reputation and sympathise with people who have been bitten in the past, but while the car does what it does so well, Ill keep my fingers crossed and stay with it

You know the funny thing is after all the trouble with our vehicle I would still go with Landrover again.....There is a train of thought out there that is something like this once you own one and see what they are capable of then it's hard to go into anything else......So having said that and despite our troubles we have been bitten with the landrover bug..

Hi Andrea

We use Davis Performance Landys in Sydney (not sure where you are) and Bruce does an excellent job. He has looked after all ours and rebuilt the 130.

Cheers

Hi there Landy,

We are on the Gold Coast and use Ricks 4wd they specialise in Landy's was put onto them by the landy club.....Fantastic mechanic...

It might be the same as racehorses. Its always the quality thoroughbreds that break down, not the slow plodders.

Its great to hear from someone who has a positive outlook about this.
I must admit, even though I did so many km's in such a short time, some of it was excruciatingly slow because I was most definately looking out for the car, particularly the tyres. The 1000km from Boulia to Alice was done at a snails pace. To break down in any way on that road would be a disaster (460kms between fuel stops). It was good fun checking out the roos and emus overtaking me. What few other cars I did see were travelling considerably faster than I was. I wondered at the time how the hell their suspension and tyres were standing up to the punishment.
Also, I turned back on the road from Mt Dare to Dalhousie. The road was just littered with large sharp rocks and I was down to only 1 spare. The 70km's would have taken me 4 hours or so. I'm glad I did as I found I had a puncture (the tyre was half down) not long after hitting the Oodnadatta track. Being in that minefield with no spares left would have been a nightmare.
It all adds to the excitement :-)

Cheers

G'day Mike.

Did Boulia to Alice 8 days ago in a Disco 3. No issues at all. I presume you had to do the "snail's pace" between Jervois and Gem Tree as the rest is in excellent nick? Also, I may be mistaken but I clocked 806 Km between Boulia and Alice, not 1000 Km?

All that aside, I've had the Disco since Dec 2006 and while it has had a few small problems, none would have brought me to a halt in the bush. In fact I am so happy with it that we are going to buy the Disco 4 after it comes out in October.

Ours pulls a 3.5 tonne caravan most of the time and copes easily. It has been up on top of the Larapinta Walk Trail (oops, by accident), Tanami Road, Broome to Cape Leveque Road, Gibb River Road, Kulumburu Road, Savannah Way, Simmo, zillions of crap tracks around the Alice and the Pilbara, Donohue and Plenty Hwys and so on. Nothing stops it.

Glad to see you're having a good (normal???) run with the Freeloader.

Cheers

Russ.

You are right with the distance. I couldn't recall if it was Bedourie or Boulia that was 1000km from Alice. It seemed like 2000kms to me at the time. I did that section in about the last week of July and there were road crews near the border section. The little part they had done was really great and brought my hopes up. But I must have caught the road just before they graded it maybe because the corrugations and rocks were really bad. The lady in the garage at Boulia told me to expect that and it lived up to expectations.
I was further put off because out of about only 4 cars coming in the other direction towards Boulia, 2 were tilt tray tow trucks with 4bys on the back which I assumed were being 'rescued'.
That road gave me one of my tyre casualties. I found a big bulge in the side wall of the front left when filling up in Alice. I was doing 120/hr odd on the tar into Alice as well so I count myself lucky.
Your journeys sound excellent. You must be racking up the km's as well

Cheers

We went some amazing places when we had our Freelander and only the ground clearance stopped us a few times when we were with the Disco's. They are the best of the smaller soft offroaders when offroad and we surprised a lot of people.

It was just the reliability problems that let our one down which is why we sold it.

I am not surprised at all as to where they turn up. Ours was a real dog on soft sand as the traction control keep on coming on which slowed us down, which meant more throttle, which meant more TC, etc. This seemed to be on the V6's only like ours was, the TD4's were OK. It looks like LR have now fixed that problem with a re-programmed traction control.

Stevesub

Hi
I can only speak for the diesel model. It has the same terrain response dial settings that the Disco has I think. They change the gearing considerably and are very effective. Its got normal, grass/snow, mud/ruts and sand. It also has hill descent control. The box is a 6 speed auto tiptronic and the engine has 400 torques on a 1700kg weight. No low range is not an issue for me but could be for other more purist 4 wheelers. I hate rock crawling but love sand, snow and gravel with intermingled water crossings so the car is ideal for me.
It could definately do the Simpson, already has during the Land Rover anniversary trip to Broome. I had mine along the biggest dunes of the QAA line as a test for myself. I actually went up Big Red the hard way unwittingly with my tyres still up (I missed the sign and wasn't sure where it was until I asked some people on top). My attitude at the time was I'll get out and let the tyres down when the car starts to labour, but it never did. I only had that attitude because I lose clearance when the tyres go down and the ruts on the tracks are pretty deep in places and I needed all the clearance I could get. Still, you only wreck the track if you are hammering it and spinning the wheels. The light weight of the FL2 lets it stay on top easier.
As far as the desert is concerned, I would be more concerned with the exit roads from what I have seen. Driving on the sand is pleasant compared to the rock littered roads in and out. Perhaps more informed members could give an opinion?
I'm not sure about steep entry creeks, I haven't done any. It has a decent wading depth apparently. I'm thinking of a Cape York tag-along next year if they will take me. If they won't then I will go alone and turn back if the going gets too far above the car's or my capabilities.

Cheers

Hi Mikehzz, I like your approach! Its strange that there is so little choice if you want a light weight 4wd you either have to pick between a suv with marginal "trackability" or a ute without some of the more creature comforts, so the FL is really filling a gap.
C.

Absolutely! I really didn't want to spend so much cash and test drove everything remotely suitable. It sent my wife insane which is good pay back for endless shopping expeditions of hers that I have endured.
You would think that someone could put together a good composite that fitted the bill. Something like -
Looks -Nissan Murano or Mazda CX7
Drive Train - FL2 diesel / gearbox /traction system/ hill descent
Height adjustable suspension, low for tar, 3-4" lift off road
Normal spec interior and safety. I don't need leather everything and double overhead airbags with electric gadgets everywhere. Its just more to break down I reckon. If you are off road it all gets dirty anyway.
Why can't someone build that for about 30-40K?

Oh, I forgot....cruise control is a luxury I now find essential

Cheers

Fair comment. Facts are hard to argue with. Maybe you'll see my Freelander on the side of the road up there next year. But I really hope not :-)