Got the new 4800 Patrol recently - no choice but an automatic, but keep the manual just to hedge my bets.
I've always been on the manual side of the auto/manual arguement and
owning the same car in both an auto and a manual was bound to be interesting.
When these debates occur and you read them I sometimes get the feeling
that replies just come with the same nominal points on either side and you tick
another box in a sort of matter of fact way and on you go.
I mean half the time it doesn't really matter, so you have an auto and its battery is flat ,
well who cares if your driving with mates.
Well I guess I was bound to find out the true merits of each where it counts.
With the Patrol just a few days old we take it on a 1000km run to Newcastles
Stockton beach.
On the easy cruise this thing turns in fuel consumption in the 13's which I have never had in the manual so she's off to good start, then we hit the dunes and she's a dream, I never realized I could cut it thru the sand so
well, want more, bang its there, going down a dune is to easy - I'm starting to like this car, who cares that it used 30lt/100km playing in the sandpit.
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Its now two weeks later and we decide to take on some serious Victorian bush tracks and for competitionmy brother turns up in his manual constant 4wd 80 series diesel, lifted double locked with 33 inch muddies plus plus and the standard Patrol is feeling just a little intimidated with its chrome mirrors and stock little 31 inch 693's.
Still this car likes to be feed and that ain't going to happen unless it earns its keep so we point both cars at a nice little test
hill we have called the Wall.
Up first goes the 80 series, but at
the rock step it falters spins up a wheel and slips back down.
Ok , this time we try a front locker and up she walks, then backs down and using just a rear locker walks up again just to show that the front & rear lockers work about the same.
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Then we point the standard Patrol at the
hill (no lockers - but does an LSD) and up she starts , this was going to be a telling run , it starts off smoothly and hits the step.
But you could hardly feel it , she just sailed quietly up displaying excellant manners.
Very impressed we were !
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So the Patrol is looking good so I jump in the passenger
seat and plugin another new toy I got with it while I ask my brother to drive it down a moderate wet
hill.
The other new toy is a BlaZt computer interface to the cars ECU and I while I am engrossed in reading air flow, pressures, fuel trim and all the other displayed data we head down the
hill.
However by now the rain is constant, the tracks only 15 degrees but its rough, rutted with wet grass and loose rock and the car starts getting uncomfortable, then its sliding and slipping about.
Its lovely 5 speed autobox has a tiptronic manual mode and we bang it in first but the engine braking is pathetic and it looks like the torque converter is slipping all over the dial.
Now we know all about "Driving thru the brakes" - a sort of academic way of going down slippy hills but this sort of stuff really only works when it doesn't matter - its sort of an extra box to tick so you can get thru your 4wd driving certificate.
When steep tracks get like ice and rough and rutted at the same time the idea of holding one foot steady on a pedal is beyond human ability let alone two at once.
Ok this project is going pear shaped fast, but we sort of stall out and the car just holds as we contemplate the next move.
There's only 100m to go to the gully floor.
Ah Hah , theres one trick left we can impose on this recalcitrant beast.
So we stick the auto Patrol into reverse , release the brakes and point the nose over the edge.
For the first 5 meters things are looking good, going forward with the cars auto gearbox in reverse certainly retards the forward speed and gives more control but you need to be very careful about pressing the go pedal.
But just when it looks like we have this thing licked something strange happens.
The rear
wheels are overdriving the engine via the big oil pump excuse for a gearbox and the car wakes up and decides this isn't right and attempts to correct itself.
The ECU fires rapid commands at the throttle stepper motor in a desperate attempt to match engine speed to gearbox speed, but the car is now rolling faster and back feeds oil into the torque converter.
The engine can't react fast enough , at approximately 1200rpm the engine gives up, stalls out, and there you go sliding down a
hill with
wheels locked and your not really enjoying the scenery at all.
Damm these clever electronics, they may
well protect transmission or whatever but I'd rather not we heading sideways towards the trees.
Well we survive the descent and then under more controlled conditions try to explore just whats happening.
3 times we run the test until we are stalled out with the check engine light on and hoping we don't have to some tricky reset or whatever to get mobile again in this weekends miserable weather.
Oh for my manual Patrol ! Its still sitting on the front lawn probably laughing its head off.
It appears that over driving the auto from the rear
wheels is just not on in these cars, which means that as it stands their performance downhill is not up to it and until a solution is found the new car might have to be restricted to playing in the sandpit.
A seemingly obvious solution is to make the torque coverter fully lockup , but this has issues with damaging it should you drive engine revs down to a stall and at a minimum you would have to disconnect this just before stalling.
Ideas folks !