Thread: Puma snorkel warning

500mm wading depth for a defender is a joke, you can drive a falcon thru 500mm of water!!

Originally Posted by Summiitt

500mm wading depth for a defender is a joke, you can drive a falcon thru 500mm of water!!

It's only the depth at which you warranty seizes and you'll be surprised at how shallow the majority of 4x4 marques place theirs (if they bother at all).

Believe me, Ford won't entertain a warranty claim if you drove a Falcon through 500mm of water...!

The Mantec RAI is also labelled a "snorkel" and its as waterproof down to the attachment to the car as the Safari. However, unlike Safari they don't refrain from telling you that you have to do serious modification to your air ducting to prevent water ingress - hence the warning on the packaging that in "normal" form its only a RAI.

What people seem to blissfully ignore is the fact that should you get stuck in deepish water and it enters the car (as it definitely would) you throttle sensor inside the Puma is a far bigger problem than the level of the intake (by about a 150mm).

Properly driven with a decent bow wave a Defender will easily wade 900mm and pre-Td5 they will even happily run/ idle in 800mm of standing water (underside of the intake), not allowing for the breathers that would need raising.) This is still significantly deeper than the recommended or "allowed" depth and the number of unknown factors in a water crossing makes it far too risky to even attempt.

Nugget's fix is a major step in "piece of mind" for a Puma on a water crossing, but stall or hit an underwater obstacle in water deeper than 600mm - 700mm in any standard new 4x4 other than the higher end Land Rovers with air suspension and your day is most probably going to end badly.

Cheers,

Lou