D3 5000k trip.

[AnD3rew]

Just spent 2 weeks driving 5000 klm much of it in outback QLD and NSW. Did about 1500km of dirt including roads where we saw no other cars for 500ks or so. Did dirt, sand, bull dust, no roads at all on sheep stations, washouts, gullies, jump ups, grass above bonnet height, we fossicked for opals and fossils and found plenty of both, we dined at outback pubs saw tons of wildlife, beautiful colours, wonderful sunrises and sunsets, boiled the Billy in sandy riverbeds, saw amazing birds and some rare outback wetlands. It was magic.

The 2009 D3 TDV6 was flawless, never missed a beat and was never found wanting for capability.

A few comments
- next time I really need a proper bullbar, the Land Rover nudge bar gives no comfort at all when dodging a roo, an emu or a pig on average every 10 mins or so.
- The standard fuel tank is just too small for out there, I never actually got into trouble, but it is a pain having to take detours from your preferred route from time to time to guarantee fuel.
- The automatic suspension lowering is a PITA and either Land Rover or some aftermarket operator needs to add an over ride switch it is probably never a problem for UK Greenlaners, but there are tons of outback roads which you can easily do 80+ kph but you need the extra height for the hump in the middle, this needs to change.
- I pushed my luck with communications and got lucky, but mobile phones are just not enough and although Telstra has pretty good coverage on 3G (don't bother with Optus or Vodafone) there are plenty of places with none, need at least a high quality UHF with external aerial.
- The General Grabbers are now up to 35k km. They still have lots of tread and have done well in Mud, Sand, gravel spinifex and Tarmac. About 20 k of that has been town bitumen and 15k highway and dirt. Been very happy and will almost certainly replace with the same.
Did Sydney-Brisbane-Charleville-Winton-Quilpie-Hungerford-Bourke-Sydney wherever possible taking the non bitumen route from Charleville until Bourke.

[Graeme]

The automatic suspension lowering is a PITA and either Land Rover or some aftermarket operator needs to add an over ride switch it is probably never a problem for UK Greenlaners, but there are tons of outback roads which you can easily do 80+ kph but you need the extra height for the hump in the middle, this needs to change.
You might be interested in this thread...
http://www.aulro.com/afvb/verandah/114282-llams-electronic-height-controller-d3-d4-rrs.html

[AnD3rew]

As it was a non camping trip, relatives or motels every night, and I didn't have time to prepare fully we ran on skeleton kit, but wanted to make sure as we were solo we could cover the basics on our own so we took the following kit. the car is standard apart from LR nudge Bar, LR side steps and General Grabber tyres.
- ARB magnum winch, with shackles, snatch straps, tree trunk protector.
- ARB portable compressor with gauge.
- basic tool kit including spanner set, socket set, screwdrivers, multi grips, pliers, electrical tape, wire strippers, spare fuses, file, rope, WD40.
- Can of tyre weld as only one spare tyre.
- 20 litre Jerry can of water
- first aid kit
- LED Maglite
- large hunting knife.
- hand held UHF radio (not really good enough)
- lighter
- Billy

[AnD3rew]

You might be interested in this thread...
http://www.aulro.com/afvb/verandah/114282-llams-electronic-height-controller-d3-d4-rrs.html

Nice, what does this cost to get installed in Sydney?

[Graeme]

I don't know but a lot of people fit it themselves.

[oldsalt]

You could always try "shorter" suspension rods from GOE Australia - Land Rover D3 (LR3), D4 (LR4),FL2 and Range Rover Sport Training and info (http://www.greenovalexperience.com/)
or LR3 Lift Kit - Johnson Rods - Range Rover Sport Lift Kit (http://johnsonrods.com/) .....
cheers
PS - any photos from your trip ???

[~Rich~]

Great sounding trip Andrew. ;)

In regard to you suspension options,

Rods: it depends if you want the vehicle up 50mm all the time or muck around moving the rods position under your car. Access height will equal standard height.

LLAMS: Or have multiple choices -20mm, +30mm & +50mm which you can use at any speed you like.
Of course it also depends on how much you want to spent too!
LLAMS is easy to fit, I did the fitting instructions!

[AnD3rew]

Definitely don't want to mess around with rods, the switch option is a dream come true, I definitely want to get that.

[AnD3rew]

You could always try "shorter" suspension rods from GOE Australia - Land Rover D3 (LR3), D4 (LR4),FL2 and Range Rover Sport Training and info (http://www.greenovalexperience.com/)
or LR3 Lift Kit - Johnson Rods - Range Rover Sport Lift Kit (http://johnsonrods.com/) .....
cheers
PS - any photos from your trip ???

Never posted pics on this forum before, will muck around and see what I can do.

[TerryO]

I don't mind admitting your a braver man than me Andrew given your description of where you went with only basic communication equipment and limited fuel and water supplies.

Having said that it sounds like you had a great time and saw lots of very interesting things and places. ... :)

Photo's sound like a very good idea...

cheers,
Terry

[AnD3rew]

I don't mind admitting your a braver man than me Andrew given your description of where you went with only basic communication equipment and limited fuel and water supplies.

Having said that it sounds like you had a great time and saw lots of very interesting things and places. ... :)

Photo's sound like a very good idea...

cheers,
Terry

Was fantastic, I admit it was a bit light on in terms of prep, won't do it again without a proper bullbar and at least a good quality UHF with aerial. However I minimized the risks by careful planning around fuel and making sure I had good margins, this did mean a few unwanted detours for fuel when I would have preferred to avoid a few towns but I was never pushing it. I also figured that I could make 20 liters of water last for 4-5 days for 4 of us in winter in an emergency and while some of the roads we went on were very low traffic, we would have been very unlucky to have had no traffic in a week on any of them. There is also a fair amount of water around out there at the moment both on the surface and not too far underground in the watercourses and I had the means to boil it. I also made sure I had good quality up to date HEMA maps which also have all the homesteads marked.

I will do some photos when on a computer, cant do it from the iPad.

Oh also should say the bits I mentioned where there were no roads and we were bush bashing were on private properties with a second vehicle with people with local knowledge and where the property owners knew where we were going (kind of).

[AnD3rew]

Another observation, the bit where we were driving on an overgrown track where the grass in the middle hump had grown to above bonnet height, my D3 when we were finished had sucked tons and tons of grass cut into short lengths through the grille and onto the front of the radiator.

The Prado we were with, no bullbar, had virtually nothing in his radiator, for some reason the D3 seems perfectly designed to cut and suck grass. Anyone else experienced this?

Took me about half an hour to fish it all out along with a dozen or so grasshoppers.

[dangermousehouse]

Hi And3rew

Wonder if we were in Winton at the same time??

The grille is very easy to remove and will allow better access to clean the radiator etc. Instructions are in the manual under the part that describes changing a headlight bulb. Just a case of squeeze releasing a few clips.

We hit four 'roos (3 on the road into Charleville, east bound) and will be looking at a bull bar too.

[AnD3rew]

Hi And3rew

Wonder if we were in Winton at the same time??

The grille is very easy to remove and will allow better access to clean the radiator etc. Instructions are in the manual under the part that describes changing a headlight bulb. Just a case of squeeze releasing a few clips.

We hit four 'roos (3 on the road into Charleville, east bound) and will be looking at a bull bar too.

We were very lucky, how much damage did they do?

The grille is easy to remove as long as you don't have the full height nudge bar which gets in the way.

[dangermousehouse]

We were very lucky as we had minimal damage.

The first roo I think I clipped its tail and he went into the passenger front wheel
The second pushed in the driver side fog light and pushed off the front wheel arch trim
The third and forth ran into the passenger door which is now creased.

I was on the anchors when all of them hit, so probably doing less than 60 kph on the first 2 and less than 40 on the last 2.

I've repaired the front damage, but the door will have to stay as it is.

We also had a tyre let go which took the rear passenger door trim off for us.

Well said regarding minimizing the risk. We travelled very similar to yourselves (regarding water and comms etc) but also phoned ahead to each place we were stopping so they were expecting us. When we left Winton, we also arranged to 'check in' with the Motel owner (we had just departed from) on reaching our destination so he knew we were safe.

Having said that, I will be upgrading our comms.

Cheers

[Chris Preso]

Gotta love travelling. We have just returned from a six week trip in QLD, with our three boys aged 7, 11,& 12. Up the coast, two weeks camping on Hook Island in the Whitsundays, on to Atherton, across the Savannah Way and then down for a couple of days in the Simpson Desert before heading home to South Coast NSW. 7500km.

A great trip and lots of great stops on the way.

Having toured around OZ previously in a 300tdi defender and a TD5 D2, I can say that the D4 2.7 is a fantastic touring car, comfortable, reliable and capable. It is great to have confidence in a vehicle while travelling.

Like previous posts a couple of observations:
- we would have been more comfortable with a bulbar, but we were fortunate not to hit anything
- we travelled with a handheld uhf. Not planning to travel too far off the beaten track we did not fit the codan HF radio that is sitting in the garage. The trip to the Simpson was a decision we made on the trip, not planned before. Some extra comms would have been nice.
- the Cooper ATR's we fitted before the trip were faultless over all surfaces, including sand dunes, very stoney roads and wet dirt.
- homemade storage unit did the job exceptionally well
- the Southern Cross canvas roof bag was brilliant on top of the expedition roof rack, it holds heaps of light stuff and with no occy straps required was easy to use and no need for a trailer
- the trip computer registered 10.5 ltr per 100km overall. I haven't adjusted for slightly taller tyres or checked actual fuel consumption. We relied on the standard fuel tank which was adequate, didn't need any detours and not enough of a pain to justify the $$ for additional tank
- taking out the 6 and 7th seat provided invaluable space for recovery gear, water and other bits and pieces
- I had the GOE rods in the car, but didn't fit them, as we weren't planning hard offroad work. I would have liked them for tackling Big Red in the Simpson though, they would have helped me with the last few metres of the dune. Standard suspension was fine for all other dunes. We travelled from Birdsville to Eyre Creek and camped by the water on our lonesome for a couple of nights - awesome.
- lost a front number plate in the Gulf country, one would think dealers would fix them appropriately
- a snorkel will be one of my next items to fit, for both dust and water. Deepest crossing was 900mm, see photo, which put water over the bonnet.
- the Hillbilly gas fired camp oven is great, as many national parks in QLD prohibit fires. We baked our own sourdough bread throughout the trip.

I will post some more in other threads that I had opened.

Photo from Big Red attached. Plenty of water and wildlife out there.

Love travelling and love the D4.

Cheers

Chris

[Redback]

I hope you guys are going to do trip reports with more pics:D

I want more:D

By the way Chris, where is that water crossing:confused:

Baz.

[robertj]

I fitted the LLams unit to my D3 in between two trips to Moreton and all I can say is brilliant and what a difference. No more bongs at 40k and the inevitable lowering as you run up the beach and it was great not having to remember to hit off road height each time you crossed the fore dune which I might add I often forgot to do.

[Chris Preso]

Baz, the water crossing was north of Lawn Hill National Park, on road from Kingfisher Camp.

Cheers, Chris