stoked!! just bought a (slightly used) 2016.5 TDV6

[BrianElloy]

got a good deal considering it has a massive 21,000km's on the clock ;) inclusive of a 3 year extended warranty, so I'm pretty happy. I will be putting it on a fully maintained novated lease.

I'll be moving these goodies over from my D4V8 prior to selling the old girl:
- Compo's and K02's
- GOE air compressor bash plate
- GOE rods
- LED spotties (though I will require a new bracket due to the changes in grill position with the facelift)


I'll be getting these fitted in the next couple of weeks:
- ARB deluxe bullbar (colour coded) + some reasonably good and cost-effective 12000lb winch (ideas anyone??)
- Rhino backbone & flat rack
- GME hidden UHF (speaker & screen in handset)
- GOE rock sliders + standoff's
- APT front & sump bash-plate (does anyone know if this fits with the ARB bull-bar? or if it is even needed??)
- ECU tuning from Superchips NZ

when I end up doing a Pilbara trip i'll relocate the spare tyre to a swingarm and install a long-range tank.


THANKS TO ALL OF YOU WHO TALKED ME OUT OF A LAND CRUISER 200. THEY'RE A FRIGGING BARGE..

peace,

Brian

[DiscoJeffster]

Awesome. Of everything you plan, personally I’d skip the ecu tune, maintain the warranty, as they have heaps of grunt. Each to their own I guess

[Crofty]

Congrats! Ben from APT is working on a modified front bash plate for ARB bars I believe. Don’t see why the sump guard won’t fit though.
I’ve just had the full armadillo from APT. Great products [emoji106]

[dirvine]

Personally I prefer the APT stuff over GOE. APT rock sliders are cheaper and I think look better as well. I have a 16.5 D4 and I wonder why you need a sump and gear box bash plate. I contemplated getting one but the OEM looks pretty robust to me. Agree the transfer case is a bit exposed but wonder if you really need to protect it given it is fairly high up.

[BrianElloy]

I contemplated getting one but the OEM looks pretty robust to me. Agree the transfer case is a bit exposed but wonder if you really need to protect it given it is fairly high up.



LOL this is why

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2017/11/68.jpg

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2017/11/69.jpg

[101RRS]

Nothing there that you need extra protection from.

[BrianElloy]

I was going over rocks too .. my compressor guard copped a right good thump

[Russrobe]

I was going over rocks too .. my compressor guard copped a right good thumpI'm still undecided if it's needed or not. Although I definitely need a new sump guard/transmission cover, mines been hammered and new 10.9 high tensile bolts! The transfer case remains untouched.

Mega glad I did the rock sliders and compressor plate before hitting corrugations, they've been blasted so hard by stones. So pitted I'll probably replace them after another few thousand kilometers (within 2 years, hopefully) hehe.

Rear suspension arms have been hammered too, will chuck them out after the next big trip I think as a couple of millimetres of steels been blasted away already.

[dirvine]

Luckily before I bought my D4 I read a bit about its short comings in protection. I bought the compressor plate and yes it has scratches and gouges all over it. I put some 3m plastic on the rear flares and bought some mud flaps. That still did not really work, so APT enclosed rock sliders have fixed that completely. I still maintain that the OEM bash plates on my D4 are fine. I have been up many really rocky tracks (Mt Margaret, Burgoyne in high Country and Rocky track near Kinglake) and have had no issues. Its all about how you drive I guess. If you have protection and ground clearance you often tend to be a bit more aggressive. In reality good spotting and wheel placement will get you out of most problems. Those pics to me above do not make me feel I need better protection. They in fact give me some concern as to why would you put your car through that. Yes it looks impressive but was it really necessary and was that the only way to get up? If that is the Mundaring power line track, I did that with my son in July and I dont recall getting my car on those sort of angles and I did not take chicken tracks. In fact I think I went through that water at the bottom not around it. Mind you it was deep.

[BrianElloy]

Luckily before I bought my D4 I read a bit about its short comings in protection. I bought the compressor plate and yes it has scratches and gouges all over it. I put some 3m plastic on the rear flares and bought some mud flaps. That still did not really work, so APT enclosed rock sliders have fixed that completely. I still maintain that the OEM bash plates on my D4 are fine. I have been up many really rocky tracks (Mt Margaret, Burgoyne in high Country and Rocky track near Kinglake) and have had no issues. Its all about how you drive I guess. If you have protection and ground clearance you often tend to be a bit more aggressive. In reality good spotting and wheel placement will get you out of most problems. Those pics to me above do not make me feel I need better protection. They in fact give me some concern as to why would you put your car through that. Yes it looks impressive but was it really necessary and was that the only way to get up? If that is the Mundaring power line track, I did that with my son in July and I dont recall getting my car on those sort of angles and I did not take chicken tracks. In fact I think I went through that water at the bottom not around it. Mind you it was deep.

Sorry I’m not as experienced, as smart or as mature as you when it comes to 4wding

Some of us do it for fun and don’t try to put others down - bit maybe that’s just me

What I do with my car is my business brother and I really don’t appreciate you looking down your nose at me like that

Peace

[BrianElloy]

Awesome. Of everything you plan, personally I’d skip the ecu tune, maintain the warranty, as they have heaps of grunt. Each to their own I guess

you might be right mate .. i've been surprised how much grunt it has. I also test drove a slightly used SDV6 and yes there is more power but to be honest I would struggle to feel the difference in torque..

nah FUGGIT .. i'll tune it :)

[wombathole]

Personally I prefer the APT stuff over GOE. APT rock sliders are cheaper and I think look better as well. I have a 16.5 D4 and I wonder why you need a sump and gear box bash plate. I contemplated getting one but the OEM looks pretty robust to me. Agree the transfer case is a bit exposed but wonder if you really need to protect it given it is fairly high up.

I have the 60mm goe sliders, they are very strong and I think look great. But be aware of the delay between purchase and delivery. Mine took over 12 weeks to arrive with me phoning, emailing and texting more than once a week.https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2017/11/72.jpg

[Russrobe]

I have the 60mm goe sliders, they are very strong and I think look great. But be aware of the delay between purchase and delivery. Mine took over 12 weeks to arrive with me phoning, emailing and texting more than once a week.https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2017/11/72.jpgI might go for the GOE ones next time too. They're a fair bit lighter from memory, and even though some say they're more prone to bending, I bent the APT ones on my first try out so can't be a whole lot in it... Prefer to save the weight I think.

The underplates a must have though (on sliders).

[LRD414]

I agree that the transfer case is up high and unlikely to be hit be rocks. But you can still be unlucky. The other thing I’ve seen is large sticks getting wedged up into the undercarriage. The right angle and size will do damage to the electrics for the transfer case. I’ve had one wedge up quite high on the exhaust that could have easily caused harm.

As already mentioned, a compressor guard and rock sliders are higher priority and sliders with a fill-in plate have the added benefit of stopping stone chipping to the rear arch flares. The stone chipping to the rear suspension arms is usually just the paint and not much more if you look closely.

Scott

[nismine01]

The great Stirling Moss claimed he tried to win a race at the slowest speed he needed to win, in other words the less stress you put on a vehicle the better off you will be.

Good four wheel driving is not about seeing how much air or wildest angles you can get. Being decent is not about trying to put down someone who simply mentions, pick your line and use commonsense even though it really isn't that common!

I don't have a problem in trying a vehicle to see what it is capable of, and what you're capable of for that matter, it will help when faced with a tough obstacle you know whether to tackle it or not if you are aware of the vehicles capability.

Cheers

Mike

[Arapiles]

you might be right mate .. i've been surprised how much grunt it has. I also test drove a slightly used SDV6 and yes there is more power but to be honest I would struggle to feel the difference in torque..

nah FUGGIT .. i'll tune it :)

The thing is that I'd expect that fiddling with the ECU would void the warranty, so if the engine blew up, even if not because of the ECU changes, you could find your warranty not assisting - what's a new engine cost, about $17k? And a fair chunk of what you would've paid for the car relates to the fact that it's new and still under warranty.

[BrianElloy]

The thing is that I'd expect that fiddling with the ECU would void the warranty, so if the engine blew up, even if not because of the ECU changes, you could find your warranty not assisting - what's a new engine cost, about $17k? And a fair chunk of what you would've paid for the car relates to the fact that it's new and still under warranty.

Fair comment - I’ve considered this

If it’s not done right then there’s that risk for sure. Ive been in contact with Peter James from Superchips in NZ. Unlike plug in boxes that just up the pressure in the fuel rail, these guys (and others) properly tune the ECU (timing, fuel curve, boost etc etc) which is the same way JLR tunes their performance models. Way safer and so far they’ve had zero warranty issues after decades in the game.

Their warranty is a 12/20 warranty and as I said above is sympathetic to the car, being well within limits

I had a chat with the service manager at Barbagallo Land Rover. He said he’s ok with tuning as long as a warranty claim is not directly caused by the tune.

Look i know it still is a risk but hundreds of TDV6 and SDV6 owners have tuned their cars properly, with no failure.

Guess I’ll have to suck it and see?

[DiscoJeffster]

All I’ll say is Mr Service Manager isn’t paying the bill when the engine fails. The engine will not fail from the tune, I’m sure of that, but, if you get a dreaded crank failure which you’d have read isn’t unheard of, JLR will look for every excuse not to cough. Personally I wouldn’t give them a ‘get out of jail free’. They might not use it against you, but is it worth stacking the odds against you? Crack on once it’s out of warranty. Super chips warranty won’t pay either as they’ll call any failure a design fault of the car.
Playing with fire I tell ya [emoji23]

[Celtoid]

Fair comment - I’ve considered this

If it’s not done right then there’s that risk for sure. Ive been in contact with Peter James from Superchips in NZ. Unlike plug in boxes that just up the pressure in the fuel rail, these guys (and others) properly tune the ECU (timing, fuel curve, boost etc etc) which is the same way JLR tunes their performance models. Way safer and so far they’ve had zero warranty issues after decades in the game.

Their warranty is a 12/20 warranty and as I said above is sympathetic to the car, being well within limits

I had a chat with the service manager at Barbagallo Land Rover. He said he’s ok with tuning as long as a warranty claim is not directly caused by the tune.

Look i know it still is a risk but hundreds of TDV6 and SDV6 owners have tuned their cars properly, with no failure.

Guess I’ll have to sick it and see?

The voided warranty issue has been discussed quite a few times. The fact is you COULD have a warranty issue if something went wrong regardless of the cause, if JLR find out your car has been modified. COULD. JLR just have to say no and then you have to start action against them. With a modified car it COULD be problematic. Apparently in the US there is a law ... not sure if it's federal or state related (I was only sent a snip) that says it's OK to modify your car....your warranty should still hold. However I'd like to see the full context and scope of that. If I was a manufacturer I wouldn't like my well engineered product jeopardised by some third party's product. Maybe it falls to proof and where the onus lies. Maybe it meant that by US law the car OEM has to prove the connection to the failure in order not to have to honour the warranty?

Interestingly when the individual that sent me the snip tried to find something similar in the Australian Consumer Laws, he didn't manage to do so. There may be something similar but he couldn't easily find it. Which then means a car owner would be forced to prove the failure wasn't related or be forced to force the OEM to proof the failure was. Good luck with that without going to court and getting the creds of the mechanic you hired getting hammered.


The other interesting thing is the warranty and liability insurance 'quoted' by a lot of re-tuning companies. They are covered if the failure is proved to be caused by their product .... refer back to my earlier point about onus of proof. Their warranty really doesn't help the car owner at all. I'm uncertain if they would assist in the owners 'proof' battle. They'd probably wait for the outcome.


My final point. Some re-tuning companies offer genuine proof of the improvements. They Dyno or equivalent the car before and after to supply evidence of the improvements. Other companies just state 'figures' in their paperwork with absolutely no way for the car owner to know if any gains have been achieved (and by how much) .... or in fact the opposite, should something have gone wrong. If I were to re-map I sure as hell would want some data specific to my car, not just a claim on paper.

But as you said .... folks have done this for years and you rarely hear of issues that are related to the re-map ....

[Redback]

Only thing I can add is (and this is my personnel opinion only) a 12,000lb winch is not really needed, 9,500lb is fine and cheaper too, I've survived all these years with 9,500lb winch on two vehicles and have used it quite a bit even when towing the camper, never had a situation where the winch ever looked like not handling the weight.

I have a VRS 9,500LB winch and has been on this car for 6yrs, great winch.

Oh and as above re waranty don't assume JLR will honour your warranty, especially if you have non Land Rover approved accessories on your car, I've been there and it's not pleasant.

[Arapiles]

Fair comment - I’ve considered this

If it’s not done right then there’s that risk for sure. Ive been in contact with Peter James from Superchips in NZ. Unlike plug in boxes that just up the pressure in the fuel rail, these guys (and others) properly tune the ECU (timing, fuel curve, boost etc etc) which is the same way JLR tunes their performance models. Way safer and so far they’ve had zero warranty issues after decades in the game.

Their warranty is a 12/20 warranty and as I said above is sympathetic to the car, being well within limits

I had a chat with the service manager at Barbagallo Land Rover. He said he’s ok with tuning as long as a warranty claim is not directly caused by the tune.

Look i know it still is a risk but hundreds of TDV6 and SDV6 owners have tuned their cars properly, with no failure.

Guess I’ll have to suck it and see?

LR's warranty (which is viewable on-line Land Rover(R) Warranty & Assistance - Land Rover(R) Australia (https://www.landrover.com.au/ownership/warranty/index.html)) specifically states that LR is "not responsible for any repair or replacement that is required as a direct result of .... unauthorised modifications of the vehicle or parts (modifications outside of Land Rover specifications)". So ... if they can link a problem with the car to your mods then at the very least you're in for a big argument about it. The service manager at Barbagallo wasn't really being helpful or making any concessions - they just stated the obvious, which is that they don't care what you do to your car, but if a warranty claim can be linked to the changes you make then you're out of luck. Which is what their warranty states. Oh, and call me a cynic, but did the NZ tuners mean that they hadn't had any issues with their product (no warranty claims against their product not working) vs their clients having warranty claims against the vehicle manufacturer?

In any case, enjoy the car, they're an impressive vehicle.