Thread: Which is better Off Road a D3/4 or a late model Defender? ... Puma 110

Land Rover Cliff Jumper

Do this in a D4,
Walk away
Repair it for
Get LR to use it in an advert

All in the interest of promoting silliness in this thread.

Originally Posted by 1nando

Celtoid:

"Boat anchor": was refering to the toyota v8 just for you info not the tdv6..no working vehicle is over powered! Its about reliabilty, to much power to much stress on mechanical parts, especailly off road!

The point im trying to make is simple:
The d4 is over powered, has poor body clearance, 19 inch rims with ****y tyres, poor angles of approach etc, spare tyre under vehicle, smaller cargo bay, smaller payload of 250kg, is less fuel efficient.....great for 4wding?

The point; offraod is similar to a working vehicles environment! The d4 specs read well on tarmac parked during a school run
...

Try to get it mate, the d4 has nothing in common with the traits of a tough working vehicle. By the way Land Rover refers to the defender as "their toughest vehicle" not the d4....am i missing something.

As Terry O said .... you're pretty much missing everything.


But hey, that's your prerogative.

What has impressed me about this crazy long thread is the fact that folks with very strong 'opinions' on things have jibbed at each other a bit, in funny and silly ways .... but everybody is keeping it clean. It's nice to see. From what I've heard about other forums this would be a bloodbath within the first few posts .....


Hope I don't jinx it ... LOL!!!

Tombie is indeed correct it is getting ridiculous.

This ramp test proves Discos are useless.


http://www.9news.com.au/National/201...d-flipping-car

...and Rick130 wasn't sure this should be posted.😇

Wow some of you have realy lost the plot here

Originally Posted by AndyG

Land Rover Cliff Jumper

Do this in a D4,
Walk away
Repair it for
Get LR to use it in an advert

All in the interest of promoting silliness in this thread.

Did you ever see the one in Scotland where a farmer on the west coast had had a heart attack and drove (D3 or 4) off a massive cliff? The car looked incredibly intact ... like you could almost drive it away. The driver was no worse off from the adventure either.


It generated a lot of fun emails in my office, as my first D4 was enroute and I was trying to track it down. One of the boys created a fake newspaper article complete with photo shopped pics and titled "Kev's New Car Found" .... albeit with a few delays anticipated in regards to the delivery ...


It was then followed up later with pics of the truck roll-over in Russia. The one that was full of D4s and RRSs.

Originally Posted by strangy

Tombie is indeed correct it is getting ridiculous.

This ramp test proves Discos are useless.


Sydney woman walks away relatively unscathed after driving up tow truck ramp and flipping car in dramatic crash - 9news.com.au

...and Rick130 wasn't sure this should be posted.😇

She must have turned the DSC off ..... LOL!!!

Steve, I watch those AFA programs too, and I do it with horror waiting to see what will break next.
I would imagine that this sort of work is just what the Defer is designed to do, and take it in its stride with ease. This is part of why we bought our Puma.

Having said that, the Puma would be loaded to the max as would I suspect any other vehicle used would be too. With the knowledge that a Disco can't carry the same weights as a Defer, then obviously one wouldn't be able to take as much as the guy in the Defer. Not forgetting, it takes a very disciplined person to not take more than is required, and we all have a tendency to overload our vehicles, another reason why I chose the 110 over the 130.
So then a question to you. If one had the D4 obviously with a few mods, lift tyres ect, how do you think these would fair?
Like any vehicle, you can crash your way through as the boys from AFA seem to be doing most of the time, but, would the Disco with all its inbuilt modcons be doing it better or should I say easier than the standard Puma?
I'm guessing most would put 33's on the Puma to start with, and I still don't know how tall you can go on the Disco though, even with the 18" rims.

All in all, it would be a nice test to do,,, wish I could afford it

Originally Posted by TerryO

Wrong! Just about all of the pictures of rolled Defenders shows it happening on public roads, these tough vehicles apart from having, not so strong chassis, are basically unstable. They have no stability control or decent braking systems, so when the drivers get in a sticky situation they can more easily lose control and roll their vehicles or end up driving head on into other vehicles or immovable objects. I guess that is when the built in crumple zones and airbags protect the Defender occupants from serious injury or worse.

Bugger! That's right they don't have airbags or built in crumple zones or stability control or good brakes, or reinforced roofs that don't just fold flat if rolled.

But that's ok, because the original comparison does not mention vehicle safety standards or poo carrying capability or strength and reliability of drive trains including diff's, gearboxes, clutches, drive shafts, cv's and or chassis strength and durability, it only attempted to compare in a sensible balanced discussion the off road prowess if both vehicles have similar sized and spec tyres.

So how are we going with the original comparison?

The original comparison is: which is better offroad?

In my opinion my defender is a lot like my trucks. It chugs along and does what i ned too.

Off road it comes to life, gives me feedback through the steering and i feel engaged with the vehicle.

Offroad capability is what you wanted to compare. My thoughts are (110 vs d4):

-Defender tough platform due to its working vehicle design and heritage
-has bigger wheels and tyres. Real offroad size tyres not low profile street tyres!
-has better body clearance when axles are under full articulation/flex
-better approach and exit angles
Def d4
Axel clearance 250 209-216
Body clearance 314 216
Ramp angle 149.7 158
Approach 48.7 32.2
Departure 35.6 22.2
- spare tyre located in much better poistion
- more engaging drive, feed back is fantastic offroad.....vague on road admittedly. This isnt a fact but my opinion!
-lighter: def 2 ton d4=2.5
-bigger pay load to carry food, drinks, spares etc
-roof carring capacity def=150kg d4=75kg.......4wding usually requires extra gear so this is pretty handy

How did i do?