Thread: Anyone famous?

I think he does a great job, and like Mick I don't agree with everything he says, but he is pretty well spot on about air suspension IMO.

It's not just an EAS sensor that can affect the suspension, an MAP/MAF sensor failure can spoil your day also, I know this because it happened to us on our Kimberley trip, thankfully we had spares and a diagnostic tool, also just getting a puncture can affect the EAS too.

Our D4 was overloaded for the trip and dragging a camper didn't help I did try to keep the weight down but the standard kerb weight of a D4 and the added accessories is a big issue for long trips, something I am going to try to solve for future big trips, we destroyed 6 brand new tyres and I think weight, the roads and the type of tyre were major factors, but weight is the big one.

Now having said all that, the car itself was brilliant and for all the weight we were carrying I was very impressed with the amount of things that didn't go wrong, the only repairs we had to do on our return was new rear LCA bushes, not bad really considering the roads and Ks we did.

Is the D4 suitable for overland travel, probably not BUT I think weight is it's biggest problem and with the newer models, weight and rim size.

Originally Posted by Redback

we destroyed 6 brand new tyres, and I think weight the roads and the type of tyre were major factors, but weight is the big one.

What tyres?

Originally Posted by Redback

Is the D4 suitable suitable for overland travel, probably not BUT I think weight is it's biggest problem and with the newer models, weight and rim size.

I don't think there is ANY 4WD ready or suitable for a serious overland trip new out of the box regardless of who manufactures it.
Also as many of us don't have the financial resources neded to buy brand new top of the shelf trucks and then modify them to our needs in the manner Andrew has done to his latest troopy and there are compromises that have to be made by the vast majority of us.
Going the Hilux, Cruiser or Nissan route is one way to do it But you don't get much for your dollars with these and although being extremely reliable they are pretty much just Cattle trucks compared to a Discovery from the same year that will come with a much higher level of sophistication and comfort for in the most cases far less cost.

Originally Posted by TuffRR

What tyres?

Bridgestone Dueler MT674

He has been deeply embittered by what LR did to him, several years ago now and has a profound anti- Land Rover bias. No credible journalist should allow bias to cloud his reporting.
His comparisons are quite often miss matched and poorly designed IMHO.
Despite all of his Bagging of Land Rover his fondness for them often shines through.
I suspect he makes a tidy income from Toyota.( Honest Personal Opinion.)

Originally Posted by cuppabillytea

He has been deeply embittered by what LR did to him, several years ago now and has a profound anti- Land Rover bias. No credible journalist should allow bias to cloud his reporting.
His comparisons are quite often miss matched and poorly designed IMHO.
Despite all of his Bagging of Land Rover his fondness for them often shines through.
I suspect he makes a tidy income from Toyota.( Honest Personal Opinion.)

If you think he is biased against Land Rover watch the last 3 minutes of Part 4 of D4 on Baboon Pass Lesotho. He has nothing but praise for the D4.

Originally Posted by cuppabillytea

He has been deeply embittered by what LR did to him, several years ago now and has a profound anti- Land Rover bias. ...

He has a video discussing his relationship with LR, what went wrong etc.



He says LR gave him a manual D2 to test drive, which was hopeless in his experience. His comments about the lack of a central diff lock on the D2 and poor off road performance as a result are, in general terms, fair enough I think.

After writing about it, LR requested he undertaking driving instruction which he did. The driving instructors used an auto D2 to train and to demonstrate D2 off road performance which Saint Pierre says this time was satisfactory though not really an advance over a manually locked centre diff provided different driving styles are adopted. Again all that is fair enough in itself.

However, the difference in performance between the manual D2 which he initially drove and the auto D2 which the LR instructors were using was put down to 2 reasons

1) the training course track was 'fixed' to bias it towards LR performance. (possibly, who knows)
2) the fact the manual D2 has an open and unlockable centre diff whereas the auto D2 had a viscous auto locking centre differential. (totally wrong)

To my knowledge the centre diff on the auto D2 was identical to the centre diff on the manual D2. I do wonder if some of LR displeasure was just because ASP was writing about a product he didn't take the time to research properly. As a reader / watcher of his videos (at least this one) you got to wonder if he entirely knows what he is taking about.

If he was given a D2 without a centre diff lock then this must have all happened about 15-17 years ago - about time to get over it I think but if he was given a D2 without a difflock then I would say his comments were fair enough as all motoring writers at the time were saying the same thing.