Thread: Disappointed in the D5 / waiting for the Defender

Pretty stock rangie classics won outback challenge 4 times.
I couldn’t see a D5 getting through a stage with years of forward development

This thread reminds me of a skit from Life of Brian.
we should be united against the common enemy - the judean people's front! - YouTube

Originally Posted by PAT303

Rubbish,a stock D5 would leave a stock RRC behind,and use less fuel,be more comfortable,safer,faster etc while it does it. Pat

To a certain extent you're correct Pat. Peoples expectation of 'what's important' in a modern 4WD has changed. 'Off Road' no longer means, well, off road, it now means off the bitumen road.
So as long as the 'off road' vehicle can tow the van up the wet track from Melrose or be able to get in and out of the footy/soccer ground or up to the Chalet in winter or traverse the GRR in summer it is an 'off road' vehicle.
It's really enough to make an actual 'off road' traveler laugh. I'd take my old RRC anywhere both on and off road even with its petrol powered and other limitations but I would rather take it through the desert or serious off road terrain with more certainty of getting to the other end in one piece than an electronic marvel with no native off road capability. Sure they might work OK with all the complex electronics operating to spec, but rip an abs sensor out or the computer has a hissy fit or your electronic marvel is 10 years old and inherently unreliable and you're 2000 km from anyone that has a clue how the system works let alone how to fix it. I'd gladly lend you my carrier pigeons to summon help.

Sorry Pat, call me a dinosaur, but I just can't take our modern SUV 'off road' 4WD vehicles seriously.

I eagerly await the new Defender and will be interested to see if it's just another psuedo 'ruggedised' SUV or a serious off road vehicle.

Deano

Wow these ***** make my head hurt.

Originally Posted by Zeros

That would be a great comparo over a period of 2 years, entirely in northern Australia, with one rider - the D5 must be out of warranty and no LR assist.

What, like I did with my D1, L322 Range Rover, TDCi Defender . Pat

Originally Posted by fitzy

Pretty stock rangie classics won outback challenge 4 times.
I couldn’t see a D5 getting through a stage with years of forward development

Smithy's Rangie wasn't stock. Pat

Originally Posted by DeanoH

To a certain extent you're correct Pat. Peoples expectation of 'what's important' in a modern 4WD has changed. 'Off Road' no longer means, well, off road, it now means off the bitumen road.
So as long as the 'off road' vehicle can tow the van up the wet track from Melrose or be able to get in and out of the footy/soccer ground or up to the Chalet in winter or traverse the GRR in summer it is an 'off road' vehicle.
It's really enough to make an actual 'off road' traveler laugh. I'd take my old RRC anywhere both on and off road even with its petrol powered and other limitations but I would rather take it through the desert or serious off road terrain with more certainty of getting to the other end in one piece than an electronic marvel with no native off road capability. Sure they might work OK with all the complex electronics operating to spec, but rip an abs sensor out or the computer has a hissy fit or your electronic marvel is 10 years old and inherently unreliable and you're 2000 km from anyone that has a clue how the system works let alone how to fix it. I'd gladly lend you my carrier pigeons to summon help.

Sorry Pat, call me a dinosaur, but I just can't take our modern SUV 'off road' 4WD vehicles seriously.

I eagerly await the new Defender and will be interested to see if it's just another psuedo 'ruggedised' SUV or a serious off road vehicle.

Deano

Deano, I've never had a single problem with my modern vehicles in all my outback travel's,but I've met heaps of people with old mechanical vehicles that have.If you get stuck in the bush with a major fault your in trouble,a stuffed water pump bearing,split hose or a collapsed wheel bearing will make any vehicle a desert ornament.It doesn't matter what your drive,it's all about the 5 P's before your go, and the use of common sense once you get there. Pat

Originally Posted by rammypluge

With independent, what is called the "wheel rate", the rate of the suspension at the wheel, at the tyre tread at the ground, is always proportionate to the spring rate, whether it is mounted on a wishbone or via a pushrod.

In contrast, unless you mount the coils on a solid axle directly in line with the centre of the tyres, there will be different effects to independent.

No, wheel rate is wheel rate.
It doesn't matter a damn whether it's independent, swing, or a beam.
It's easily calculated unless you design a rising rate system, which is a little more complicated to work out, or it can be easily measured.

Bushing design complicates it in all systems, sometimes the bushes are designed to have a certain amount of compliance and can add significantly to roll stiffness, think of an RRC/D1 radius arm front end vs a Deefer, the RRC/D1 use tripple shell bushes which increase roll stiffness significantly, and sometimes it isn't by design either I'd reckon!

Anti roll bars are another complication, adding to single wheel wheel rate and obviously roll resistance.
Their dynamic consideration is lateral load transfer and longitudinal load transfer diagonally across the chassis.

Then we can have anti dive, anti squat, which can change compliance significantly, depending on %'s used in our geometry.
E.g. start lifting the rear of a Deefer/D1/RRC and anti-squat increases significantly which can really impact climbing on rock steps, etc.
Most people that lift a vehicle aren't aware of this.

Roll centres are a dynamic consideration changing longitudinal load transfer as the vehicle rolls.
They won't affect compliance/articulation.

Its significantly harder to redesign a good compromise with a factory independent suspension and not totally **** it all up.
IMO most engineers don't grasp all the conflicting dynamics involved, crunching raw data and dynamic concepts are different, and then it all comes down to which areas are important to the end user and which areas we want to compromise.

Live axles with a kinetic type suspension system would be my ideal, although one day I really want to use custom dampers and driver selectable anti roll bar disconnects, because I many be able to afford that!
There's a couple of shock absorber tricks I learnt many years ago that I don't think have been exploited on a road going 4wd yet.
But they may not work either!