A couple of things about their review did disturb me.
Firstly, how real is the need for a winch on a vehicle which tows a 3.5 tonne trailer?
Secondly, putting a winch and bull bare would take the weight off the rear axle.
Thirdly, why would one need to put on heavier tyres when the vehicle is far superior off road than it's competition?
Fourthly, did they measure the weights on both axles with the engine running, or was the engine turned off?
And some other thing: 150kg tow ball issues rang a bell with me ... here is what was said about the D4 and its towing weight:
" From the manual:
If the vehicle is loaded to the maximum Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW), the nose weight of the multi-height drop plate tow ball is limited to 150 kg, so that the maximum rear axle weight is not exceeded. To increase the nose weight to the maximum 250 kg, the GVW should be reduced by 100 kg.
and
Australia only: The nose weight must be a minimum of 7% of the gross caravan/trailer weight, up to a maximum of 250 kg. When using the detachable trailer hitch receiver, see FITTING THE DETACHABLE TRAILER HITCH RECEIVER (Australia only), the nose weight can be increased to 350 kg if the GVW is reduced by 200 kg. "
So, for Australia, the 150kg for D4 towing, referred to the fact that Australian D4s had an inclusion of 150kg already allowed for the tow ball weight. Which means, if you put 350 kg on the rear ball, you would then take 150kg OFF THE GVM of the D4 ie add only 250kg to the D4's GVM if you added 350kg to the rear tow ball ....
It seems to me its possible, that this 150kg issue, is similar to the issue the D4 had about its tow ball weight? Possible the CEO of Land Rover Australia, might not know ... sadly, it would not surprise me if something has confused issues, was happened back with the D4???
My Toyota bitch: I looked at buying one of their vans (I had a Prado 150 Kakadu and Cruisemaster said a 200 Landcruiser was the vehicle to choose outside of getting big US 6.5 litre diesel V8 - but the owner of Cruisemaster (then at least) emailed me and said the D4 did not work on their trailers, as the Land Rover's trailer stability system was not compatible with their own auxiliary stabiliser setup - and that the D4 "fought" their own stability system ... I presume now, their trailers are now tolerant of stability systems, because Toyota have had them for several years now).
But they were quite anti Land Rover.
I placed an order for a Sahara too on a dealer special on December 31st 2014 - but the dealer would not supply me a vehicle, due to their claim that they didn't have time to register the vehicle (it being 9 am in the morning). So I ended up buying my Disco with 4K on the clock from an annual LR sale ... and I bought an Australian Off Road trailer. Which by the way are typically much narrower than Cruisemaster so the standard LR mirrors will work terrifically. And you can get down narrow tracks as well with a narrower trailer. The owner of Australian Off Road loves Land Rovers too ... I should ask him his view of the new Defender...
Incidentally, all Toyota owners on Australian Off Road mention the lack of support for LRs around Australia. It's really the major selling point of Toyotas. Afterall, they are a quite primitive design. So far, I've done 90 odd thousand K in my Disco, and had four failures in my vehicle:
1 - the latch on one of the rear seats broke (under warranty and the dealer would not fix it for free - its still broken but I intend to remove the seats)
2 - the driver's side vehicle front door rubber got holes in it (under warranty and the dealer would not fix it for free - its not leaking dust or making a noise so I've left it)
3 - the "D" letter has lost a central bit of the vertical left side (under warranty and the dealer would not fix it for free - i did not blame them for that as their repair was to replace the whole kit at $1,450 or something silly)
4 - A fuse went recently (my trailer had a short circuit in it's side lights due to a failed plug underneath the van)
5 - I broke a rear window due to a bad road and not having a stone stomper fitted. I was 1,200km from Melbourne but tape held it together fortunately. RovaRange service got me a window for about $700.
Thanks too, to Land Rover. I got caught in Brisbane before Christmas with a new Victorian lock down, where all people from the NSW Border would not be allowed back into Victoria - announced at 1pm on December 20th, the day of the wedding, we had to cross the Vic border by the next day, December 21st. Having taken my wife and AOR trailer to the wedding in Brisbane ( I thought airports are a Covid risk). so, darn it dictator Dan, I had to miss the reception of my close friend's daughter's wedding.
We left the wedding at 6 pm and drove back to Melbourne, and made the border by 5:30 pm the next day. We had torrential rain much of the way. The first night part of the drive home, until 10 pm after the wedding on the Newell Highway, we had to swerve to avoid two semi trailer trucks running wide and we were at the speed limit. The rain was torrential. The road is just two lanes and semis were constant, as it was December 20th that evening drive, and the trucks were rushing to bring Christmas goods to Brisbane and it's Sunshine and Gold Coast cities.
I reckon the Land Rover got us home, its steering response is on another planet compared to a 200 series, it's handling is on another planet too, and its level lighting no matter the load on tow ball with our trailer attached (trailer weights vary as water tanks etc. go up or down, toilets etc etc) is extremely safe, plus the thing handled some really nasty deep water and bad roads with joyous safety. OK there are negatives, but heck, it actually handles bloody well. What price safety?
Finally, OK the D4 has a chassis but I don't think you can change its GVM, plus its rear axles would need upgrading too in order to increase the GVM, and I've not heard of being able too. Fact is if I'd bought a 200 I'd have had to spend $10k minimum extra on upgrading it, and more likely over $15,000. My extras have been bull bar, 3rd party tow bar (due to it being easier to shackle the safety chain on and off and also some academic clearance benefits), a bull bar, OK some fun stuff as well. But actually all it needed was bull bar, and I didn't do that for several years ... LR ain't perfect, sure, but Toyo ain't either, and I own three of them at the moment ... my best vehicle by far is the Disco, I still love it. Shame it's still not available actually because i do like a chassis for towing.
Doug
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