Range Rover engineers - what were they smoking?

**Sydr** · 22nd May 2012, 06:17 PM

There's something I just don't understand.

After 15 years and nearly 200,000 km of my Rangie never drinking any less than 21L per hundred K's on the country cycle and sometimes drinking considerably more in the city, I'm now getting 11.3L per 100 Km in the country and around 12.5L per 100km in the city.

What is more, this is with a considerably bigger engine - bored and stroked to 5.4Litre and with lots of go-faster goodies ( see a description of what was done to my P38 at Intensive care for My Rangie - it lives again! )

I did not expect this fuel economy. I'm delighted with the performance of my truck, I'm enjoying travelling in style in a 4 wd that really hauls when I ask it to (which is most of the time). I'm quite sure that a more considerate, kinder, more patient driver than I am would get much better fuel economy. While I'm impatient, I no longer feel the need to row it along on the gear stick to make it go, and I no longer hit the sport button even before putting on my seat belt.

My Rangie is now the delightful car that it always should have been, that it so nearly could have been, had Range Rover not supplied it with wierd programming that causes the gearbox electronics to cause the engine electronics to fall into a "black hole" so that the gear change would be imperceptible. Yet the gearchange is now just noticeable, not a clunk or a thunk. And why did all our generation of Rangies come with low compression engines when Australia has good clean petrol in all grades? Is this throttling of the engine and the low compression set up the reason for the poor efficiency of the standard vehicle?

Richard Ayers services a lot of Range Rovers, and says that he never sees the kind of fuel economy that my car is returning (from a petrol V8) He also thinks that the way the car powers along is amazing for such a heavy vehicle.

I'm like a cat with the cream, but every time I drive it I wonder, whatever was in the mind of the design team when they emasculated our vehicles?

Am I missing something? What do you think?

**Blknight.aus** · 22nd May 2012, 06:44 PM

back in the day.....

the vehicle was specced with longevity not performance in mind...

when you run up nearer the limits of things longevity tends to go down and sensitivity to wear/out of tolerance goes up. Not so bad if you have a computer to do all the design work and computers to balance everything up nicely (remember later generation stuff is better than the early stuff) but when the techs not there you have to make do with what you've got.

The same basic design is sold and used everywhere. Lets say you went on a round the world trip in your vehicle would you choose one that means you have to tow a 10T trailer with pristine fuel in it or one that you could pull into a servo in the middle of innerbakobiurkistan fill up with something that resembles the grade of fuel you're ment to use and just keep on rolling?

**SPROVER** · 22nd May 2012, 07:20 PM

They are great figures.Would love to have that engine in my Disco.What sort of RPM does it make its power at? I bet it sounds great with the Throttle to the floor

**bee utey** · 22nd May 2012, 07:58 PM

Just a silly question, are these figures calculated from bowser figures and odo readings or trip computer display readout?

**blitz** · 22nd May 2012, 08:58 PM

I had a 4.6 fitted to my 94 disco my fuel consumption is a bit better but the power is threw the roof in comparison to the 3.9 I know I would get better consumption if I wasn't so heavy footed but having way to much fun to care

**superquag** · 22nd May 2012, 09:40 PM

... and how much did it co$t to build an engine that is finally 'Fit for Purpose' ?

- Not that I'm the least bit envious of your figures...

**blackbuttdisco** · 23rd May 2012, 07:43 AM

What were they smoking? Pound notes of course, they only had a limited supply.

**Bigbjorn** · 23rd May 2012, 08:35 AM

Well, smoke this. Rover bought an engine from General Motors and built it with poor cylinder heads at 3.5 litres. GM had that engine family out to 5 litres and good heads, and had built it in turbocharged form. So Rover put a puny 3.5 litre in a two ton car. Bloody brilliant.

**PhilipA** · 23rd May 2012, 09:38 AM

And why did all our generation of Rangies come with low compression engines when Australia has good clean petrol in all grades? Is this throttling of the engine and the low compression set up the reason for the poor efficiency of the standard vehicle?

Cost vs return.
The Australian engines always were "Rest of World" which includes lots of countries with poor fuel.
And the reason for this was that The Australian standards for unleaded were set on 91 RON when all Europe and USA was 95 .( not so clear cut as AFAIK they are MON/RON).
This in turn was because of the characteristics of Australian crude oil making it much cheaper to produce 91 vs 95. I got this from the horses' mouth as I sat next to the Victorian EPA bloke who actually set the standards on a flight from Bangkok once. And initially 95 was not widely available.
This would have meant certifying engines exclusively for Australia.
That is also why we didn't get the 4.2.

As soon as it became feasible in 2004? the last batch of Thor in D2 was High Comp as 95RON was then widely enough available .
Regards Philip A

**Dougal** · 23rd May 2012, 09:54 AM

How lean is it running to get those figures?

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