Big 4x4`s why do you really own/buy them really?

[ovlov25]

I'm scouting online and looking at classic V8 Range Rovers cos I fancy having a big manly truck Grrr!

Saying that I haven't even needed to lock the diffs in the snow on the old Iveco Eurotrakker yet, even with 12 tonne or so on the back

[mattpayne]

Originally Posted by Paul240480

Matt, you should have chucked that Disco a rope

or told him to buy a mitsubishi!!! lol!!

The Deli is huge fun - the woman at the gate didnt belive us when we told her that we were not spectating, but going on the course!
The first time the bus made it to the top of the hill the marshall couldnt understand it!! his reaction was "How did you get that up here?!"

People dont expect it to have a proper 4wd system with dif locks, freewheeling hubs and low ratio transfer box...

we surprised a lot of 'real' 4x4's that day!

[dodgyken]

I don't anything quite compares to the looks we got back in April.

We ventured onto a piste in Morocco (in the 525 automatic) - about halfway long it descened into a gorge - with the wife shifting the big rocks from the road ahead of the car

I had fitted a sumpguard and new tyres prior to leaving and that was it. As we got further into the gorge the road gained a centre hump which scraped the bottom unless we drove off to one side. Then you had the double dip and rise as the "road" weaved through the riverbed. Each time the front and then the exhaust would scrape against the rocks. At one point the car was sliding up an incline with rear wheels spinning but getting some traction -and the fronts off the ground.

As we drove through the villages the only vehicles we saw were high axle 7.5tonne trucks - and all the locals were looking at us with the "how the f*** did they get here?" look.

Brilliant.

The last section of piste was a wide stretch - with half-fist sized stones all over - that I drove across at 50mph + creating a dakar rally-esque dust cloud behind me.

Great days!!

[volvo145]

Any vehicle is no use without descent (Appropriate)tyres.
We have Goodyear F1s on one of the vehicles and it is worse than useless in this weather.
Probably the Disco had road tyres were the Mitsi doesn't?.

[rippedoffagain]

Originally Posted by Rich 264

How much of a hazard to kids is a 4x4? How many kids have been run over by the damn things?

There was something about this on telly ages ago. In a series of controlled tests, they got a 4x4 driver (a woman school run type) and a load of infant school kids. They parked the 4x4 in the playground (engine was off for the whole test).

In one test, they got the woman to sit in the drivers seat, and then blindfolded her. They then got a kid to stand about a metre behind the vehicle, and another kid about 2 metres behind. They removed the blindfold from the driver, and asked her if it was safe to reverse. She said 'no, there is a kid behind the car'. 'Just one kid they asked her', 'yes'. They then got the kid that was 2 metres behind to move out of the way, then asked her again, is it safe to reverse. 'Yes' she said. Meanwhile there is still a kid 1 metre behind the car, not tall enough to show up through the back window and too close to the vehicle to show up in the wing mirrors.

In another test they took an ordinary car and got a kid to stand in front of it. You could easily see the kid from the driver's position. Not so on the woman's 4x4 which was too tall. They then explained how if the car hit the kid at 30mph, the kids body would flop over the bonnet and much of the force would be distributed away, so the kid had a chance of surviving. Then standing the kid in front of the 4x4 they demonstrated that if that hit the kid at 30mph, there would be nowhere for the body to flex, the whole child (including head) would be hit square on full force. Chance of survival would be close to nil.

Originally Posted by junk jimmy

Very true my last 3 cars had most of the suspension componants replaced because of this .Solicitors letter to the council next time

I wrote to our local council a while ago asking them to sort the roads that were becoming almost unusable. I told them that most of my car maintenance bills were for suspension components, and next time I would bill them for the repair. I got a very lame response.

In essence, they said it is ok if potholes are less than something like 40mm deep, and when work out priorities for road repairs, they consider how much a road is used.

I replied to the first point by telling them that if they carry on as they are, soon the roads will have so many potholes they will just be one big pothole and we can all drive around on the foundations which will be smoother than the potholed surface.

I replied to the second point by pointing out that as a road deteriorates, more and more drivers will avoid and so it will get less priority. I gave an example of a route near us which on paper looks like the quickest route out to the motorway, but many drivers (me included) avoid it because it is almost unpassable (last time I looked there was a bloody big crater in it, about 6 inches deep and about a metre in diameter). That road will never get fixed because it is low priority because people have stopped using it because of its condition. As the extra burden on alternative routes wears them out to, people will stop using those so they won't be prioritised either. Eventually there will be no routes left.

I got another stock response about priorities. They just didn't get it.

[mattpayne]

Originally Posted by volvo145

Any vehicle is no use without descent (Appropriate)tyres.
We have Goodyear F1s on one of the vehicles and it is worse than useless in this weather.
Probably the Disco had road tyres were the Mitsi doesn't?.

The Mitsi had BFG AT's on it, that disco would have needed atleast those to make it that far into the course

My C70 has F1's and is been utter $%&* in this weather!

[rippedoffagain]

Originally Posted by white90

If the 4x4 was in the ditch then the driver is an Ass as they should be able to drive out again.

Maybe you could in your Defender.

I'm not tarring all 4x4 drivers with the same brush, as I know there are genuine reasons why people choose them. Just because they like them is good enough I reckon. BUT, some 4x4 drivers thing that just because it is a 4x4 it can go anywhere and do anything. The Defender is a rugged machine, and can do a lot more than most, but they can't do everything. My dad got his Series 2 stuck once and when his farmer mate brought his tractor to pull him out, the tractor got stuck too and had to be pulled out with a big winch. To my dad's defence, the ground he was driving on looked ok, he didn't know that what looked like a muddy puddle on his land was actually just soggy mud a couple of feet deep

A proper 4x4 (like any of the older Land Rovers) gives a big advantage in tricky conditions like, for example, getting out of the ditch you fell into, but they are not infallible.

There is also the issue of how they are driven. There was a tragic case a few years ago in the desert in Australia. A couple failed to turn up where they said they would and a big search was started. After a couple of days the couple was found dead in their vehicle in the desert, having got stuck and then running out of drinking water. The rescuers were puzzled at first because the vehicle was in good working order. One of the rescue team tried to move the vehicle, and found it to be stuck. To free the vehicle, all they did was let most of the air out of the tyres then rocked the vehicle free under its own steam, then simply drove it out.

[Paul240480]

I recall many moons ago, getting a Police Ford Escort well & truly stuck in a farmers field. We were chasing a couple of 'billys' on the run. They were caught by our dog handler 'Woohoo!'.

After that I called the area car up to give me a tow. Yeh it was a 244 saloon & it got stuck too LOL.

So we called up traffic who came out in some sort of 4x4. Can't recall exactly what it was. Reckon it may have been before Disco's, as this would have been about 1991. Anyway, the 4x4 got over the field no worries, but when chained to the 240 that was still hitched to my Escort, it just sort of 'sank' into the mud till it too was stuck LOL

In the end we got a lift back to the nick & left the cars to the oncoming day-shift.LOL.

Needless to say their Skipper was not at all impressed.

Mind you, when we got back onto day-shifts our Superintendant 'popped into' our pre-shift 'parade' to show that he too was very much unimpressed

[Paul240480]

http://www.todaysbigfail.com/view/20100117

[rippedoffagain]

Originally Posted by Paul240480

http://www.todaysbigfail.com/view/20100117

Fantastic. I bet it was scary for the driver though.