Plenty of new Land Rovers here in Mid Wales too, farmers have been burnt before with alternatives, though there's been a significant increase of Nissan Navara Crew Cab Pickups. I remember a few years back when the excellent Dahtsu Four Tracks came to Mid Wales, on the face of it they had everything going for them , well built, reliable, great diesel engines and apparent value for money, suddenly all the farmers 90's were being replaced by Four Tracks, it only took about three years before the sight of beaten up and rusty Four Tracks was common and then came the switch back to 90's. They learned the expensive way that the Four Tracks were just not up to the sustained demands of a hill farmer, couldn't tow as well, couldn't off road as well, couldn't resist rust as well and couldn't be fixed and maintained as well. I'm already noticing the degeneration taking place with all those new Nissan Navara's too.
On or around Wed, 23 Aug 2006 16:52:49 GMT, "Matrix" enlightened us thusly:
well, we had a thing about it. however, that one is interesting in that it specifies the 2.4 duratorq, whereas the other thing said the 2.2 - the 2.4 looks a better bet; it's also capable of more power and torque.
"Torque output is higher than the outgoing engine right across the usable rev range, and the 360 Nm (265 lb ft) peak is delivered at only 2000 rpm; over 315 Nm (232 lb ft) of torque is available from 1500 rpm to 2700 rpm."
232 lb ft at 1500 rpm is rather more like what the landrover needs than we thought it would be.
Pass the sick-bucket! The day I see a press release that says "Well, we had to compromise a bit, but we've done the best we can" I'll take them seriously. People don't really believe them, do they? That applies to any product.
On or around Thu, 24 Aug 2006 09:05:34 +0100, beamendsltd enlightened us thusly:
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fair point, but then again, the ford duratorq lump undoubtedly is smoother and more refined than the LR TDi. They do also seems to have some idea of what the requirements are - the torque figures look more convincing than I'd thought they would, for example.
also the 6-speed box will be a nice addition, the majority of the defenders before the TDi were low on power and low on gearing, so a bit more oomph and a wider spread of gears is good. The disco 300 TDi is higher geared overall which makes for reasonable motorway refinement at the cost of not having a decent low first gear for pulling away with a big trailer on - it's actually sometimes necessary to use low box to avoid clutch slip.
can't find R380 ratios just off hand, but looking at the LT77 ratios for the range rover (1.192 T-box) we have an overall range in high transfer of 14 up to 3.25; the comparable figures for the new defender ar 23.34 up to 3.18.
there's rather a big jump from 1st to 2nd on the new one, which implies that when running light you'd ignore 1st and move off in 2nd (which you tend to do anyway in the current models, hell, I do that in the series III) - 2nd comes in a bit above the Rangie's 1st. So you've got a 5 speed box a tad higher than the LT77 rangie, with the addition of a crawler 1st when needed for moving off under load etc. Low-2 comes out a bit higher than the rangie's low-1, while the new low-1 is very low indeed, about the same as the old series with the extra-low t-box ratio.
They've also given it a sensible reverse, a bit higher than 1st but a lot lower then the rangie's 14.4, at 21.16. That sounds a lot more usable for everyday reversing, and of course you get an ultra-crawler reverse in low transfer, for precision work.
I'd love that set of ratios in a TDi disco, to be honest. slightly higher top for better cruising on the flat, slightly closer spaced in the intermediate gears, and with the addition of a proper 1st gear for when you need it. Having towed 3 tons plus behind a TDi disco, 1st gear is way too high if you're moving off on a slope, you end up either using far too much clutch slip or bogging the engine down below 1500 revs where the turbo stops doing much. That or moving off in low transfer and than changing up on the fly, which is not exactly ideal either.
One thing they haven't done which I would like to see is improved shifting on the transfer box so that you can (more readily) go from low-high and especially high-low on the move. Although the changes in gearing mean that would be less likely to happen.
As to the engine, well, I'll reserve judgment on that until I get a chance to drive one - figures on paper don't tell all the story about engines, as witness the TD5 which has better figures on paper than the TDi...
Mind you, I'm in full agreement on the matter of the dash. load of crap.
Low->High is sensible (and quite do-able, even on the LT95 which requires neutral in the main box before shifting the T-box), but High -> Low? Why would you need that? I can only imagine suddenly needing extra engine braking going, say, down a slippery slope, but I'd have selected low before then anyway.
I do low->high and high->low as a matter of routine entering/leaving lanes - just double declutch and don't rry to do it too quickly. You have, of course, got to be realistic about which gears you use! Low 3rd matches high 1st on all motors, so that's a good bet[1]. Indeed the owners manuals for Td5 vehicles recommend moving off in low box when towing on hills.
[1]Yes - it does work on Series vehicles, but is very noisy, I was meaning LT230'd vehicles.
On or around Thu, 24 Aug 2006 15:08:48 +0200, Srtgray enlightened us thusly:
you've never got a heavy trailer on a steep hill and had it run out of go in high-first, then...
If you see it coming soon enough, and you can do a clean enough high-low, you can do it without stopping. Other than that it's stop, brakes on, low range, move off again in 1st.
This is something the new crawler first will help avoid, though.
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