I saw some specs for the new freelander today and noticed that it is really heavy! These new landrovers make a 101 seem small and light!
stock 101 ambi kerb weight - 1925kg (I put it on a weighbridge!) LR2 kerb weight - 1770kg range rover sport kerb weight - 2455kg!
so put a large person in a new freelander and it is then heavier than a 101 ambi!
What do they do to these things to make them so heavy?
bugger im lying!. i misread my 101 weight cert and it actually says
2925..thats what too long in the back of a 101 gluing and painting does to you! ;)
Apparently if you include the wingmirrors the Freelander 2 is wider than the RR Sport. Eh??! Why would they make a "townie" LR so wide? Especially as every time I come back to the UK I swear the car parking spaces have become narrower!
Matt
Tom Woods wrote:
"Matthew Maddock" wrote in message news:xTboh.177$ snipped-for-privacy@nntpserver.swip.net...
Hi matey, hows things going?
I was gonna say, there's no way a 101 Ambi weighs 1925kg. Mine was
2800 unladen.Mind you, IIRC an unladen 101 GS weighs in at under 2000kg, so is considerably lighter than the current Disco 3/RR Sport
Alex
Going well thanks Nige. Pretty busy re-wiring / plumbing / plastering / building etc. etc. etc!! I've just managed to get time to sit down and search out the name of our Internet provider's news server, so I'm finally back on AFL! (they weren't exactly forthcoming as to the server name and I just haven't had chance until now to hunt it down)
Hopefully I'll be getting a bit of cash heading my way in the next few months - I'm on the look out for a DII Td5 as the prices seem to have died all of a sudden (I saw a decent one go for £4.5k on eBay the other day!) I'm missing having a Land Rover around - I keep seeing great lanes around here and am desperate to get out on them - the Espace isn't quite up to the job!
How's things going with you and everyone else on here?
Matt
Glad it's going well mate, I'm fine, going back to work tomorrow after a bleedin' 2 week break..... cant wait.
On the 'positive' side, i bought myself this!
and that's doubly unfair - how many LR's do you have now?! or did you sell one off? Hadn't you bought a 110 at some point recently?
Speaking of which, just before Christmas my uncle traded his M6 (new shape!) for a brand new 110 CSW. When he went to the dealership they asked him if he'd ever driven one before - his reply was yes, they are noisy, you can't get them into gear and they have an terrible turning circle, but he wanted one! He's also gone mad and bought an Ifor Williams 3.5T hydraulic tipping trailer to go with it! The dealership has a running joke that everyone who buys a RRS trades in an X5, but they didn't see this one coming!
Matt
"Matthew Maddock" wrote in message news:xTboh.177$ snipped-for-privacy@nntpserver.swip.net...
Put your brain in gear and think about it
Clue 1: What do people use RR Sport's for ....... (I'm mystified).
Clue 2 : What is a common use of the Freelander 1 & what do you think will be a common use of the FreeLander 2 both in the UK and the rest of Europe.
Clue 3: What do you think has kept Range/Landrover afloat the last 6/7 years
Clue 4: What do you think will keep them afloat the next 6/7 years.
Clue 5: Do you think they should listen to you and RR Sport drivers or Freelander 1 & potential FreeLanader 2 drivers to secure the future of Range/Landrover.
Let me know when you wake up
And Happy New Year to You ..........
Richard
Yep, you got me there too - I can't think of a use either!
The point being that if the car is that wide then it would completely put me off buying it for town use because parking spaces are so small.
As an aside, does LR have plans for a new baby LR now that the FL2 is the same size the old Disco was?
Matt
Weight saving is a major headache for designers. For years the target for "luxury" vehicles was 2 tons, and designers put themselves through hoops trying to keep under the limit. A few years back they gave up and raised the limit - and immediately filled up the extra half ton with new toys so they are back where they started from really! You thought space-saver spare wheels were all about space, didn't you!
38a Range Rovers would quite likely have been self-jacking had weight not been an issue. I can well remember the harness from a Rolls-Royce- it took 2 people to lift and every added feature would require still more cable.
Richard
Showing off. OK, so I get peed off with idiots trying to show me how wonderfull their new toy is by driving 2 inches behind my Defender, (off-road anyone?), but sales are well ahead of plan I'm told.
Doing the shopping etc like any small car, typically they are something the Missus drives as a second vehicle.
All their range - even Defender is profitable!
Tricky that, with 4x4 sales down by 15% and likely to continue down. In 6/7 years time the market is likely very different to now - more like it was in 70's I'd guess where a vehicle had a rather more defined purpose.
Who knows - Ford certainly don't seem to, but likely bed-fellows Totyota do seem to (they will likely be No.1 make this or next year), and that probably won't include Land Rover and some other parts of Ford.
I can't speak for the OP, but I do get feeback from several hundred owners a week! LR would not be happy......
But the whole point of Freelander is that it is the Land Rover for people who don't want a Land Rover - it's compactness (i.e. those who are scared of driving a "tank") is/was a major selling point. I suspect the new size is aimed squarely at the US market - where sales of larger vehicles are in steep decline! Ford are in big trouble because they completely mis-read market trends (they basically don't do small cars - certainly in the US) so I'm left wondering if they have done the right thing making Freelander bigger. Plus, of course, they've pushed it up market too, leaving no entry-level model and most models potentially competing for the same customers, and quite likely confusing them!
Richard
I regularly listen to a money-related radio show from the US, and one guy recently was congratulated on moving to a (cheaper, second-hand) Honda Civic from a (brand-new, financed) Ford Focus, because he was reducing his debt, but also because the Focus was too small for a family with two children! Now, unless Ford are using the same name for totally different vehicles between the SU and Europe, my mind is boggling. Of course, they are all complaining about paying $2.30 per gallon for "gas" (it's about $7 here...)
Stuart
snip
Yep some good points raised there ....... BTW I apologise for my post it was Imo and on reflection a bit 'tectchy' to say the least ........ I'll refrain from posting just after a few drinks in future.
BFN ............. Richard
beamendsltd wrote: I can well remember the harness from a Rolls-Royce
I thought everyone was going CAN bus in this class ? That not true ? Steve
Yes, to a greater or lesser degree.
Allegedly took 30kg off the Range Rover, but can't remember where I heard that.
I can confirm the 2006 RR has a lot less copper wire in it than the previous
2002-2005 model. It was one of the selling points.All CAN bus and fibre optics....
They are, but car makers are very conservative (except Citroen). We had a 4-wire CAN bus system on a Jag in 1995 (Mitsubushi had a demo car with a 1-wire system, but it used the body for retrun which has corrosion implications) - but I don't think many, if any, makers have gone the whole hog yet - most seem to be messing about just door systems or similar. Technologically speaking, the wiring harness should be obsolete. It's a pity really, as (since eveyrone seems to have accepted CAN as "the standard") a lot of components could be standard modules for all vehicles - eg a left-hand rear light cluster controller brackets EU Spec, which would cost bugger all due to economies of scale if eveyone used the same thing. Sadly, despite constantly moaning about costs, up-take of new technology is very slow. Mind you, I suppose they have some reason to be cautious after seeing the Maestro Talking Computer foul-up (though, if it had worked, Leyland would have have pioneering market leading innovators....)
Richard
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