How good or rubbish are non LR's off road?

[Chicken Drumstick]

Ok, this might be a loaded question, or just a can o'worms. But it's something I've often thought about.


Thinking mostly the Jap 4x4's with IFS and similar, rather than live axle Jeeps and G-Wagens. I know the latter two can be very capable off road.

But I am intrigued to know how well something like a Shogun, L200, Patrol could be off road?


I know in some parts of the world, many such trucks are used a lot and liked.



To help this comparison, I'll define what I mean by off road and what vehicles I've used/seen and can compare too.


I've seen and used Jeeps, such as a Wrangler, Cherokee XJ , etc. I know these perform very similar to a Land Rover off road.

I know things like the Jimny are very good.

I've driven a Vauxhall Frontera off road and thought it was rubbish. Nowhere near as good as a Freelander 1 with TCS.



What I'd like to know is, how would something like this:



Or this:



Or this:



Manage at doing things like this:



















Assume you'd fit equal tyres to the vehicles, to eliminate the tyres making the difference.




A Land Rover, such as a 90 or Series 88 are extremely capable machines in stock trim with just good tyres.

Disco's and Range Rover's too, although they both suffer large rear over hangs and longer front overhangs, which sometimes impact the ground. But they still normally manage fine.



Would the Jap counter parts be able to claim the same? I know many come with a rear LSD and some even with a rear locker. But does the IFS really hold them back?

What about the big plastic bumpers most of them have, to me they look like they are just right to be damaged and ripped off. And the pick up trucks have massive massive rear overhangs. Which surely would dig in.




Pics don't always show terrain up well, nor do vids. This isn't what I'd call 'extreme', far from it. Just an example of what a standard LR can do. And that I'd love to have a go at driving something non LR to see how it does.

Sorry for a long post, hope it provides insightful discussion though.

[dangerous doug]

I find a lot of the jap cars are nicer on the road(bar the carp interiors) but Landrovers are a good all rounder with a wealth of aftermarket addons and spares. A lot more character too....

I had a go in my step mums pajero once (2.8 swb) put the factory rear locker in and it was fine. I had to marshal on a fun day course but couldn't just drive around the edge to get to my post.....had to drive the course and it did it with no drama and with out being in now range. Read into that what you will but it went past alot of stuck cars and it had tame AT tyres....

Interior was hideous though

Also the works old ford ranger, drank fuel even in 2wd uncomfortable and too light on the back end so it just spun the rear wheels everywhere. Same tyres as the pajero, equally horrible interior. But we loaded the back up with hoist gear and a hoist trailer and I did it all day long

[Scotts90]

To answer the "IFS" question...just look how capable a D3/4 is off road, albeit a myriad of electronics help it along.

The farm L200 crew cab is hopeless off road. I've dragged it out the mire a couple of times with the 90, approach angles are fine but the departure angle on the long bed version(with tow pack) is poor. The current version has no difflock either and relies on the traction control from what I remember.

I had a SWB shogun in between my D2s, it was ok off road but it's super select transmission was sketchy...it would take the huff when asked to come out of low range, the tech answer was to turn it off for 30mins. I wasn't doing extreme off road stuff just general plodding across fields etc.

[Chicken Drumstick]

To answer the "IFS" question...just look how capable a D3/4 is off road, albeit a myriad of electronics help it along.

It's not really the electronics so much as the cross linked air bags, so that as one wheel gets push up, it pushes the opposite wheel down. Much like a live axle.

I don't really know of any other independent suspension systems that do this. On the flip side, if you took a base model D3 without air suspension and only coil springs, then I suspect it is comparatively rubbish off road vs a D3 with the air suspension.

Sure the TCS keeps the wheels moving, but that doesn't really do much for stability and grounding out. That's the main issue Freelanders suffer, the TCS might make them good on snow, sand or even muddy grass. But get them on the rough, they have no flex at all, they just lift wheels left right and centre and end up crashing the bumpers and underside into the ground all the time.

I know very off road biased long arm IFS/IRS can work well, although where flex matters such as rock crawling or even just very rough terrain (not rutted more trenches, humps,, climbs etc). You just don't really see them.

[Happyoldgit]

As well as running Land Rovers I had a Trooper and Shogun some years back and while reasonably civilised on the tarmac they never inspired the same kind of confidence off it. Further back I had a couple of Lada Nivas and hideously cheap interior, transfer box mounts that require careful shimming and interesting wiring apart, they were both reasonably capable. Expensive and slow spares backup were also majo drawbacks. Cart sprung pickups are generally iffy without a bit of weight in the back ...as an aside I came ][ that close to getting a Ranger a couple of years ago.

[Tanuki]

Look at what the "Tacticals" and militias are using in their various African/Middle-Eastern civil-wars: the weapon-of-choice is invariably Toyota, with a pintle to take a heavy machine-gun mounted in the load-bed.

Old-style clockwork/mechanical Defenders/Range-Rovers are OK but I'd happily put an unmodified one of them up against a modern 'intelligent' traction-control/air-suspended 4x4 and kinda know which would come out first.

For slow creeping IMHO you need an autobox unless you want to stall/restart/stall or burn your clutch out. Either that or get a UNIMOG and use a low-loader to take it to/from your workplace.

[My current quandary: needing 3500Kg towing capacity, do I replace my 12-year-old TD5 Defender with a Discovery "Commercial" or a Ford Ranger? I'm discounting the current LR 'Puma' engined Defenders because they only have rattly asthmatic 4-pot 2.2-litre engines; I can get a Ranger with a 3.2-litre 200-horsepower 6-cylinder lump and automatic for a lot less than a fully-loaded 4-pot stick-shift Defender. Now, if only LR offered a Defender with the TDV6, autobox and Disco/Range-Rover traction-management intelligence]

[Nigelw]

We had an Isuzu Trooper for a number of years, 3.1TD.

LSD in back axle was super, on A/T tyres it was a very capable beast, ok the front and rear bumpers on it were very much HD and low profile.

It all comes down to your choice of mods, an Opel Monterey I know of runs 35" tyres, new ring and pinions to correct gearing, modded front subframe, custom torsion bars, Aussie locker in the front, twin shocks, super flexy rear springs and protection package front to rear, to look at in the parking it looks like a std trooper on big tyres.

I saw hell and all marques at Budel last month, some doing better than others, but much of it comes down to differring factors, drivers ability, terrain encountered, vehicle modifications. I happily admit there are places I'd hammer the Trooper through knowing it's capable that I'd hesitate with the Discovery.

Vehicle preparation is the key to success, branding is an excise in futility. Example, I got dragged out of a set of axle twisters where me tyres were either attempting to punch their way through front or rear arches and the opposites were dangling on the shocks, the LSD as fitted in the Duty rear axle as std on a trooper would keep us going, many trucks before and after us were all locker equipped and drove on through, others like me got tugged out, most with more panel damage then me too I might add.

I'd happily go back to a Trooper, good power(for my driving style preffered over a 200Tdi), comfortable in every way and driving position is diffrrent to the Disco and I found it very nice even after our 14hr cross country drive through France.

It's all horses for courses really.

[qwakers]

kia sorento's are pretty good. will tow 2.8 ton out of a bog with just a/t's on where a couple of defenders on m/t's got stuck (in fact i dropped my trailer and towed them out too lol. but articulation and ground clearance? youve gotta be joking.

[GW8IZR]

The thing is though, how important is articulation in *most* commercial off road applications?

Note commercial, I love my own LR's and woudn't want anything else

We run a fleet of 4x4's throughout Europe and have some incredibly difficult sites to access.. today most land owners will stop us using 4x4 for access anyway to stop drivers churning up the ground. Look at the photos - should a commercial driver do that?

so we end up using ATV's snowmobiles and to be honest mainly helicopters. So for the fleet the weight capacity, fuel efficiency, reliability, lifetime cost, towing on the road and rough tracks, driver comfort and safety is the biggest concern and in my view the old Defender fails on some of those points so we use LC's and Hilux.

Therefore even if the LR product was ten times better off road it wouldnt tick all the boxes anyway.

[Anderzander]

My friend drives auto Pajeros and seems to be able to get anywhere a Defender can.

[honitonhobbit]

PistenBully is what we favour for bad access sites. That MB 12.9 Turbo gives a nice P:W and allows the use of interesting cutting gear

Most non LR 4x4's do the job they were designed for and do it relatively well. It's generally the driver that doesn't

[GW8IZR]

PistenBully is what we favour for bad access sites. That MB 12.9 Turbo gives a nice P:W and allows the use of interesting cutting gear

Most non LR 4x4's do the job they were designed for and do it relatively well. It's generally the driver that doesn't

its only really personal access and a bit of test kit for us so the Polaris 6x6 tracked is our favourite, it isnt as fast as a snowmobile but its classed as a tractor which means its more acceptable in national parks etc. With care and a good rider you cant really see where its been.

but agreed entirely, driver training is key and there isnt much room for a gung ho approach, too much damage to land and asset ..

[Ed Poore]

Haven't tried it on stuff as extreme as I've taken the 322, Defender and Series but Dad's Shogun's seem pretty capable on BFGs. They did have the benefit of 3 locking diffs installed as standard on the model he had.

Quieter than the Land Rovers (except the 322 naturally) but I think less practical. Less storage area up front etc, which is a bug bear of Dad's. When you actually take a step back and look carefully at the newer vehicles JLR have produced they are very well thought out, I mean my RR has five 12V sockets in it, basically one for every passenger...

[Cynic-al]

It depends what you mean by offroad. I have had several jap pickups which suit my job / life more than any land rover product. They're not as good offroad but they are good enough for the type of offroad I need it to do which is getting on and off a ground works construction site without getting stuck or being forced to stay in the car park.

My current isuzus limitations offroad are;

-the bolt on sidesteps and towbar.

- The ifs limits the flex along with the heavy leafs at the back and the long wheelbase. It has an lsd at the back but they're not that useful if your talking about a situation where your lifting a wheel. The newer isuzu has traction control instead which is actually really good.

- the front bumper is no more restrictive than say a freelander.

- the part time 4wd is a bit of a pain if your on and off lanes / sites, especially now they insist on electronic instead of a stick. If you had wind up with a stick you could feel it and jiggle about or bang it up a kerb to get it out. With electronic you press a button and watch a light flash and don't really know what to do if it fails.

The swb shoguns are really good offroad, they're tough little things with a decent diesel and petrol option and a rear difflock can often be found.

Bit of flex

Electronics doing its thing on the newer dmax

Delivering snow

[Cynic-al]

[My current quandary: needing 3500Kg towing capacity, do I replace my 12-year-old TD5 Defender with a Discovery "Commercial" or a Ford Ranger? I'm discounting the current LR 'Puma' engined Defenders because they only have rattly asthmatic 4-pot 2.2-litre engines; I can get a Ranger with a 3.2-litre 200-horsepower 6-cylinder lump and automatic for a lot less than a fully-loaded 4-pot stick-shift Defender.

Not that it really matters but I believe the ranger is a 5 pot. We have a wildtrak, a d-max blade and my rodeo plus at work so lots of banter

[Chicken Drumstick]

The thing is though, how important is articulation in *most* commercial off road applications?

I guess that's a different question. And not really one I'm asking. But a valid question none the less.

[Chicken Drumstick]

It depends what you mean by offroad.

The vids and pics in my op

I wonder, if a standard Jap "xxxx" would be able to drive around on the same terrain with the same result and same damage or lack thereof?

For example, those humps in the field aren't extreme, but there are axles twisters in there good enough to stop an 80" coiler CCV motor. And the banks are steep enough that you'll not get a Range Rover or Disco round there without bashing the bumpers on the ground (I know, my p38 has a cracked rear bumper doing just this).

A 90 or 88 will breeze round no probs.

[Chicken Drumstick]

Further back I had a couple of Lada Nivas and hideously cheap interior, transfer box mounts that require careful shimming and interesting wiring apart, they were both reasonably capable. Expensive and slow spares backup were also majo drawbacks.

My Aunt and Uncle had one back in the day. It was very good off road, although long before I was driving, so no first hand experience.

[deep]

Work supplies me with a Mitsubishi Pajero I.O. I removed the sway bar (actually improved the on-road handling, much to my surprise) and took off lots of vulnerable plastic bits and an asking-for-trouble alloy bull bar. We fitted new front shocks which allowed clearance for 215/85x16 tyres, really as tall as you'd get on an unmodified Discovery, being equivalent to a 7.00x16. The tyres are fairly aggressive. It has independent front suspension and a fancy multi-link rear solid axle, with locking centre diff and, allegedly, an LSD in the back.

Pros are that it is small and nimble with a good power to weight ratio, though the power comes with revs and the auto helps there. In some situations it has bags of grips and floats well. It certainly gets into tight places better than my 110 or 88.

Having said that, mostly it doesn't do anywhere near as well as the 110. Suspension travel is one limitation and the rear diff can't make up for that. The other big problem is ground clearance. If I put a tape under it, it has around the same clearance as I have under my Salisbury diff on the 110 (running 33" tyres) or the Rover diffs on the 88 (running 7.50x16 tyres). However, with any suspension travel, that clearance reduces dramatically. Plus, it's that low everywhere, not just under one low point. Ramp-over is miles worse than the 110 and it gets caught frequently. That gets very costly because engine mount rubbers are eye-wateringly expensive. Just saying. Beyond that, the bits of plastic I can't remove regularly get caught and pop their plastic attachment points.

Really, I have to say it's a fake, despite appearing to be a genuine off-road capable car. My sister had a series of full-size Pajeros, the first of which had three locking diffs and quite large tyres. It seemed a good bit better but still had limited suspension travel and vulnerable corners.

I used to work for a government department. We mostly ran Toyota Hi Luxes, though in early years we had a V8 110 and later we had a Nissan Navara. Those Hi Luxes were absolute rubbish in any off-road situation. Front heavy, limited wheel travel (even the early ones which had live axles on both ends) and towbars which ploughed everything. They were also very expensive to fix when they broke. The Navara was better in every way but it was clear they weren't really designed for any sort of tough off-roading.

Having said all that, I've seen plenty of Jap off-roaders going very well. Virtually all have lift kits, big tyres and a few hundred pounds of steel protecting every corner and most have some sort of traction control. Which is really the modern face of off-roading - virtually any vehicle can be made to work well and few are excellent without modification.

[Cynic-al]

The thing is they no longer make a 88" or 90" land rover. (Well not for long anyway)

If your talking about buying a car for road legal trials I think I'd pick a 13k jimny over a 30k discovery sport.

It's very rare people need that level of ability from an off the shelf 4x4. Especially where they don't want to damage the bumpers.

I'm hoping they will do a utility pickup in the new defender line up but I don't think land rover are interested in utility any more. They can make much more with toys and gadgets for China and dubai.

[pete3000]

I notice no one has yet mentioned the BMW X, hyundai, kia , ford, Porsche or other horrendous tesco explorer offerings

Waiting for some snow so I can cheer myself up watching the performance of soft roaders.

Coat.......door

[Chicken Drumstick]

The thing is they no longer make a 88" or 90" land rover. (Well not for long anyway)

If your talking about buying a car for road legal trials I think I'd pick a 13k jimny over a 30k discovery sport.

It's very rare people need that level of ability from an off the shelf 4x4. Especially where they don't want to damage the bumpers.

I'm hoping they will do a utility pickup in the new defender line up but I don't think land rover are interested in utility any more. They can make much more with toys and gadgets for China and dubai.

I guess for me, off roading is a leisure activity more so. I work in an office, so don't really "need" to off road. Ok, my Uncle is a farmer, so getting about the farm a 4x4 is most useful. Which I do quite a bit, but for 90% of it, a Freelander on AT's would likely suffice.

But having access to land means I get lots of opportunity to simply 'play' off road and I go to an RTV trial most months and an annual National event. Even thought the sort of off roading I generally do isn't what I'd call extreme, i.e. you don't really need a roll cage. I suspect it is far more extreme and aggressive than most commercial off roading in day to day jobs.

So of the bits I play on, you'll dig the tow bar on an 88 into the ground, due to the angles. A Jap truck with a 3 foot rear overhang would stand no chance.

[Chicken Drumstick]

I guess a question to ask is. Is there anyone local to me, who has a Jap 4x4 and wants to come and have a go off road with it? You'd be more than welcome, although I'd quite like to have a drive too ;)

[garrycol]

You need to be comparing apples with apples - similar speced vehicles - some of the discussion on this thread has been comparing a Defender with a LWB Jap ute - different type of vehicles. Most of the pics already shown in this thread show standard showroom Jap vehicles where most of the LR pics are of vehicles modified in some way.

In Aust it is LR that is considered the underdog as we have lots of full on full size toyota landcruiser and Nissan Patrol vehicles that are as every inch as capable as any LR. We have the jap utes and wagons but they are considered second order vehicles.

In an apples compared to apples type test I doubt there will be much difference between LR and Jap vehicles.

Garry

[Chicken Drumstick]

You need to be comparing apples with apples - similar speced vehicles - some of the discussion on this thread has been comparing a Defender with a LWB Jap ute - different type of vehicles. Most of the pics already shown in this thread show standard showroom Jap vehicles where most of the LR pics are of vehicles modified in some way.

In Aust it is LR that is considered the underdog as we have lots of full on full size toyota landcruiser and Nissan Patrol vehicles that are as every inch as capable as any LR. We have the jap utes and wagons but they are considered second order vehicles.

In an apples compared to apples type test I doubt there will be much difference between LR and Jap vehicles.

Garry

Apart from the tyre tread, the Land Rovers are mostly stock I'm afraid, not modified at all. There is one pic of a 90 with +2 shocks, but still running standard springs. Tyre sizes are all standard Land Rover.