Be Excellent To Each Other

Indeed. Also - all of those 4x4s that don't have enough ground clearance to actually be used off-road (of which the Cayenne, X6, Toureg, Freelander etc are marvellous examples) are just baffingly stupid.

EDIT - thankyou to a friendly mod for splitting this out!

They used the Freelander in the Camel Trophy, mate. Ground clearance depends entirely on the size of your tyres / wheels.

99% of the discos and freelanders you see have less ground clearance than a Transit. They'd need to entirely redo the chassis to get enough space from the top of the wheel arch to improve the ground clearance by using a larger wheel - and at that point you could be doing this to a VW Beetle anyway.

Retail discos/freelanders/touregs/X6s/Cayennes/whatever are fucking pointless tanks for school runs.

The new Discovery3's (and the D2's) have air suspension to lift themselves up when they go off-road, and they're quite shockingly good at it.
Also, I'm not sure the Beetle 4wd system is good enough to cope with mud

Given the height of a Discovery I'd be afraid of going round a corner on road at speed, let alone off road with further height added.

EDIT Defenders are best. End of.

Er...

That's a funny way of spelling "fit longer springs".

I think he WANTS to topple over hilariously.

There's an upper limit to how much extra ground clearance you can get by doing that, surely?

That's how I read it anyway.

I'm pulling up a chair for this bitch fight. Hey, Mr Chris, after you've finished discussing off-road racing with the forumite who's spending thousands of pounds building a kit car for off-road racing, would you like to tell me why my PhD was wrong, explain to CG why Toyota dealerships offer excellent value, and explain to Metal Angel how boring trains are?

Yes - zero. Ground clearance is measured to the lowest point of the car, which is normally the diff on the axle. Hence the need for bigger wheels.

However, a 4" lift is normally the most offered, and does make a huge difference.

If you mean best for off-roading, that's been debated for a long time. Most people convert Discoverys (sp with a name?) or Range Rovers if they want to do serious off-road stuff. The Defender certainly was the best 'off the forecourt' solution, but now doesn't carry any of the technology that the new Discoverys and Range Rovers do, and suffers because of it.

That's what I mean - you can only fit bigger wheels that will actually fit under the car - and the wheel arch will get in the way unless you have the point at which the wheels are attached to the car considerably below the bottom of the wheel arch. I was wondering how you got the axle that low - just by messing with the suspension? I've seen VW Beetle off-road conversions and I'm sure they had to do something more serious than just fit longer springs.

Because you added 12 to 64 and got 86?

I think Mr Chris is trying to say that it's also an advantage in off-roading to have the floor pan and the rest of the bodywork suspended well above the axles (and if you don't you'll have trouble fitting oversize wheels in the first place).
The school-run SUVs, like any other car, seem to have independent suspension and the diff is bolted to the floor, so you can only raise it by the extent that the driveshafts will allow (which isn't very far).

I assume Discos have solid axles like the Defender?

Kalmar: All Land Rovers do.

Chris: Well, essentially, you can add longer and longer springs and struts until it's a monster truck. Modern suspension kits make little difference to the actual running height of the car - keeping the wheels on the ground is far more important.



^^ That is all you need to do this:

But only if it's got live axles in the first place.

Yeah, which all Land Rovers have. I believe the Toureg does too, and the Cayeen (or however you spell it) is practically the same as a Toureg.

That's what I was asking. Freelander too?

Mr Chris's list was "Cayenne, X6, Toureg, Freelander" - I'm not familiar with them at all but from seeing them on the road, most of them appear to have independent suspension (as well as fairly tight fitted wheel arches), all of which must limit your options for raising them very far.

Ak, no, sorry, the Freelander doesn't. It's still very capable off road (given the right tyres), though.

That's just arithmetic, not mathematics. I am waving my hand dismissively as I type this. No-one cares about arithmetic.

Wikipedia says it was based on Austin Maestro bits, LOL.

I'm learning! Awesome. Thanks chaps. At some point I'm going to be building a Caterham 7, so I should probably learn about this car stuff. I have until we move house for that, as I need a garage.

However, I think I'm sort of right in my original point in that of those 99% of 4x4s on the road which have piss-all ground clearance, 99% of those will have owners who wouldn't know how to go about changing their running height, and so will remain pointless non-offroad 4x4s. Like this chappy:

So was the Discovery - the entire line of the first ones read was based on the shape of a Maestro van's lights.

This is a fair point - the car can do it, but probably never will.
But what about, say, Porsche drivers? 99% of them will never see a race track.

True, but you can still accelerate quickly on a motorway, for instance, so its performance still has some uses. Unless you have some *serious* speed bumps in your area, or a very steep drive indeed, an on-road only 4X4 tank is a big pile of pointless.

They like turning the M60 into one.

The same applies to an extent, but at least they're suitable for use on the public roads as well.

So is a Toureg, though.

Only barely, I'd consider it unsuitable on the basis that it's dangerous and inconsiderate against other road users and pedestrians.
It's too high to see past, the bumper height doesn't match normal cars, etc.
It can only carry 5 people but uses the same amount of fuel as about three normal sized cars which do exactly the same thing.

Unsuitable.

Perversely, I think the Range Rover is just about the ideal London car. Big, comfortable, easy to drive and has teh distinct advantage of having upright seats which are good for my bad back and they smother speed ramps and the general shitty state of repair of most London roads. I don't own one, though.

Also, I drove a Disco 3 when they first came out as a mate blagged a pre launch V8 from LR and it had an amazingly composed ride for such a large vehicle. Felt like a Jag on stilts and rolled very little due to a very sophisticated chassis.

As for them being pointless - well yes they are a bit in London, but no moreso than running around in a 5 or 6 litre merc or beemer, which are just as heavy and even thirstier in a lot of regards, and don't get me started on Bentleys and Rollers - you don't see the anti 4x4 brigade getting up in arms about those 3 tonne 5mpg tanks do you? And that's before you start on Ferraris and other exotica.

So basically, what I'm saying is this, Mr Chris, do some research on your targets before picking on the obvious. It's nothing short of car racism you're guilty of

Thankyou to a friendly mod for splitting this out!

I can do that, too, if you want! They are, in some sense, even more pointless than 4x4s, as they don't even have the pretence of having a reason for their size and lack of fuel efficiency. You couldn't use a Bentley to drag a trailer round a field.

Plus they're invariably driven by absolute cockwits.

Kalmar, yesterday.

Included SUV drivers FTFY

FTF(the car you have)FY

Not wrong, dude.

Your hair is very shiny*

Also:

Cock off with the fucking American! We don't have SUVs in this country.

[edit]*Also, don't take the picture the wrong way, I pretty much agree with you. I consider myself exempt because I do use mine for playing in the mud. I also consider my dad exempt, as he pulls big trailers with his Toureg.

I have a weeny 1.6 BMW though, so I am exempt from the "BMW drivers are cocks" rule.

And anyway, all the cocks have moved to Audis...

As for that M1 Hommage (sic) I subscribe to Car, which featured it a couple of months ago - it's just a clay model at the moment, and tbh I'm not sure I like it. However, in the current issue there's a report on Audi launching a RS5 or S5 (they're big coupes based on the A6 or is it A4, I forget which) in competition with the BMW M3. During the report there was a quote from the head of the M division at Beemer stating something along the lines that they don't see any point in making lightweight exotica (think CSL or Coupe Sport Lichtmetal to give it it's proper name) anymore as they state there's no market for them. Instead, they will be concentrating on shoehorning huge engines, big wheels and stiff suspension onto their SUV X range as they apparently sell like hot cakes in the east, middle east and far east.

So there's some truth also in the rumour I read that Land Rover have been developing a V12 ultra high spec Rangie for these markets (where petrol is 10-15p litre and they don't give a fuck about climate change) The V8 petrol does single figures around town, so god only knows what the V12 does - it probably comes with a reinforced tow bar as standard for the bowser you need to drag!

Ah, but if we follow Kalmar's law, it does nothing a 1.0 Polo doesn't. Neither does my 2.3 Mazda.
Most of us are guilty, it's just a degree of how much.

Fuck off with your middle class ailments

While I see no justifiable reason for 4x4s in a city, I'm not too bothered about what other car you choose to drive. If you want a 1.8 you're going to get raped on petrol costs, so that's fine. I opted for a 1.2 because its economical.

Emissions are a problem, but as usual the individual will never be convinced to 'go green' unless their wallet is stolen on a daily basis, so for things like that it's better to enforce something on manufacturers.

I live in Caterham, just round the corner from the showroom. I think it is just a sales place though - all the clever stuff is done in Dartford.

Hahaha! Don't you have a huge barge of a thing, though?

HAH might have guessed!

I just wanted another german car, after my Peugeot misery. And I couldn't see me getting another 1986 Polo like my first car, as it probably wouldn't survive the commuting.

I miss Arthur. He was great.