Hi,
Personally the Hippo serves me and my wife perfectly for what we've bought it in the first place. No offroading as my wife suffers of backace, also as I am retired I hope to be able to drive this car as long as possible. Anyway to prove my point, last week we did a 475 kms roundtrip in exactly 5 hours, an ideal situation for the Td4 in combatination with the Steptronic autobox/cruise control. I have to admit most of the road was highway but still. The weather was rather louzy, foggy, rainy and cold, on the highest parts of the trip there was still snow both sides of the road and also on places it was rather slippery but for the Hippo no sweat, where I could see the other drivers with white knockelded cramped hands around the steeringwheel almost with their nose to the windshield I drove it relaxed, leaning back. On occasions the inside windows started to get misty because of the outside cold when reaching higher altitudes, but for the rest is was, as driving the Hippo always IS, a real dream. No problem for my wife at all when we came home where with our previous car (Mercedes 190E) she couldn't do a 100 km trip or she suffered of her back and now almost 5X that distance and no problem at all. Also the heated seats are a dream, it was still rather cold (6.45am) when we left and I had taken off my coat to be able to move freely, so in my pullover and with that b.. on an heated seat it was excellent. Even it being a diesel it ferms very well as you can see at the time we did, so to take a rundown on the good points:
1. very comfortable,
2. very safe to drive,
3. ideal seating position,
4. ideal combination of Td4/Jatco gearbox
5. no need to expand this list, just think of something and say Hippo is the best.....
6. don't mention the AC and/or the heating as these are low low down the good list....
But all by all, the Hippo is, up till now, the best allround car we've got so far and both my wife and I hope we will be able to drive it for many more years (or the next Freelander 07 must be a real killer )
Personally the Hippo serves me and my wife perfectly for what we've bought it in the first place. No offroading as my wife suffers of backace, also as I am retired I hope to be able to drive this car as long as possible. Anyway to prove my point, last week we did a 475 kms roundtrip in exactly 5 hours, an ideal situation for the Td4 in combatination with the Steptronic autobox/cruise control. I have to admit most of the road was highway but still. The weather was rather louzy, foggy, rainy and cold, on the highest parts of the trip there was still snow both sides of the road and also on places it was rather slippery but for the Hippo no sweat, where I could see the other drivers with white knockelded cramped hands around the steeringwheel almost with their nose to the windshield I drove it relaxed, leaning back. On occasions the inside windows started to get misty because of the outside cold when reaching higher altitudes, but for the rest is was, as driving the Hippo always IS, a real dream. No problem for my wife at all when we came home where with our previous car (Mercedes 190E) she couldn't do a 100 km trip or she suffered of her back and now almost 5X that distance and no problem at all. Also the heated seats are a dream, it was still rather cold (6.45am) when we left and I had taken off my coat to be able to move freely, so in my pullover and with that b.. on an heated seat it was excellent. Even it being a diesel it ferms very well as you can see at the time we did, so to take a rundown on the good points:
1. very comfortable,
2. very safe to drive,
3. ideal seating position,
4. ideal combination of Td4/Jatco gearbox
5. no need to expand this list, just think of something and say Hippo is the best.....
6. don't mention the AC and/or the heating as these are low low down the good list....
But all by all, the Hippo is, up till now, the best allround car we've got so far and both my wife and I hope we will be able to drive it for many more years (or the next Freelander 07 must be a real killer )