Off road driving tips

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rossymtb

rossymtb

New Member
Posts
332
Location
North wales
I have taken mine a couple of times now on short green lanes but last night came across something worth mentioning.

Situation: Big muddy up-hill where a tractor had been going, ruts just touching underside of car. About half way up this hill in 1st gear crawling along slowly spinning wheels i came to a stop, wheels spun car didn't go forwards anymore.
reversed back and tried again same happened, although this time worse because i chewed the mud up more, 3rd time when it stopped i left it spinning and increased the revs slightly. at this point noticed that the traction control light came on and it started to judder forward but to no avail stopped and sat spinning again.

4th time i reversed and slid towards a hedge and gate ( nearly a landyzone rescue moment) luckily enough it started to climb forward away from the hedge so kept it at 2,500rpm traction control light kept flickering, felt the car juddering and it climbed all the way past where i had got stuck on numerous trys all the way to the top. Well impressed and thought if i had known to keep the revs a little higher so that the 4wd system works i wouldn't have got stuck and spent ages trying to get out of the situation.

so anyhow are there any more tips/tricks to off roading with a freelander.


p.s. it was late and too worried about being stuck on a green lane all night that i didn't take pictures. and i also need some off road tyres
 
Forward momentum can get you through/up/over a lot of stuff.

To much just breaks things

Get some AT/off road tyres - will make a difference
 
The freelander needs way more revs / speed than most other 4x4s to tackle most obstacles.
The traction control system is actually pretty impressive when it works, but there has to be a large enough difference in speed between some of the wheels for the system to engage.
And I keep banging on about this, but the lack of low ratio means that you are forced into going faster than would normally be comfortable in order to keep the revs high enough to keep the engine on boost and prevent it stalling.
 
I understand what you mean about flying mud everywhere but on this occasion my car made no significant difference in the ground conditions compared to the farmers tractor ect.
I also didn't want to get it dirty so didn't use enough throttle to fling mud about
 
I add about wading in water, in residential streets, seeing as I have done quite a bit today.

The water was coming up to the top of my wheel nuts, so deep enough, but not too deep.

Because of where we were, driving down flooded residential roads, we kept the speed right down 2-3mph max to try and stop the water entering the houses we were going past.

No bow waves here or anything like that.

The water was deep enough to go over the top of my wellies!
 
i went up strata florida in mine a few weeks back(in front wheel drive i should add)only got stuck on a rock once and had to be towed back a bit to take a different line.no problem through the fords.
i took it for a play at a site in scotland last year(in 4wd)and it went pretty much everywhere and was only beaten by ground clearance on rutted sections which seems to be the major issue ive found with the freelander(mine is a 2001td4 auto)
 
dave21478 said:
The freelander needs way more revs / speed than most other 4x4s to tackle most obstacles.
The traction control system is actually pretty impressive when it works, but there has to be a large enough difference in speed between some of the wheels for the system to engage.
And I keep banging on about this, but the lack of low ratio means that you are forced into going faster than would normally be comfortable in order to keep the revs high enough to keep the engine on boost and prevent it stalling.
Click to expand...

The best Freelander on slippery surfaces is the V6.
V6 Engine+ Auto Box+ TC= Good Combination.
 
I took mine on the Yorkshire Christmas laning trip and I found it very capable I only got stuck twice both down to ground clearance, one of the time a diff lock would have helped as the traction control struggled. To say its just a standard freelander with A/T tyres on I was very impressed!! :)
 
You might have been just as well off with no diff lock and traction control - with enough revs the traction control should see power chucked out on all four wheels. On a Disco/Defender with diff lock but no traction control, there is a chance you will get stuck spinning a wheel on each axle.... for soggy fields and muddy grass the Freelander is very capable.
 
as my freelander is sitting on the drive waiting for me to fix the front calliper and fit the rise kit that Ive ordered from ses88, we popped over our woodland in the back up vitara, a very muddy rutted private road in, used 4WDH to get us in, and we were all over the place, so on way out, selected 4WDL, going slower made for a much better journey,
 
essexpestcontrol said:
as my freelander is sitting on the drive waiting for me to fix the front calliper and fit the rise kit that Ive ordered from ses88, we popped over our woodland in the back up vitara, a very muddy rutted private road in, used 4WDH to get us in, and we were all over the place, so on way out, selected 4WDL, going slower made for a much better journey,
Click to expand...

Lift kit will be dispatched tuesday Steve, getting them back from platers Monday afternoon.
 
thequeenscheese said:
Have we all got tc? Lseries commercial for eg?
Click to expand...


Optional extra on early models. Mine doesn't have it but I THINK it was standard after 2001. I am pretty sure if you have hill descent you also have traction control and abs as it's a similar sort of thing.
 
rossymtb said:
I have taken mine a couple of times now on short green lanes but last night came across something worth mentioning.

Situation: Big muddy up-hill where a tractor had been going, ruts just touching underside of car. About half way up this hill in 1st gear crawling along slowly spinning wheels i came to a stop, wheels spun car didn't go forwards anymore.
reversed back and tried again same happened, although this time worse because i chewed the mud up more, 3rd time when it stopped i left it spinning and increased the revs slightly. at this point noticed that the traction control light came on and it started to judder forward but to no avail stopped and sat spinning again.

4th time i reversed and slid towards a hedge and gate ( nearly a landyzone rescue moment) luckily enough it started to climb forward away from the hedge so kept it at 2,500rpm traction control light kept flickering, felt the car juddering and it climbed all the way past where i had got stuck on numerous trys all the way to the top. Well impressed and thought if i had known to keep the revs a little higher so that the 4wd system works i wouldn't have got stuck and spent ages trying to get out of the situation.

so anyhow are there any more tips/tricks to off roading with a freelander.


p.s. it was late and too worried about being stuck on a green lane all night that i didn't take pictures. and i also need some off road tyres
Click to expand...

would not putting the traction control (yellow button) on, done the job for you? thought that was for going up icy hills etc

SES88 said:
Lift kit will be dispatched tuesday Steve, getting them back from platers Monday afternoon.
Click to expand...

cheers mate
 
essexpestcontrol said:
would not putting the traction control (yellow button) on, done the job for you? thought that was for going up icy hills etc



cheers mate
Click to expand...

Nope. The switch on the stick of the manual or on the centre console of the anto, is the HDC switch. HDC stands for Hill Decent Control, which is pretty self explanatory ;)
Traction Control or TC is fully automatic, it engages whenever the wheels start to rotate at different speeds. The TC system pulses the brakes of the spinning wheels to send more torque to the wheels with grip.
 
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