As I slowly work through all the faults on K-Hippo-D, I am trying to stop myself from looking at bling and other nice stuff for it until it is successfully back on the road and running reliably. However, one of the reasons for buying it in the first place was to take it off road or go green laning (or is it called "green roading" now?)
The current wheels are 16" sport lines with some strange brand of Chinese tyre - the best review of which I've seen states "not as bad as you think they might be". Hmm. Anyway, they are a road-biased tyre, and likely to be little better than Teflon off road.
The best option that I think that a number of you here recommend is to buy a spare set of wheels and fit more suitable footware to them. Hiking boots for the Hippo.
Given the range of wheel sizes available from LR over the years for the FL1, ranging from 15 to 17" - what is the optimum wheel size/ tyre combination for a bit of gentle 4-wheel drive family fun?
I am going to exclude the rather lovely Modular Steels from the running on the basis of budget constraints - but there are plenty of OE alloy wheels to choose from at reasonable money
Thanks!
To be completely honest, tyres are a BIG topic of debate.
Lets start at the beginning however. Have you green laned before or driven off road?
Unless you are a competent green laner, then it is always advisable to green laning with at least one other vehicle, should you get stuck or breakdown.
But green lanes are very varied, so it will depend where exactly you plan to go green laning. Your location says London, and there are green lanes not far from London, but most will be near civilisation. If you are in the darkest depths of Wales or somewhere up North, then you could be many many miles away from help.
Also remember, Green Lanes are public roads and should be treated accordingly. The ground to the side of the green lane is not a play area and shouldn't be driven on.
As for tyres. It will generally be a matter of compromises. Although the reality is, no green lane should be all that hardcore to tackle, if it is, then chances are you probably shouldn't be driving anyway.
A good set of AT's would likely be fine by and large, but if it's wet and muddy, they will be at a disadvantage. And due to excessive wheelspin can be more damaging than a more aggressive Mud Terrain.
AT's however will be better for the on road sections and are something you could happily run 24/7 on a Freelander.
Another downside to AT's is, while they are more puncture resistant than road bias tyres, they will not be as good as MT's.
A sensible MT is probably the best laning tyre. Something with sipes in preferably, as they will perform better on hard surfaces and in the wet and the ice. The trade off is, they generally won't be as good on road, but they should be acceptable.
Now the trap not to fall in here is, you don't need extreme tyres for green laning. So forget getting anything like Insa Turbo Special Tracks for this kind of use. And anyone who claims they need tyres like this for green laning is just a total dick head and hasn't got a clue.
As a side note, do you know if your Freelander has Traction Control? (most do, but some earlier ones do not). Without TCS the Freelander is somewhat lame off road, but with it, it is exceptionally capable.
As a rule narrower tyres tend to work better for 'most' UK off roading situations. Certainly a lot of the ground around the SE/Midlands area. Although big fat tyres can certainly look the part, they tend to float more on the surface and only really work well in sand and hard dry rocks.
What the Freelander does however suffer with, is relatively low ground clearance. Some green lanes will have deep tram lines that you have to drive along. Only in July this year, a Series 1 80" V8 got beached on a lane in Wales while we were out laning. And he was on 7.50 x 16 tyres too. So getting beached in a Freelander is very real possibility. So here is the trade off again with tyres.
Taller tyres will give you more clearance. But will blunt performance and probably cause rubbing issues and may require a lift kit and/or trimming. But they will be the better choice.
But I would say go as tall as you can (which is fairly limited on a FL anyway).
And if possible as narrow as you can while still getting the height.
Rim size matters less, although as a rule there are more off roady tyres in the 15 and 16" sizes. And the smaller the rim, the larger the sidewall of the tyre for the same height, which is another good thing off road.
Remould tyres are fine to look at and come at a good price and can often be had in some nice tread patterns. But they probably aren't the best tyre for running about on daily.
Failing that tyres such as the Maxxis Bighorn range, Toyo Open Country MT and many others are worth looking at.
Only real tyre I'd avoid is the BFG AT. While they are often popular over here, they are designed for the terrain of the USA, which is very different to the UK. And as a result they tend to perform badly off road and are somewhat nasty on road too, especially in the wet. Anyone claiming different probably falls into two camps (or both):
-has just lumped out huge sums of money for them and doesn't want to believe they aren't very good
-has never run any/many other tyres to act as a comparison too and are probably comparing a worn out road tyre to a new BFG AT
