8342mat said:

julia,
here is the answer to centre diff locks and hence why no visit to the dealers is required.

http://www.landyzone.co.uk/lz/f8/td5-diff-lock-they-all-manual-select-34036.html

basically if you have traction control and hill decent you aint got diff lock on our age group of td5. a quick check would also be, to see if you can push the little stick over to the left. dont force it. it will be obvious if there is a gate there for it to go into.

tip for the muddy stuff is to stop just short with all four wheels still on terafirma.
select low range, little stick forward, and first gear. the engine will rev higher than normal so selecting second, if needed, will come sooner than normal.
the trick is to be gentle on the accelerator and keep moving at all times, no matter how slow, until you get to where you want to stop.

have a practice on a quite road/ carpark, but keep it slow and dont forget to select high range again before setting off home.

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8342mat said:

julia,

the horrid grinding noise you heard is normal.
as soon as the computer senses that a wheel is loosing traction it removes the drive to it or applies the brake to it to stop it from spinning. not sure which way it is done on ours.
this is done very quickly because it also wants to get the power back to that wheel as soon as possible.

therefore the noise you heard is normal, and it is the mechanics removing and reapplying the drive back to the wheel, very quickly hence it sounds like grinding. in theory it is like switching a light on and off very quickly.

moose1,

yes you are correct.
i have been in a situation with a very heavy weight (44t) on the back of a range rover and sat there going no where.
an extreme example but yes it can happen given a set number of factors.

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