Took my Sport on a Green Road run with the Scottish Land Rover Owners yesterday and had a ball apart from when we went into a disused quarry........

After a couple of rock climbing drives round the inside of the quarry we were sent on a "there and back" run round part of the perimeter track which was steep and VERY muddy. Now the mud wasn't a problem even on the Conti tyres, the TC just pulled me through much to the amazement of most of the others there (especially as a Freelander 1 had failed on that section - mainly due to driver inexperience) however all eyes were on me on the next section which was a steep up hill on grass streaming with run-off water (I didn't mention that we had a monsoon on the west coast of Scotland yesterday!). I had been quite careful to run on uncompacted grass to try to clean mud out of the tyre treads before I lined up for the hill climb. Changed TR from mud to grass, gravel and snow setting and disabled the DSC and HDC. With 2nd Low engaged I lined up and took a run at the slope but only got about 50ft up it when I came to a halt with the TC working overtime to find grip. Reversed back and gave it another go but in 3rd Low this time but the same result, so came back for a 3rd attempt starting in 2nd Low but the car was having nothing of it. As I reversed back to turn round I got a huge round of applause but couldn't figure out why as I did really get very far........................
Back in the quarry I asked why did everybody clap at me for failing and I was shocked at the answer! The guy in charge then told that they had specially set up that section JUST FOR ME as they knew all the old Landies on knobbly tyres would breeze over it but they didn't expect me to get through the first muddy section on road tyres let alone get 90% of the way round the trail........................... so all I can say is that thanks to the boffins at LR, yesterday I was able to demonstrate in the flesh without embarrassment that there are very very few places that a modern Land Rover cannot go even on road tyres - what was even more impressive was that I didn't chew up any grass even though the wheels were scrabbling for grip on the wet grass, I did leave some burn marks but no furrows like all the others on their chunky mud terrain tyres who lost out in a cloud of flying mud and turfs! The marshal looking after the section later told me it was very impressive to see the RRS in a situation where all the others had spinning wheels, with it's wheels being braked by the TC while the one with traction drove with next to no fuss and when it started to slip the drive was transferred to the next wheel that had grip................ I just ran out of grippy spots on the wet grassy incline. I must admit that even though everybody else was impressed, I felt a bit cheesed off that I couldn't complete a section that I would have breezed over in my no-tech 90 with it's All Terrain tyres on. Next purchase will have to be a set of good AT's for use as winter/ offroad tyres. 2020 Pangea Green 1st Edition D240 New Defender 110 is here and loving it
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2015MY Corris Grey SDv6 HSE Dynamic, the best car I have ever owned, totally reliable only a cou0le of rattles in 3 years, now no longer in my care
Also in my garage is a 1996 TDi300 Defender 90 County HT made into a fake CSW

Last edited by Tim in Scotland on Mon Jun 04 2007 10:09am. Edited 3 times in total

Good work Tim
Job well done.

Imagine how intimidated they will be when you turn up with decent off-roads on the RRS.

Nice one Tim... it does seem the RRS is gaining respect in the offroad world, where as you've pointed out you don't need a beaten up Defender with knobbly tyres to enjoy yourself  

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But Shmoogle I don't mind doing this sort of thing to my 11 year old 90 but would be sick if it happened to my Sport..................... and these were not very extreme offroad events, in fact one (the big dent) was acquired on a green lane in Northumberland with the D3 guys! There's fun and there's FUN

This is in the FUN category
This is the damage that youg trees can do AFTER they have been cut back to make the track wide enough.....

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All good points, Tim!  

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Maybe I have been too careful to my 90, but all the damage in the pics has been acquired in the last 3 weeks! I suppose if you take a long term view, apart from washing all the lube out of the rear wheel bearings deep water wading the 90 (which "only" cost about £200 for 2 new bearings and fitting) and a few deep scratches on the paint work, that is the total damage I have done to the 90 in 6 years of ofroading it. Cannot be trying hard enough! 2020 Pangea Green 1st Edition D240 New Defender 110 is here and loving it
2018 Melting Silver Mini Countryman PHEV - soon to be replaced
2015MY Corris Grey SDv6 HSE Dynamic, the best car I have ever owned, totally reliable only a cou0le of rattles in 3 years, now no longer in my care
Also in my garage is a 1996 TDi300 Defender 90 County HT made into a fake CSW

What you need is some of those magnetic trees they have at the Ashford LRE!  

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Great posting Tim, very interesting, make a good basis for an LRO article I'd say. I would love to use my Sport off road and am looking forward to a meet of the non damaging kind !!!

It will interesting to fing out what AT tyres you get when you make the purchase. Are you running on 18 inch ? TDV6 SE Java Black Front and Rear Headlamp guards

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My Sport runs on standard Continentals with the optional 10 spoke 18" wheels and my 90 runs on 265/75/R16's BFGoodrich Mud Terrains on Land Rover Deep Dish alloys which have recently replaced a set All Terrains in the same size on Land Rover Freestyle alloys. The All terrains are excellent but BFG don't make them with a low enough sidewall to fit into the Sport's wheel arches. BFG AT's run very quietly on the road (although I'm sure my new MT's are even quieter despite the chunkier tread!) and have amazing wear characteristics - the previous set of AT's ran to 59000 miles and still had 4mm of tread minimum, left when I changed them. I even sold them on to a guy who never went offroad in his Defender! They were OK for on road use with that tread left but somewhat lacking offroad. Certainly if BFG could come up with a set of MTR's or even ATs (which are OK for 95% of the offroading that I do) to fit on an RRS I would change to them for every day use. 2020 Pangea Green 1st Edition D240 New Defender 110 is here and loving it
2018 Melting Silver Mini Countryman PHEV - soon to be replaced
2015MY Corris Grey SDv6 HSE Dynamic, the best car I have ever owned, totally reliable only a cou0le of rattles in 3 years, now no longer in my care
Also in my garage is a 1996 TDi300 Defender 90 County HT made into a fake CSW

Great post Tim - really interesting. It is quite amazing what the RRS will do offroad - even with road tyres. I've got Pirellis on mine which I think are better than Contis. I've done several offroad runs in the RRS with no problems at all. However like you, I am reluctant to go too extreme as there will inevitably be damage to bodywork and trim. I am looking for a set of 18s with ATs for the RRS so that I save the Pirellis for road use. I use the 110 for the more extreme stuff. The Defender is so much fun offroad and no real worry about minor damage. I've got 16" steel wheels with Goodyear Wranglers for road use and big black modulars with 33" mud tyres for fun days. Surprisingly they are not too bad on the road either. Not too noisy, but they do affect the handling. I must post some pics one of these days of both RRS and Defender.
Great story Tim. It's a testament to the RRS that so many "Offroaders" clapped and cheered at your effort in the RRS. Different tyres and I'm sure you would have made it up the hill, no worries!!!!!  Range Rover Evoque 5 door on order.
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I had a couple of heart-stopping moments on snow last winter the Contis and certainly will be putting on something different for next winter. Smarticus has been running on some winter biased tyres on his TDv8 and has decided that the performance of them is so good that he is keeping them on all year round 2020 Pangea Green 1st Edition D240 New Defender 110 is here and loving it
2018 Melting Silver Mini Countryman PHEV - soon to be replaced
2015MY Corris Grey SDv6 HSE Dynamic, the best car I have ever owned, totally reliable only a cou0le of rattles in 3 years, now no longer in my care
Also in my garage is a 1996 TDi300 Defender 90 County HT made into a fake CSW

I can vouch for the excellent all year properties of the Nokian tyre too. The main reason I changed back to the Contis was to get some Stormers back on the car - the Nokians are on the stock 10 spoke 20s.

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Great posting Tim, very interesting, make a good basis for an LRO article I'd say. I would love to use my Sport off road and am looking forward to a meet of the non damaging kind !!!

It will interesting to fing out what AT tyres you get when you make the purchase. Are you running on 18 inch ?

I used to take my landcruiser over the track from the B6277 to Ireshopeburn up in the northern peninnes in County Durham now if I could get a big vehicle like that over the hill without damage then it should be possible for the RRS ......

All you have to watchout for is the odd mineshaft
this was taken up there just off the track, the small hillocks are the tailings off the mines there
and she is not stuck

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