4x4 Advice

peasant

For a little more money, there is also the Vitara XL ...either as 7 seater or a 5 seater with a massive boot (that will take the clients' wellies as well )

While the long chassis will rule it out from competition style offroading (which is not the question here anyway), it offers significantly more space than the "normal" Grand Vitara and also the Passat.

see example:
http://www.carzone.ie/usedcars/index.cfm?fuseaction=car&carID=243598
still with the two litre Diesel (that grille is a bit naff though ...)


btw ...i don't work for Suzuki ...i just drive one

Capt'n Midnight

Fiat Panda 4x4

I'm not joking.

Uses viscous coupling to transmit power to the rear wheels when you start to slip.

AMurphy

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Fiat Panda 4x4

I'm not joking.

Uses viscous coupling to transmit power to the rear wheels when you start to slip.

hey, dont laugh,
I say an article on a 4x4 Mini (old style) in a mag, and mini-4x4's are fairly popular in Japan. Camry and Priva are and Corolla, may be, available in 4x4, as is the Voyager Grand Caravan, W/3.8L-V6.
and you have the VW Passat 4-Motion available to you. the 3.2-V6 Golf is also 4wd, Y/N?

Son_of_Belial

Well, if it wasn't for the fact that she doesn't want to spend a fortune... The best 4x4 by far has got to be the Hummer H1 Alpha. Draw back is the price at about €100,000 but you can get second hand ones. There's a dealership in Manchester.

Chimaera

Interesting thread....

astec: I doubt this person needs a genuine off-roader; as many have pointed out, somehting like a Subaru Forester, or a 4x4 version of a saloon or estate should be more than adequate to get her to the site entrance. After that, she can walk - chances are driving any further will only get in the way of construction machinery anyway.

The only justification for using a full-on off-roader is for regular towing of large loads, or serious off-road travel; no building site I've ever seen would necessitate one of these vehicles imho.

As for the son, she'd be better off buying him a 1.3 Escort or something similar, that's not very fast and cheap to insure and run, rather than letting him off in a 30-40k powerhouse which he's far more likely to wrap around a tree at 70mph.

Incidentally, a 'proper' 4x4 doesn't necessarily have to have a ladder frame or live axles any more - the Porsche Cayenne will give a Defender a run for it's money off road, and it's a unitary shell with double wishbones all round; ditto new Range Rover. LR Discovery 3 has what they call body on frame arrangement - basically a hybrid of unitary shell and ladder frame - works very well, but is a major factor in the thing weighing 2.7 tonnes; it also has double wishbones all round and at least equals a defender off road.

ds20prefecture

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Fiat Panda 4x4
I'm not joking.
Uses viscous coupling to transmit power to the rear wheels when you start to slip.

This is an excellent car - good ground clearance, good traction and light. The only problem is that it's not available with the excellent diesel
The 2CV is also quite good off road, particularly in (admittedly rare) 4wd form. This car has greater wheel travel than a range rover, and fully independant suspension, which is useful.

My sister ran a fleet of 4x4s for a charity in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Sudan. The Land Cruiser was the vehicle of choice in Kosovo because of it's surprisingly good road manners and dependable build. However when she got to Afghanistan, the land cruisers would last about a year. They just couldn't hack it at all. The only thing regarded as tough enough for Afghanistan was the Lada Niva. Terrible on-road, these things could run dependably on anything in any conditions for many years. It helped that they were cheap as chips (which nobody could accuse the land cruiser of). Sudan was a mix between Nissan Patrols and Land Cruisers, but they weren't quite as robust as people make out. In all cases, the locals used to laugh at Land Rovers.

Moral is: Expensive off-roaders are not necessarily better than cheap ones. The Daihatsu 4 track should be available for about 50p, and is extremely robust, with a strong diesel. Awful car in all other respects.

peasant

the Porsche Cayenne will give a Defender a run for it's money off road, and it's a unitary shell with double wishbones all round

Just a little theoretical excursion:

The reason why the Cayenne doesn't get stuck on its first yards off the road is because it is packed to the gills with electro-mechanical gizmos. Its road biased suspension is not fit for off-roading at all. At the slightest sign of ondulated terrain, one or two wheels start losing contact due to the limited articulation. It still keeps going "simply" because all sorts of electronic little helpers detect this and send power to the wheels which still have contact and prevent the wheels which are up in the air from spinning pointlessly by applying the brakes. And when you send 400+ hp as in the case of the cayenne, it might actually still go. Furthermore the supension can also lift the car higher up, to compensate for limited wheel travel. Basically what it is is a very elaborate brute force compromise. Same goes for the likes of Merc ML or BMW X5 also.

Any other so-called offroader that has road suspension and one of those viscous coupling 4Wd systems but none of the Cayenne gizmos will go a little further than a normal car on wet grass or snow but will fail miserably as soon as the terrain becomes bumpy because its sticking one or two wheels in the air, whirring away the power pointlessly.

Capt'n Midnight

Son_of_Belial wrote:

Well, if it wasn't for the fact that she doesn't want to spend a fortune... The best 4x4 by far has got to be the Hummer H1 Alpha. Draw back is the price at about €100,000 but you can get second hand ones. There's a dealership in Manchester.

Where would you park it ? It's 4.8m long x 2.5m wide inc mirrors. Half the lenght of a DoubleDecker bus and almost as wide (the bus is one foot wider, but the hummer has much wider mirrors. Hummer wheels are at the corners and the buses are nearer the centre. So you litterly have about the same manoveurability as a bus in city traffic.

Fuel tank (gal / L): 29.5 / 111.7 main and 22 / 83.3 auxiliary
That's €200 to fill both tanks !
http://www.rockcrawler.com/features/newsshorts/04october/hummer_h1alpha.asp

Also you can't drive it on a car license (B) or even a (C1) license since it's over 7.5 tonnes.
GCWR (lb / kg): 17,300 / 7,847
http://www.transport.ie/roads/licensing/licence/index.asp?lang=ENG&loc=1836
And if you are going to the trouble of getting a (C) license for a real offroader you could save yourself a fortune and get a slightly bigger ex-military Unimog. There is no truth in the rumour that the US Army bought them to rescue Hummers but ...

Fuel tank (gal / L): 29.5 / 111.7 main and 22 / 83.3 auxiliary
That's €200 to fill both tanks !

And after all that it still doesn't have any more seats than the Fiat Panda.

bp_me

I dont think it has been mentioned, but what about a Kia Sorento. Realisticly almost any of the "Soft roaders"(in 4x4 guise) should be more than adequate for driving onto building sites though.

Oh, and just to say, I didnt read the whole thread properly before posting, so sorry if some of this has been covered already.

thelurcher

ds20prefecture: Wouldn't be 100% sure but I'd say the land cruisers that your sister ran were more than likely the 70 or 80 series - they're a fair bit different to the cruiser you see on the road here - and much much more capable off road.

Since they didn't last in Afghanistan they could well be the version sold here that she used?

A lot of the World wide cred that the land cruiser has for off road abilities is down to the 70 series.

HashSlinging

Skoda have introduced a 4x4 version of the octavia estate, uses the 1.9 Tdi engine.

Sorted !

CJhaughey

thelurcher wrote:

ds20prefecture: Wouldn't be 100% sure but I'd say the land cruisers that your sister ran were more than likely the 70 or 80 series - they're a fair bit different to the cruiser you see on the road here - and much much more capable off road.

Since they didn't last in Afghanistan they could well be the version sold here that she used?

A lot of the World wide cred that the land cruiser has for off road abilities is down to the 70 series.

Yep have to agree with thelurcher here most of the TLC you see on Irish roads are in fact series 90 (swb) or 95(lwb) also known as Prado they are essentially the same as the Hilux Surf, and have IFS.
The 70series OTOH is the vehicle of choice for most offroad situations and 3rd world use. in fact they still make the 70 series as the HZJ78/9 series and it has an unrivalled reputation for toughness. I am puzzled as to the unreliability issue, as they are usually the last vehicle left running, No wait I think that honour goes to the Hilux 2.4:)