I love my FL2. I haven't had it long but have read everything and watched everything I can find on the interwebs and the UTubey about it's surprisingly good off road capabilities.

As an experiment I had it in GrassGravelSnow as I tried a multi angle gravel mound crossing. I knew that seriously unbalanced and extended in that crossed up situation it would spin the wheels if not controlled by the computer. I have read that in GGS it can sense wheel spin in 15degrees. It has a Haldex coupling that boasts tenths of a second before torque transfer. So I suspected that there would be a slight amount of wheel spin before continuing.

The mounds were two large gravel mounds meeting at right angles, so to cross over the join was a seriously challenging task. What surprised me was how much time and wheel spin it needed before pushing on and over. I know you are supposed to keep the throttle on and allow it to manage the spin but I thought GGS was supposed to severely limit spin? What is it doing after the fifteen degrees of slip and for the next several million computer cpu cycles?

So regarding GGS mode wheel spin... Isn't it supposed to stop spin almost straight away? Anyone with experience of that mode? Is it possibly delayed because both front and back had loose footing?

My son who does a lot of driving around farms, found that the best thing was to ignore the settings and just leave it in the normal mode and it would sort itself out quite well. He thought that the various settings were more of a marketing feature. 3 x FL1 2 manual + 1 auto
5 x FL2 4 manual + 1 auto
Now Discovery Sport P250 MHEV SE

Hmm... surely they must do something.... it is true though that I started doubting it when my wheels spun for what seemed like a few seconds before I was able to move forward.

One factor that I hadn't realised till then either was that unlike a low range controlled crawl, the wheel spin and applied throttle means it's more a series of lurches than a controlled slow speed walk over an obstacle.

So although I'm convinced it's a capable vehicle, I now can see the shortcomings in addition to just lower than desired clearance. Still love it though.

I suppose it's just a matter of coming to know how it behaves to get the best out of it.

At least its a Auto.  FL2 MY10 TD4 GS traded in at 2 years
FL2 MY13 TD4 GS Current

I think most of Terrain Response stuff is fluff despite motoring journos salivating over it.
When I get stuck it doesn't make any difference what the TR selector says - the vehicle is in STUCK mode!!!!
I want a wee clicky button which engages Low Range cogs, jacks the car up 8 inches and deploys a winch at the front or rear.......

You folks with winter snow could answer it difinitively if you had the time to test it..... Anyone? I live in Oz so it's not available to me.

If you could find a uphill slope with slippery ice or snow... Different modes should produce different results on takeoff. You'd probably need a outside observer but GGS should have the least, or no slip if the TRS is not just marketing bs.

Having said that... my little test seems to lean towards it being bs.

The LRE days allow you to test it for yourself, and each mode is explained if you ask, if your lucky, on snow, if not they have steel rollers to simulate ice.
The system does work, its actually pretty impressive, what is annoying is that it doesn't seem to be in print anywhere.
On snow the wheel spin is kept to a minimum, put the car in MudRuts and it will spin the wheels happily trying to find grip, a magical 1800 rpm and the car realises you are stuck and it will brake the spinning wheel, don't hit 1800 and it will sit there all day spinning.
Sand mode is hilarious, the car becomes a teenager on speed

It's not BS by any means, having ventured onto some pretty slippery terrain it certainly does what it says on the tin, that said, if you know how to drive to the conditions then you can probably do pretty much anything in normal mode.

A combination of TR and traction control, used correctly and the FL2 is quite a machine but you do need to know how to use it,the TR control is not an idiots failsafe.

Thanks taztastic. That's exactly how I thought it was until I did my test. I will take your word for it... So it is not bs... it does what it says.

I for one though, would like to read in technical detail exactly what each mode does. I can only assume that in my test I had not hit the 1800 rpm. Personally I don't like that much... I would prefer it to work at lower revs because my previous off road work was often done in low range often at not much above idle. Slow as possible, fast as needed.

In the situation I tried it there was some risk of panel damage if I proceeded too far without starting a turn after the obstacle so I would have liked to nearly idle over it. I understand that without low range it probably needs more revs to get the turbo boosting the available power, but I would like to also be able to try it with lower revs. You don't always need lots of power.

As far as my off-roading to date... I have been on a beach and on some steep hills on dirt but nothing has fussed it much so far. It's unclear to me if they were moderately difficult handled well by the vehicle or simply easy tracks... It's certainly been a no fuss vehicle so far.

It's a shame that there isn't a Land Rover Experience centre near you, but to anyone who believes that the system in "BS", it's well worth getting 1/2 a day's training - it's a lot of fun

Meanwhile, I've found this link: https://live.landrover.co.uk/technology/guide/terrain-response

We drove from Mutawintji National Park to White Cliffs (north route) we tried all the terrain response settings as this was the first time we had an opportunity to try it out. The road was closed later but we got out just in time. It was like driving on a bar of wet soap for about 100 km of the total distance, exhausting driving! The car would slide down the camber of the road from standing still, a few times! The only grip we could get was once we hit the scrub which cleaned the tyres. Grass & snow worked best & did not increase fuel consumption too much. which was good as we had a lot of km to travel.

We only had Conti Crosscontact UHP stock standard tyres, but since 99.99% of my driving is not on this type of road I will live with them. I feel the Freelander was brilliant under the circumstances, even more so with road tyres!

There are some red dirt/mud photos here (rainbow & wheel arch photos) http://www.freel2.com/forum/topic27606.html

I didn't take any photos in the thick of the situation as this was my first experience & I did not want to get stuck if I could avoid it & did not want to get kilos of mud in the car unnecessarily! Or simply fall over as it was that slippery. Spent 2 hours that evening cleaning the wheel arches & brake lines of about 20 kg of very sticky mud which set like concrete if I did not get it off, horrible stuff!

Most of the time I could stick the car back into normal mode as it did a very good job. After 50 km of these roads I could see which sections were going to be like a bar of soap & changed to Grass & snow.

I did have tow ropes etc if needed! Procrastination, mankind's greatest labour saving device!

Acoustic insulation ARB TPMS 3xARB air compressors After cooler Air tank On-board OCD pressure air/water cleaning Additional 50L fuel Carpet in doors ABE 2x1kg Waeco 28L modified fridge Battery 4x26ah Solar 120w Victron MPPT 100/20 DC-DC 18amps 175amp jumper plug Awning 6x255/60R18

Good info and pics Lightwater, thanks.

Did you feel a difference with the GGS setting? (Or any other?)

Well, my son drives over 30k miles a year visiting farms and has used FL2s for the last three years before moving onto an L200. typically travelling over the same terrain every two weeks as he visits the crops he looks after. The terrain is varied and in places quite steep. He has played around with the TR settings but generally found that in the real world of everyday offroading his assessment is that apart from on wet grass the L200 in 4WD diff lock + low range coped better over the same tracks than the FL2. The slightly higher ground clearance probably helps, it certainly would in the picture below. Oh and he missed having HDC on the L200.
Incidentally he went on the Honiton off road experience day.

Click image to enlarge

There is definitely something in the terrain response ability... it can go where it shouldn't be able to.

This 40 second video is from this site... So you may have seen it before. The vehicle initially looks like it won't even make it out of the flat staging area, let alone the steep muddy hill course. But either magic or luck or the computer gets it up there even on what looks like road tyres.



I assume mud ruts program.....

Walruslike wrote:

Good info and pics Lightwater, thanks.

Did you feel a difference with the GGS setting? (Or any other?)