I went to my first LR experience half day on Saturday at Coniston Cold near Skipton with Phil as the instructor. After the H&S briefing it was a chat in their auto Freelander to see what I knew regarding the controls, then it was a ride out on the back roads to demonstrate a few of the terrain settings.
When we got back Phil drove us around a part of the site where he could show off the FL's capabilities like 'cross axle' where we had only 2 wheels touching and still it drove, explaining the need to rev it to approx 1800rpm for the traction control to operate. Driving sideways along a 45 degree angle was a bit iffy as I didn't know the maximum angle before it 'fell over'
When I got around to driving the things that most impressed me was, no wheel scrabbling, the traction control was immediate. Hill descent control, wow! that was impressive with no feet on the brake pedal it kept at a crawl with no skidding. Gradient assist, just stopped half way up a steep incline and no roll back when starting again, the brakes stay on until it senses throttle then releases automatically

A good half day out with a good instructor.

Sounds fun.
I always put Hill Decent Control on when I am going down the ramp at my local car park. It's always worth checking the system!

So what IS the degree angle before it "falls over"?
And how do you know what the angle is in the first place... or is this a dub question?

Last edited by AiiEEX on 26th Apr 2011 11:59 am. Edited 1 time in total

I assume this was all done with a caravan on the back!!! 2002 Honda VFR800
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AiiEEX wrote:

So what IS the degree angle before it "falls over"?
And how do you know what the angle is in the first place... or is this a dub question?

the angle thing always feels much worse when your in the car, it often look minor to people watching whilst the driver is in near pamnic At work
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"I can't always believe facts I read on the web" - Charles Dickens

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Are you sure it was 45 degrees?
I tend to believe that it was a 45 percent incline, which is about 24 degrees.
Nobody will risk a 45 degrees lateral incline in a FL2 with a customer besides....
The vertical projection of the car's center of gravity will be almost out of it's base and thinking that when loaded with two persons the gravity's center is rising...
And like CG said, a 45% incline (24 degrees) feels like a lot more.

LRE - Coniston Hall.....

No, not sure, only what we were told. It looked damn steep on the approach maybe because it was angled into the hillside. Maybe 45% incline, I don't know I was wiping my arse at the time

Yep, in the picture above, not taking into consideration the parallax error, it's an under 30 degrees incline.

Remember what LR off-road driving manual states at page 83:
Caution: Do not attempt to drive the vehicle continuously at angles greater than 35 degrees nose up or down, or 30 degrees side to side. It is acceptable to drive up or down at angles between 35 degrees and 45 degrees,
but only momentarily. Failure to follow these instructions will result in damage to the engine.

Read between the lines: only nose up or down between 35 and 45 degrees. Never lateral! A slight slip and tragic things could happen. Believe me, I've saw it on a car from our group of off-road "pack rats"...

Never underestimate the angles of inclines.
Look here what a small incline, combined with several other factors, could do...

Or here, from 1:35

Ouch not the way to go at all, so easily done as there looked to be nothing there that would cause that. The demonstration lateral angle was purposely smooth and the drivers side wheels were riding on the horizontal so it was as safe as could be, it just looked as steep as he said and certainly felt steeper than he said from inside.

i was there, the week before, but i didn't ask the angles, though my father did and the instructor never actually gave an answer,

though at one stage with my dad driving on the last little section you do near the old car park (its now moved) you do go very far over, stop just as the car bounces (which i think is deliberate to make you clench the old arse muscles) and he showed me the driver display showing that the upper two wheels were showing a red line underneath them, which indicates that they had little of no traction on the off road display (i was in a Disco4) Former Mod/Member, with the most post & Chicken George Arch nemesis

45 degrees is the standard LR angle, up down or sideways. Not sure if it applies to the FR2 admittedly. Two things to bear in mind - almost no-one will ever dare to try a 45 degree sideways angle, it is VERY frightening, and secondly any slight bump at that angle WILL cause a roll-over. For most people, you will give up in sheer terror long before the car will!

I once had a defender at 90 degrees, I had to go get a tractor to stand it back on its wheels. it was late at night I was 16 my dad was on his holidays
remarkable only a few small panels where bent cost next to nothing to repair, I told him straw bales fell on it . he never did work out how brake fluid seeped out of the dashboard for weeks afterwards though.

Well he did actually my mate spilt the beans during his best mans speech at my wedding  At work
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"I can't always believe facts I read on the web" - Charles Dickens

winner by default of the tractor vs caravan race