Well I took my Freelander out for its first real testing trip on Sunday with the guys from AULRO. We went to a farm near Boonah in south-east Queensland, Australia.

The trip started with the trip leader saying to me "The Freelander 2 has got low range right?"... "Urrr no." "oh".

This worried me a bit but when we got there I was more worried as the track up the first hill was even more washed out then we originally thought. The Defender that went first had to engage his lockers to get up and I wasn't confident that the Fl2 could get up. But I climbed up the hill and did a recce first then decided to give it a go. The hill was steep, rutted, sandy and had a section in the middle that required turning left then right around some trees. In the end it got up quite easy, with only a bit of wheelspin and if I'd been a bit more confident and kept going instead of stopping a few times it would have easily done it one 1 go. There was a slight bump when I didn't see a small tree stump that caught the plastic bit around the front recovery point but I was on the brakes just before impact so there wasn't any damage.

Traction Control and Terrain Response go a long way to making up for the missing low range and the TD4 engine is quite happy climbing any hill.

There was only one hill that I didn't end up climbing and that was because a D3 and a 07 RR decided not to do it because they didn't have good tires fitted. That and I was too lazy to climb all the way up the hill to do a recce meant I chickened out. But otherwise the FL2 went everywhere that the other LRs went.

Towards the end of the day we climbed up one of the hills to the cliffs overlooking Maroon Dam and I was really impressed with out little effort the TD4 climbed up a very steep hill.

In the end I had a lot of fun and the car came back undamaged but very dirty. I'm happy with my purchase. Oh yeah and I didn't get stuck which is more than can be said for the Range Rovers that came with us.

Some pcis are here.
Video 1 on uTube - I'm at the end of this vid.
Video 2 on uTube

Great fun,

Very brave bringing your baby soo cloose to them nasty trees

Steve  Remenber, Life is short, break the rules, forgive quickly, love truely, laugh uncontrollably and never regret anything that made you smile.

Land Rover Freelander 2 TD4 HSE (Auto)
Gorgeous Stornoway with Ebony &
Side Steps

Well done.
Enviable.

bjartin LR Freelander2 2,2 Td4 HSE manuel Stornaway Grey (Metallic) & Ebony Black Leather & Sun/Moon-roof & Bi-Xenon & Roof Rails & Tow bar & Body side rubbing strips & Cold climate pack & Privacy glass & NavTeq . Production Date: 11/5-2007 in Halewood.

Sorry, but I have changed to Defender 90 ", and I love my" tractor ".
http://www.youtube.com/bjartin

Cool,
I used to live in Brisbane & used to over to North Stradbroke island fishing with a mate who had a 1940's SWB landie. It was top fun in the sand, wonder how the FL2 would manage there

Great videos DJ, don't think I could live with all those noisy bugs though. The sound of incessant rain on the west coast of Scotland is much nicer  How can carbon have a footprint, it has no feet?
Now driving - RRE Coupe Dynamic Lux Auto with Plus pack, Fuji White, Ebony, SD4 with tow pack
Gone - 2010MY FFRR TDv8 Stornoway and Ivory, Privacy - the pace of a TDv8 RRS, the incomparable grace of a Range Rover
Gone but will be missed- RRS Tdv8 HSE Stornoway Grey with Ebony Leather
Gone (only a little missed) RRS Tdv6 2.7SE Giverny Green/Aspen
Defender 90 County HT in Epsom Green

That youtube first flm was great, the LR advertising guys would be better using you real film than some of the unrealistic stuff they do use!!!

That terrain is very similar to what I have been using in Spain with my FL1. This coming year I shall be down there again, but with my FL2.

What terrain response did you use in the first film where you were travelling up the steep, rutted and deeply pot-holed track between the trees?

Did you override the DSC?

If you have the auto gearbox, what gear did you use?

Tim in Scotland: The insects were not anywhere near as loud in real life as they were on the video. I think the sound processor may have increased the volume. It was also a lot warmer than Scotland would be

Freebo: It hasn't been to North Straddie yet but I have done Bribe Island in it. the FL2 was good fun but I did get it stuck... didn't let enough air out of the tyres. After being recovered and letting the air out it was fine.

Eddie: We only get Autos here in Australia so for the uphill sections I left in normal drive. Maybe once or twice I put it in manual mode 1st or 2nd if I was climbing a hill and the auto kept going up to 3rd when I didn't want it to.

DSC stayed firmly on the whole time and you can see in the videos it was doing its thing quite often. Especially thru the muddy sections. I used TR in Mud mode mostly - mainly to soften the throttle out so I could drive nice and smooth. I think for the hill in the first video it may have been in sand mode.

Thanks for the info on which terrain response you used etc.

I had guessed it was mud/ruts, but going purely by the handbook I would have thought the DSC would have been switched off on the slow extreme sections.

I'm looking forward to trying mine out, thanks again for replying.

I did notice when I was on the beach a few months ago DSC was limiting the engine revs when crossing very soft sand which ultimaitly let to me getting stuck because the engine revs died off completley before I got to some harder ground. Now after being recovered when i turned DSC off I was able to rev the engine up more and keep moving in the soft sand but at the expense of sliding around more. I let my tires down after being recovered and crossed some softsand and didn't notice the engine cutting the revs at all so I can only assume that my tires where too hard which was causing excessive wheel slip that DSC decided to correct.

In the mud and ruts climbing on Sunday I left DSC on because I watched a lot of other vehicle getting to a tough bit like a step or a tree root if they let all 4 wheels start to spin they had to stop, reverse and take a second stab at it. Whereas the DSC vehicles (2 D3s, 1 07 RR and me) when we got to these sections we could apply a tad more power let the wheels begin to slip, let DSC apply the brakes to the wheels with the least amount of grip and then get momentum from the wheels with grip and continue on.

re DSC.

That is a good helpful reply, and I shall be trying out your experiences soon.

Thanks again.

djhampson

In video 2, did you select HDC? Thanks!

Bill

I think so... that wasn't the steepest downhill section of the day. But I defintately used HDC later on. Its magic.

Hello DJh
I have a td4 too
And i have spent a lot of time of Bribie, going to Moreton next week
Mostly it has been at the wrong time of the tide
Hence it is normally soft slushy mucky sand
Of all the 4x4's i have driven and owned this handles it the best
For long runs in the slurry or up the centre of bribie, sand mode works great
Normal mode heats up the transmission
Mine is 3mths old and clocked 20000 with absolutely no trouble

CLi - Glad to see there is another TD4 FL2 tearing up the beaches

Keep an eye out on www.AULRO.com and maybe come on one of our trips.

djhampson wrote:

Glad to see there is another TD4 FL2 tearing up the beaches

Soon to be another along with it. I pick mine up Monday.