Land Rover Experience, Eastnor Castle.

My son arranged a LRE at Eastnor for this morning.

This turned out to be a superb test drive adventure.

My son did most of the driving, I had a little go on an up and down circuit.

Ok, the experience was brilliant and Swanny our guide/instructor was terrific, plus I've never seen so many pheasants in my whole life, some were being bagged while we were there, I'm not into that type of country living but each to their own.

Back to the ride.

Weather conditions were good for this, my son did about a 30min country road drive then back to the castle for the serious business. It was raining, it was muddy, and there were puddles and potholes everywhere along with the additional manmade obstacles.

The Evoque was amazing. Traction, hill descent, hill climbing and rut driving was taken in it's stride.

I could go on at length, but the important thing is to say this car is superb. If you get the chance to do this, please don't hesitate it is well worth it.

Now finally for all of you on here who have written/commented on the OEM tyres, in this case Pirelli Scorpions, they handled everything I/we threw at it, given some of the stuff we drove up/DOWN and through, I fail to see the need to change tyres.

Two very happy drivers who will be back for more. Wahay.

Great to hear you enjoyed the experience. As per a previous post, I have been provided with a complimentary day which I will take there, so look forward to comparing notes in due course!

If you are brave you can take your own car around.

Don't think I'll be taking them up on that offer though.

I don't think so!! !!

Hopefully I will book the day before my car arrives which would be ideal.

They do use the 18" rims though which have more aggressive tyres than the 20".

(23-12-2011 10:26pm)Evo-king Wrote:  If you are brave you can take your own car around.

There was a BMW X5 owner who thought it would be OK to take his round an LRE Course - he soon discovered it wasn't a good idea and his X5 left on the back of a recovery truck!!

I just had my day at Eastnor yesterday and went for the full-day upgrade offer in a Defender.

The weather was pretty awful, raining pretty much all day, so I didn't get to see much of the glorious Gloucestershire countryside, but that really didn't matter too much for me.

The facilities there at Eastnor are excellent (as expected) and the instructor I had was really good and I learnt a lot (and surprisingly, I didn't turn out to be a complete plank off-road). Lots of mid, deep ruts, tree roots, rocks, deep channels, and an architected technical course, the Defender just monstered everything in it's path.

I chose the Defender mainly because I wanted a feel for the mechanicals without too much electronic interference, and I'm glad I did - it's a really involving way to drive.

I have no hesitation in recommending this place, and giving the Defender a go.

Richard I have a similar tale of a Porsche Cayenne, only the tale is rather embarrassing for Porsche directly as the Cayenne in question was a pre-launch car having it's off-road credentials demonstrated to Porsche's Scottish dealers pre UK launch! It arrived on a winchless, covered flatbed truck but departed on a recovery trailer towed by the site owner's Defender................... The Porsche techs had managed to sink the 100% road biased tyred Cayenne in mud up top the top of the wheel arches, the engine heat then cause the mud to dry out around the gearbox linkage, setting it solid in D and with the engine stopped. There is an interlock that prevents the engine from restarting if the gearbox is not in N or P and the solid mud was preventing the shifter from moving and they couldn't get under the vehicle to reach it............... I know about this as a friend of was there to assist the site owner on the day....... And he was in a V6 Freelander1 and he had suffered the exact same issue with that in the same spot as Porsche.....

Sounds good. Going to have to book that with my half-day voucher.

(12-04-2016 10:19am)Steve D Wrote:  Sounds good. Going to have to book that with my half-day voucher.

I'd fully recommend stumping up the extra cash and going for the full day.

With the half day, you might find yourself with 2 or 3 other people and having to share the car. I'm not sure you'd get more than an hour total behind the wheel. For a full day, you'll get 4-5 hours of driving with one-to-one instruction. My instructor only drive for the first 15 mins or so and let me do the rest.

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Oh, Eastnor is one of the development proving grounds, so you get to see some prototypes running about. We saw an Evoque that was testing something (no idea what, it was internal), and a camouflaged Discovery.