Off Road or Not?

Hey guys and gals,

I'm interested to know how many of you actually take you shinny new range rover (evoque) off road? ESP the Aussies on the forum. I'm not talking about parking on the island at the shopping centre because there are no parks left nor do you have to be climbing rocks on a 45 deg angle. But how many actually seek to use the ability that the evoque has?

Mmm 50/50 at the moment hey, still only 14 votes, not the biggest sample size. I have one on " the other forum" as well, interesting that it is swaying more toward in road use over there.

Evoque isn't really up to serious offroading straight out of the showroom. The underside bits are better protected than a Freelander2's but the OEM tyres are almost all 100% road biased. Having said that the car is excellent for green laning rather than mudplugging. I have used my Evoque twice this year on forest fire roads and badly maintained Utility company private roads with some driving on moorland and even on it's 20" wheels and Craptinental Crosscontact tyres it didn't get stuck even in very soft muddy going. I am a very firm believer that Land Rover owner MUST, at least once in their ownership of the car, take it offroad or down a greenlane - isn't that why you buy a 4wd SUV? I am fortunate - if I want to go properly offroading where there arent even tracks then I have my Defender which I purchased for that reason. I have owned 2x FFRR's, Disco2, Freelander1, 2 x RRS's as well as my Defender - all have been offroad into moderate conditions, nothing that would set out to damage the car. It was having lots of fun doing things in my Freelander1 in 2001 that led to me buying the Defender. Since the F1 I have owned all the FFRR's and RRS's above. The first FFRR, a 2003 TD6, went on a very serious offroad event in its first 3 weeks of ownership, on road tyres and even though it was a very new model/ car surprised many sceptics with what it could do without even ATR tyres or terain responce - apart from not having a locking centre diff lock it had the same 4x4 system as my Defender. I cetainly didn't take any of those cars through gorse bushes or deep water
but mud and moors was like grist to the mill for them! I wouldn't recommend trying an Evoque on your average Pay and Play offroad site - you are likely to end up being the focus of attention and look very silly if you bite off more than you can chew/ do on your road tyres. Stick to less ambitious stuff and you will have a ball!

BTW I have owned one Land Rover that I never took offroad - my very first one, a Disco 1 V8i ES, I don't know why I never did, possibly because I was never really aware of off road clubs and having fun off road until I had the Freelander1, then I got seriously hooked!

Well said buddy.
For me the evoque is a great balance. It has all the luxury and road handling ability I need for the 500-800 kilometres I travel for work each week and plenty of off road ability for the weekend warrior in me. As long as you are aware of its limitations and use it appropriately you have a ball.

Never but have only been blessed with mine for five months so far
When salesperson went to show me the off road settings I told her not to worry
Not sure if anyone else has had this happen, but when I went to buy my car, it became my wife's choice

Taken mine off road twice now on tracks in Wales. Great experience. As stated, don't try any thing too adventurous and the car is good fun!

It is getting hard to find places you can legally use now mind!

In Scotland it is impossible to go offroad without the landowner's permission, right to roam doesn't extend to 4x4's! Having said that the various rights of way I have driven in England like the Ridgeway and some of the trails in Northumberland and the Lake District could do with being closed to 4x4 as many are being totally ruined by 4x4 owners being totally inconsiderate about the fragile surface and underlying foundation of some of the rights of way. In 2002 the Ridgeway around Avebury was in such a bad condition that I declined to lead a group freelander1 owners and their cars on parts of it when we walked them, yet we were passed by people ploughing on in cars fitted with totally unsuitable tyres ( both too aggressive and some on road tyres just spinning them on the slippery bits) - on guy in the group told me I had wasted his time - he had driven an hour from London to go on the event........... I told him I too was disappointed as I had driven 9 hours from Scotland, but I wasn't going to lead a group of vandals over a churned up section of a public right of way - it only gets SUV owners a bad name.......

We still have plenty of places to explore with a 4b in aus. Lots of state forests, beaches, deserts etc. Actually just got back from spending an afternoon exploring the forest (mt tamborine) in my freelander 2 with the family. There will always be irrasponsible people that don't think of others or the future, shame.