Off road tips

There does not seem to be any info or advice here as to what our car can do offroad, but after doing a range rover experience day in the evoque today, it amazed me how competent our baby RR is.

The first part of the (half) day was on road driving, after a good exploration of the car. This was great for the wife, but a bit 'same old' for so someone like me who had read the online manual before even getting the car. This bit was great for someone wanting to see what the car was like and what gimmicks it had - the Prestige car we drove had adaptive cruise, which I was not aware was an option. Next came the offroad bit.

The driver first took us round the, what I would call, heavy duty off road course - which you would expect was only the domain of the FFRR. This was proper steep, In the riverriverand two wheel off the floor stuff. This was not for us to drive though, I was sad to hear. Apparently we, as part of the RR experience ideology was to learn more realsistic, normall stuff.

We got to drive up and down, what I would call, very steep tracks, in gravel and mud, with some sections having wooden devices which roll, to simulate ice to one side of the vehicle. We did this with hill decent, and the mud and snow setting, and did not use rut or sand at all.

This felt great, and was pretty scary at what angles the car can go up and down, with no problem, even stopping half way up. The noises the hill decent was making was strange, but now we know what noise it makes, we would not be worried if we ever used it I earnest. Anyway, onto advice, here are something's which I picked up on the course:

1) Automatic no roll back on hills. In any mode, if we stopped the car on a hill (leaving in drive and no handbrake) - and a bloody steep hill on the course - after releasing the footbrake after stopping, the car would not roll back for (I think it was 3 seconds), to allow you to gently go across to the accelerator to pull away again. This led to being able to gently pull away again on the steep slope, as opposed to thinking you had to jump on the accelerator to stop it rolling back.

2) with hill decent on, if you lose traction going up hill, slip the controller into neutral (feet of everything) and hill decent will work going back downwards.

3) to set the hill decent contol, when it's switched on, you get a green bar in the centre of the dash, this was automatically too fast ( for the stuff we were doing), so needed to be turned fully down with the cruise control down button. This resets after stopping the car and putting it into park, so you have to be carefull.

I know, not really much Tips and tricks, but hopefully someone with more experience can add some proper ones. It is worth noting, the car we used had normal Michelin latitude road 20" tyres on, so no special rubber was used to demonstrate to us, what I thought was very capable off road stuff. And whe going downa very steep hill, and put one side onto the ice (wooden things), whilst making lots of noise, it kept in a straight li e with no gain in speed, even at crawling speed.

Anyway, hope this helps a little.

Thanks very much Trax!!

I do like the "hill hold" function even in everyday use. I received my Land Rover experience voucher in the mail just in time for Xmas - and have a year to use it (just as well, the course for Canadians is in Quebec and about a 5 hour flight for me.....!). Will try my darndest to make it!

Thanks !!! I am very interested to do a similar "driving experience" but there is nothing like that here in Switzerland

If you can get on a course it's great, this was a freeby from the dealer. As I said, half of the course was about familiarisation with the car, the the other half about what it can do with the electronics of road.

Another tip I remember, though not related to off-road, is that holding the up change gear for a few seconds reverted the box back to auto mode when in sports mode, without having to switch the dial back to drive.

Have taken my evoque on a few green lanes near me, and have been reading up on a few in the Derbyshire.
It's has been great and I have had it on 3wheels in a few places
I have turned back a couple of times as I don't want to push it to far yet..

Ben

(06-01-2012 08:57am)SebM Wrote:  Thanks !!! I am very interested to do a similar "driving experience" but there is nothing like that here in Switzerland

The guys at Eastnor Castle said there are global experiences, but I don't suppose they are in every country.

(06-01-2012 11:48pm)Evo-king Wrote:  The guys at Eastnor Castle said there are global experiences, but I don't suppose they are in every country.

There are Experience Centres in Austria, France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands and Spain but sadly not in Switzerland. This link to the Global locations might help.

http://www.landrover.com/Microsites/GWS4...REMap.html

The car is more competent offroad than most owners.................... just don't expect it to go everywhere and remember if you don't have tyres with some offroad biase then you will soon clog the treads with mud or snow and go nowhere. Never go offroad alone always in company with another 4x4 and don't be too adventurous with your pride and joy - it cannot do things other Range Rovers and Land Rovers can do because it doesn't have the low ratio gearbox. If yours is a manual gearbox car then treat the clutch with a lot of respect to avoid cooking it. And above all enjoy yourself

Sensible advise from Tim. Thanks

(07-01-2012 09:20pm)rchrdleigh Wrote:  There are Experience Centres in Austria, France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands and Spain but sadly not in Switzerland. This link to the Global locations might help.

http://www.landrover.com/Microsites/GWS4...REMap.html

Thanks for your investigations... I will discuss with my dealer... maybe we can organize something in France...