Order Changed - no longer the Girl from Ipanema!

Glad the wait for you is over and enjoy your run back up North. Have yet to see a Zanzibar, about as rare as hen's teeth or Colima lime of which I have seen just 2 in 2 1/2 years. Good call on the roof rails by the way.

Congrats Tim! The wait looks worth it from here.....Looks awesome! Enjoy!!!

Looks good Tim, I think the tan interior goes very well with the Zanzibar. Be very interested in you mpg for a good motorway cruise

Tim, just a quick line to say a massive thank you from all of at HGG! I'm glad its been worth the wait and certainly looked awesome - especially in the showroom next to Marks!

Thank you again for the business and have a good run home in the sun!

(30-03-2014 10:32am)Jeremy @ Hadley Green LR Wrote:  I'm glad its been worth the wait and certainly looked awesome - especially in the showroom next to Marks!

I assume you mean that both vehicles looked good, especially together ....

(30-03-2014 12:15pm)cjfp Wrote:  I assume you mean that both vehicles looked good, especially together ....

Yup!!

OK here is an edited edition with photos!

I left Hanger Lane about 0915 (edit -0911 according to the ecodata )and made a stop at Cherwell Valley Srvices to contact Phill then continue on to Gaydon BMHC to meet up with Philskill and have a blether and coffee at 1100ish. I cannot find the ECOdata for the 20+ miles from Cherwell Services to Gaydon - there cannot be a trip minimum distance before it registers as my 15 mile trip from Stirling to home is registered. It may be that it looses the data after 3 journeys due to insufficient memory in the Trip computer.


At 1221 I then set off from Gaydon and did something I don't normally do - I left Gaydon and drove nonstop to Teebay Services in Cumbria (195 miles+/-) in 3 hours including quite a lot of 50mph limited with average speed cams and all uphill from Manchester. Normally I would stop at Keele/Sandbach or Cannock services after negotiating Birmingham for a leg stretch but drove straight through. I was surprised that the fuel gauge was at half tank arriving at Teebay as in the last car I would have used 2/3rds of a tank by then and would have to fuel up to ensure I got home without anxious moments, so things were looking good to complete the trip on one tank. The indicated range remaining function showed I would get back home with 100miles range left in the tank - I wouldn't have got home with one tankful in the Coupe.


I must admit the climbing takes it's toll and mpg dropped to 45, aided by me running up to 1900 rpm at one stage - that's very very fast in 9th gear............ seeing as at 70 it is turning 1600 revs ) The 6 speed coupe would be turning 2100 at 70 so this accounts for the car being so much quieter at speed than the Coupe too. There is additional sound deadening material under the bonnet too. At Teebay I saw must first ever Tesla and it's the first time I have seen the Telsa free recharging point at Teebay being used! From Teebay to Stirling wwe still had to climb up to Shap and then down to carlisle and back uphill to Beattock south of Glasgow. Some fast driving and the climbing brought the mpg down to about 44. Now in the Coupe I never got the trip average mpg to go above 42mpg so with a tight new engine there is great potential for cruising economy with the car if you don't press on too much - I tend to stick to 1-2mph below the speed limit for the section of motorway, but today had some lapses! I arrived at Sainsbury's Stirling forecourt with 68 miles range left in the tank, I noticed that the needle does tend fall faster once it is below half tank, but still a good margin to get me to my frontdoor. At Stirling the mpg shown was 46mpg.

The drive from Stirling to home is mostly on flat fast A road and I even managed to notch up to an average of 51.7mpg on the run to home after fuelling up, that includes 5 minutes stopped at traffic lights in the middle of no where with stop start inhibited, so my local drive looks set to be more fuel efficient that it was in the last car too, however the 51.7mpg was achieved with an engine that had been fully warmed up for 6 hours!


So pretty pleased with the car from a fuel economy point of view. The drive is more pleasant with the car turning lower rpms (it fairly leaps down the cogs in the gear box too when you want to put a spurt of speed on, no need at all for the paddles or using the S setting on the trip) so the cabin is notably quiet at speed - the change to Michelin tyres may also contribute to the peace and quiet.
Gear changes are for the most part imperceptible.

I love the road sign recognition function - makes you very much more aware that you are speeding to have the last speed limit sign staring out of the dash at you, and it also picks up the variable speed limit signs on overhead gantries as well as dirty portable roadside speed limit signs! I know it uses a camera on the RVM to read the signs, but it is also smart - it appears that it might use a memory or database as my parents live on a 20mph restricted road and after stopping for an hour with them when I started up again the speed limit was showing correctly on the dash. Also when you get to a speed restriction/ derestriction the system does show the speed limit sign per se - it only changes the dashboard display as you pass the limit change, immediately you pass the sign!

I have one rattle from somewhere in the new design of overhead consol, I think that the Whitefire IR transmitter cover may be the culprit as when I touched it the rattle stopped (a piece of stiff card will be found to stop it until I take the car in for something else to be done - but it shouldn't be there after all the rattle problems many have suffered over the last 2.5 years and isn't in keeping with a £50,000 car).

Other changes I have found - the front courtesy lights are now a line of small LEDs (yet the rear lights are good old fashioned bulbs. WHY? Come on LR where is the sense in having the fronts as LED's and the rears as old fashioned yellowy incandescent lamps? Again on a £50k car it's pennies saved and it shows the bean counters got their way and spoils a really very nice interior at night. It would cost pennies to fit LED's all round. The rear parcel shelf now has rubber corners - it's either an anti rattle fix or to stop the wearing of the parcel shelf that was occurring on some cars. I'm not that keen on the new smaller wing mirrors - the originals didn't need fixing in my view, however the larger gap between A pillar and cowling does help reduce the wind roar that was evident considerably. Also after driving my Defender as a daily runner for the waiting period I now realise also just how much of a blind spot the A pillar causes - it is HUGE after the Defender's slender and almost vertical A Pillar!
The Blind spot monitoring approaching vehicle icon on the mirror glass flashes way too much (I'm sure on the last car it was a steady light until the vehicle in the blind spot had passed) and is very distracting when driving on the motorway - I will reserve judgement on it's sensitivity until I have driven the local country lanes and see it it still gets totally confused by hedges and branches hanging close to the road like the last car's did.
Having had the coupe previously the window switches on the driver's door need to have some difference of surface for the front and rear switches. Being used to having only 2 switches before I now have 4 and twice I opened a rear window because the surface finish of the switches is the same for front and rear windows (maybe something for 2015MY?) we should not need to look down to see which windows we are opening.

Another small gripe................. Black Pack car, black lettering across the tailgate and bonnet, but the LR badges on the grille and tailgate are very very dark green. Why not make them black too? There must be a mountain of black badges left over from 2012MY cars somewhere. I will be looking on flee bay for some to replace what comes as standard.

Something else - it's darned cold in Scotland! London was 16c when I left, the sun soon warmed the temperature to 19 - on arrival on my drive at home it was 6c at 1845!

Some more of the ecodata screens - I also like the new 4x4 info screens - it is very useful also to have a page of info describing what what each setting does now. When I go offloading with owners of earlier Freelander2's it will make describing to them what happens so much easier! I haven't yet found a slippery enough surface to see diff lock (yes I know it's not a diff lock but a variable lock Viscous Coupling but it is easier to write Diff lock!!) symbol on the screen changes colour when it is fully engaged like it did only last FFRR.


Not sure if the car will disappear if I press "Stealth" might be a useful security device!

Hi Tim Nice to see you and your special MY2014, glad you made it back safe!

A few pics I snapped...

   
   
   
   
   

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P.S. Evo King if you read this, your mailbox is full!

Good to see you again Phill. The rest of the trip north was smooth and rapid and went well apart from nearly getting tailgated by a pratt in a Volvo XC60................... he was only about 6 feet behind me in the outside lane when I had to slam on the brakes!

(29-03-2014 07:23pm)XFullFatTim Wrote:  I counted I think 13 or 15 Evoques - mostly Fuji White - in 30 minutes. They really are that popular over here

That's funny because when I posted on Facebook about my RRE a UK friend posted that she really would have preferred it in white! She also said she had an opinion about people who drove red cars and it wasn't positive.