Ice/Snow Freelander Advice

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SnowTrippin

SnowTrippin

Member
Posts
89
Location
St Martin de Belleville, France & Bracknell, UK
Ok ok, so the weather is lovely today and I'm very much looking forward to enjoying a warm and sunny summer, however I need to buy a second car within the next week or so and it must perform well on snow and ice as it will be living in the French alps for 6 months of the year :cool:

My question is how well a 2005/6 Freelander TD4 is able to descend steep icy slopes, without necessarily engaging HDC.

My two choices of car are a 2004/5 Nissan X-Trail, which even in centre diff-lock mode will disengage 4 wheel drive when the abs is activated to control each wheel individually, and the 2005/6 Freelander.

Disengaging the diff-lock seems like a daft idea to me, as my 2006 Defender 110 descends the slope outside our property well with the diff locked, and I'm worried that neither the X-Trail nor the Freelander will be able to cope with the steep slope in bad weather (-20 degrees, hard-pack ice/snow).

Does anyone have any relevant experience going up and down icy slopes with winter/snow tyres on a Freelander, and more importantly, is a Freelander going to survive a very cold winter in the mountains!? :eek:
 
X-trail can have diff lock either off, auto or locked.. choice is yours. Never had any probs with my X-T in ice and snow, however it doesnt have HDC.
 
SnowTrippin said:
Ok ok, so the weather is lovely today and I'm very much looking forward to enjoying a warm and sunny summer, however I need to buy a second car within the next week or so and it must perform well on snow and ice as it will be living in the French alps for 6 months of the year :cool:

My question is how well a 2005/6 Freelander TD4 is able to descend steep icy slopes, without necessarily engaging HDC.

My two choices of car are a 2004/5 Nissan X-Trail, which even in centre diff-lock mode will disengage 4 wheel drive when the abs is activated to control each wheel individually, and the 2005/6 Freelander.

Disengaging the diff-lock seems like a daft idea to me, as my 2006 Defender 110 descends the slope outside our property well with the diff locked, and I'm worried that neither the X-Trail nor the Freelander will be able to cope with the steep slope in bad weather (-20 degrees, hard-pack ice/snow).

Does anyone have any relevant experience going up and down icy slopes with winter/snow tyres on a Freelander, and more importantly, is a Freelander going to survive a very cold winter in the mountains!? :eek:
Click to expand...

The Freelander is stunningly good on slippery surfaces. Just use HDC and let the car do its stuff. The Freelander is better on these surfaces than my D3 and that is awesome. The lighter Freelander is like a mountain goat. I can't comment on the off road abilities of the X Trail but I suspect the Freelander is better for what you want ;)
 
Nodge68 said:
The Freelander is stunningly good on slippery surfaces. Just use HDC and let the car do its stuff. The Freelander is better on these surfaces than my D3 and that is awesome. The lighter Freelander is like a mountain goat. I can't comment on the off road abilities of the X Trail but I suspect the Freelander is better for what you want ;)
Click to expand...


surprisingly good :)..... and reliable.
 
I would think the OP does not want to engage HDC because he doesn't want to descend 1,000M at 5MPH. He wants to be able to drive to the conditions but if he hits a hidden icy patch know that the vehicle is going to cope with it with as little fuss as possible. The mountains in France are not the South Downs!

Similarly mountain descents are usually twisty affairs, and you don't want diff lock engaged if the surface is primarily not slippery.

The ABS on Freelander cant kick it out of A/4WD because the viscous coupling can not be disabled. On the x Trail, you may set a switch to "Lock" but if the ABS wants to it it can turn the Haldex off simply by raising or stopping an electrical feed - as will a F2 - I don't know if it does, but I can imagine it doing that.

I am of the opinion though that 4WD is not too much of an advantage when descending very slippery slopes - you still need at least 2 wheels with a decent amount of grip - although ABS/TC will be your friend if you're down to 1. We got caught out in a freezing snow storm here in NZ a few years back in our Disco at the start of a descent of about 600M. It was a tar sealed road in good condition but a reasonably steep descent in places. We were following a Merc sedan and it completely lost control - stopping only when it hit the curb. This of course resulted in many derisory sneers and grins from inside the Disco - until I found myself in exactly the same position a few meters down the road. I could reverse back up the frozen road with ease, absolutely no problems - but stopping the fecking thing going down at the slowest of speeds was impossible. It was a D1 so no HDC, it would have been interesting to see if HDC would have coped with it. That journey usually takes about 15 minutes - but took over 3 hours that day - and at the bottom was a roundabout that I was not going to be able to stop at - it was a case of there being a gap or a crash - luckily there was a gap.

I agree with weight of the vehicle being more of an important factor, and in that respect a Freelander will be a lot better than a Defender or Disco and it will probably have even better traction up hill as well. Actually chains would probably be the best answer - but once again, you don't want chains on for 15KM when there's likely to be only small sections of ice.

One thing with the Freelander though is that the VCU only allows limited slip and any difference in front/rear axle speeds does create some wind up effect. On a twisty mountain descent, this will create an amount of wind up. On a surface with good grip you will not notice it, on gravel you may notice a rear wheel occasionally scuff as that wind up is released (people often get it maneuvering on drives etc). If you are decending on an icy road, the grip will be low, so its possible that the wheel may scuff. At that point its not going to have any grip and may therefore induce the car into sliding - and its a lot more difficult to stop once sliding. This is just an observation and I think it a very remote chance that it could cause problems.

I would have thought a TD4 will be as good as any other car of that era at surviving persistent freezing weather, I can't think why it wouldn't. If you get 1 with a fuel burning heater, you'll always be toasty in it as well :)
 
Thanks for the replies chaps, and GrumpyGel you hit the nail on the head on every point!

Using HDC on every slippery section of a 1000m descent over 15km of twisty roads just isn't a feasible option, so the ability to descend safely has to be "built in".

With regards to the transmission wind up, there are lots of switchbacks on the road up to our property. Is this likely to result in a major problem sooner rather than later? The Freelanders I'm looking at are around 80-90k, so presumably the VCU has seen better days by this point...
 
SnowTrippin said:
Thanks for the replies chaps, and GrumpyGel you hit the nail on the head on every point!

Using HDC on every slippery section of a 1000m descent over 15km of twisty roads just isn't a feasible option, so the ability to descend safely has to be "built in".

With regards to the transmission wind up, there are lots of switchbacks on the road up to our property. Is this likely to result in a major problem sooner rather than later? The Freelanders I'm looking at are around 80-90k, so presumably the VCU has seen better days by this point...
Click to expand...

Not a problem. Any car that age will need repairs for normal wear and tear. In the case of a Freelander that means a new/Recon VCU at around that mileage. £200 from Bells will have you back as good as new. Plus of course another £70 or so for bearings. Just bear this in mind when haggling the price.
 
SnowTrippin said:
Thanks for the replies chaps, and GrumpyGel you hit the nail on the head on every point!

Using HDC on every slippery section of a 1000m descent over 15km of twisty roads just isn't a feasible option, so the ability to descend safely has to be "built in".

With regards to the transmission wind up, there are lots of switchbacks on the road up to our property. Is this likely to result in a major problem sooner rather than later? The Freelanders I'm looking at are around 80-90k, so presumably the VCU has seen better days by this point...
Click to expand...

One thing - the freelander will always have a certain amount of wind-up... the X-T (in auto 4x4) will be in 2wd unless it determines 4wd is needed - so no axle wind up. Being Electronic, it is pretty sophisticated - taking into account, not only wheel speed, but yaw and pitch attributes as well and is very quick in response time.

The Freelander 2 (with Haldex) is likely to be similar.
 
Last edited:
SnowTrippin said:
With regards to the transmission wind up, there are lots of switchbacks on the road up to our property. Is this likely to result in a major problem sooner rather than later? The Freelanders I'm looking at are around 80-90k, so presumably the VCU has seen better days by this point...
Click to expand...

I think you're looking at 2 possible issues (1) will the switchbacks cause damage to your transmission with a VCU in good condition and (2) will the switchbacks damage your VCU - which will then obviously damage your transmission.

TBH I really haven't a clue on either! The first point is the important 'show stopper' and, as I say, I don't know the answer. I want to say that Freelander would be fine, but I do have some concerns. When I was thinking of swapping from Disco to Freelander, my brother warned me off them - his main concern was that when he drove to his house, there were 2 right turns close together and his was the first drive after that and it would be almost stalling turning onto the drive. I should have listened to him as at the time he had 250 guys working for him building prototype vehicles for LR - but I didn't and am glad I went for Freelander. I though live on the flat expanse of the Canterbury Plains, not up in the mountains. I'm sure his experience was not normal. Although his car would have been brand new, I think the VCU in his was probably to tight from the factory.

The second point is in no way a show stopper. There's always threads on here where people try to debate exactly the characteristics of how the VCU works and what fluid is in it etc. However - I don't recall much debate on what actually makes them fail. Some last only 20K miles, while others will go on for 200K miles. It may be continual work-outs (such as switchbacks) that make them 'go' - but similarly it may be lack of a workout. If it is continual work outs though, they are unlikely to go stiff very quickly and if you have to replace it every couple of years, as Alibro says, they are not an overly expensive thing to replace.

Going back to whether Freelander will cope with extended long periods of cold weather, I'm not sure if Freelanders were ever sent here, but talking to my brother a few Discovery Sports were sent to this place for cold weather testing....

SHPG - Southern Hemisphere Proving Ground - Home

Its just round the corner from HTR's place :) I was chatting to a friend who works at Chch airport and in winter they're always unloading prototype cars from all over the world and putting them on lorries to be shipped there for testing.
 
Whatever car you decide on. Remember that electronic aids can't overcome the laws of physics, they only help ease the affects. Lots of traction and light weight are what you need coupled with slow speeds.
 
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