How good off road- l322 without terrain

Hi everyone just quick question got talking to mate of mine who reckoned his Ford ranger would be better off road than my L322 RR without terrain response, he reckoned his being lighter wouldn’t get stuck as easy but I explained I pulled him off wet grass twice when I had my disco 2, now my view is my l322 would be about same as my old disco, since it doesn’t have terrain response so like my disco relies on low range and traction control to keep going, anyone else got similar views and that pickups seem to get stuck a lot?

As you can imagine, an empty pickup is very light in the rear. 2 wheel drive ones are useless in snow and the rear wheels on a 4x4 don't do much. Being light is only good for crossing deep mud.
I don't really think terrain response adds all that much extra capability. If you think about what the car needs to do you can make most of the needed responses yourself.

rich28uk said:

Hi everyone just quick question got talking to mate of mine who reckoned his Ford ranger would be better off road than my L322 RR without terrain response, he reckoned his being lighter wouldn’t get stuck as easy but I explained I pulled him off wet grass twice when I had my disco 2, now my view is my l322 would be about same as my old disco, since it doesn’t have terrain response so like my disco relies on low range and traction control to keep going, anyone else got similar views and that pickups seem to get stuck a lot?

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hiya

couldn’t find a RR but a D4 , lol

Gord Wedman said:

As you can imagine, an empty pickup is very light in the rear. 2 wheel drive ones are useless in snow and the rear wheels on a 4x4 don't do much. Being light is only good for crossing deep mud.
I don't really think terrain response adds all that much extra capability. If you think about what the car needs to do you can make most of the needed responses yourself.

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hi

talking of traction control I always wondered that , my D3 has it but never really had the opportunity to fully test it, but did see this video , have heard many other manufacturers have tried to copy the traction control system because it’s supposedly to be very good , hope the video is of interest

True about no weight over rear wheels. Good videos then, really shows how the systems work. One thing that I recall was few years back having a Fl2 and being in snow it went through no issue when a 300tdi 90 was slipping and sliding and getting stuck with 2 or 4 wheels spinning and his mates pushing and rocking to get it going.

Plenty of spinning but least it kept going, on road tyres? Think wet grass/ light mud must be worse that anything else.

gstuart said:

hiya

couldn’t find a RR but a D4 , lol

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The disco is at a disadvantage here as it's got 20" wheels and comedy road tyres, the ranger likely has ATs. If both vehicles had the same rubber, the D4 would walk it easily.

Don't get me wrong in my comment about terrain response. I don't mean to disparage traction control. I think it is great and let's my 99 P38 follow the rest of the gang everywhere. With regard to terrain response, take the Snow setting as an example. In this setting the car starts in 2nd gear and the throttle response is muted with the idea you lessen the chances of wheel spin. With a little thinking you could make these settings/actions yourself. Terrain Response is just LR trying to simplify driving in challenging situations.
In really slippery conditions TC does not do much because it needs to see a difference in wheel speed between left and right wheels to activate. If they both spin at the same speed nothing happens with TC.

Gord Wedman said:

Terrain Response is just LR trying to simplify driving in challenging situations.

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It's more involved than just messing with the TC, as the TR module has control over the whole vehicle dynamics systems.
For example, sand mode makes the engine much more responsive, and the traction control less sensitive, which really helps in soft sand.

Rock crawl locks in the centre diff, and raises the suspension to off road height, and applies EDL type function to the TC system.

Yes, there is more to Terrain Response than modifying TC action. In my example of Snow mode I didn't even mention TC in relation to the action of Snow mode although that might be modified as well.

Good points made, can vouch for pickups getting stuck like you say no weight over the back wheels so no traction. Yet to test my Disco 2 in the misses field in the winter yet, it does get bad! Apologies for the non Landy pic this was 2 years back !