Rangie comes up trumps.

Hi all,

I've heard a few people "disrespect" the P38's off-road capability. Well, here's a little tale for you.

Today I went logging in the hills. I had normal motorway road tyres on (18"). It was wet, slippy (mud/grass/bluebells), on a steep slope. Rough ground and tree-stumps, the lot. I filled up the back with about a ton and a half of wood (engine running, shut the tailgate once in a while to let her level out) and my mate filled his new Mitsubishi glam-cab thing (managed about a ton in his, max). He tried to get out and he was in trouble. He had his diff locks on, the lot. Then it started to bottom out with the weight in the back.

Pressure's on. This is going to be nasty. No winch, road tyres. I didn't even have a decent rope. Slipped the Rangie into low ratio (already in extended ride-height to get over the stumps) and set off. Didn't even notice the conditions. Might as well have been parking in town. Straight out and straight down towards civilisation. On the road she handled as well as ever. On unloading I had to put the key in a few times to self-level before the arse went too high but otherwise no problems at all.

Say what you like about Chelsea tractors etc but I doubt there's many 4x4s out there that could do that load in that terrain as well. Absolutely incredible bit of kit. WELL CHUFFED! And one mate wishing he hadn't blown all his cash on a brand new whatever it is.

You can never get better than a land rover yes they have issues yes they break down but they do the deed when needed!!!!!!!

My P38 has been a swine at times, but she has always come through. It is a 13/14 year old piece of kit, so bits are getting tired, but you put in the grunt work and you get rewarded for it.

I use mine for fun in the forest with a club here Club Land Rover Ireland all I have fitted is a set of mud tyres and she goes really well for a " luxury motor "

Mine's 18 years old now and I am very impressed. You wouldn't even know I had a ton or so in the back. No wonder they're rated to tow 3/1/2 tons. The air-suspension really came into its own too. Must have had to level it 3 or 4 times as we loaded and unloaded. Just took it. Incredible.

I've had the situation twice where a Wickes busybody has warned me about my car being overloaded, once with my old Citroen C5 and once with the P38, both times I had well over half a ton in the back I just said "watch this" as I started the engine and the suspension levelled itself. The Citroen in particular was on the bumpstops at the rear - really looked sorry for itself - should have probably loaded it with the engine running because you can damage the diaphragm in the suspension sphere.


As a teen my Mum decided to earn a bit of extra cash delivering yellow pages, we got to the depot there were loads of cars dragging their arses like a dog with worms with a hundred or so directories in the boot. We got the man to load an entire pallet into the back of my mum's Citroen CX Safari, the fork lift driver was impressed as the car levelled itself. He reckoned a pallet weighed over a ton!

I've been impressed what my p38 can do in a muddy stubble field on road tyres. A bit easy to get carried away and start behaving like a little boy. Rare fun though

I took my p38 green laning and was well impressed just put some mud tyres on and it climbed everything and went through all the big puddles fords and rutts that i asked it to and was great for laning and then has road manners when you go back on tarmac got to love the air suspension for that

mutsnutz said:

I took my p38 green laning and was well impressed just put some mud tyres on and it climbed everything and went through all the big puddles fords and rutts that i asked it to and was great for laning and then has road manners when you go back on tarmac got to love the air suspension for that

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Good now don't forget to grease those props ...
And hope your bearing seals are in good order