David & Maureen Price
Member Since: 08 Jun 2005
Location: Adelaide South Australia
Posts: 16
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| Beware Sand Driving in Disco 3 |
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Just a quick note to advise everyone to beware of Disco 3 faults when sand driving.On sunday we took a our 3 Land Rovers to Robe SA to complete the beach run. We covered the beach ok but at the first decent dune the LR3 ran into trouble, the Defender & TD5 Disco made it over the dune without a problem but Maureen could not clear the dune at all,so I went back to check that she had all the settings correct and that the tyre pressures had been reduced enough,all were OK so decided to have a drive myself and take a bit more of a run up.
As I gathered speed to about 25kph the warning sounded that the suspension was being lowered as we hit the bottom of the dune the nudge bar touched the dune and popped off the mounting bolts fell forward and dug into the dune acting like a plough it forced sand into the front of the vehicle and up over the roof of the car.When we extricated LR3 we discovered that the force of the sand into the front of the vehicle had broken the plastic winch cover and the radiator was damaged to a point where it was leaking very badly.
The nudge bar is a genuine LRA unit .in hindsight the mountings are definitely not robust enough under the car,as they are only 1.5mm sheet steel and are very flexible,also the front mounts into the bumper are slotted so that just drop down over the bolts mounted in the bumper.
Obviously the impact of the under body part of the Nudge bar with the sand pushed it upwards and it came off the fixing bolts,hence our problem went from minor to Major.
Australian owners beware,LandRover assist is no longer the champion it used to be. Under the Ford banner all assistance is now handled by the RAA so be prepared to wait! We were told that we could not take the vehicle to a local caravan park and leave it to be collected we must sit & wait for the recovery vehicle to arrive about 2.5 hours! Not good when you have 250kms to go to the nights accommodation.[img]have a look at the gallery for pics. [/img] Owner of Defender 110 Extreme 1999 with Expedition mods,Series 2 Disco 2001& Series3 TDV6
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 14th Jun 2005 4:24 am |
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scorpio
Member Since: 26 Feb 2005
Location: Birmingham
Posts: 237
  
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David the reason for the suspension lowering was that the speed you was doing was to fast for off-road use and the vehicle automatically lowers. I had it happen when on Salisbury Plain. The thing I have noticed about this new terrain response is that it you need to drive off-road totally different to the way yopu used to, and to be honest it took me a lot of time to get used to it but as soon as I had it was probably the best I had ever driven off-road.
Peter
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| 14th Jun 2005 12:41 pm |
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BN
Member Since: 18 Mar 2005
Location: Here
Posts: 6463
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The D3 is a different driving technique to the old faithfull 110 and TD5's. Mainly slow with DSC deactivated. On sand that is difficult, because high speeds can be achieved a lot of the time and useful at that. We have tried sand in the Sahara recently and it is interesting. I must admit, I am a fast sand driver where possible, but then the D3 starts to go back to normal road use settings. Not found a way of stopping them yet, sure there must be a way.
Sand gets everywhere and we had to use a woolley jumper over the intercooler and rad otherwise it would have filled them up. At least we could shake the jumper and the rads were clear after.
Another worry is the airbag situation, don't forget that they activate at about 15.6 MPH (25.5KPH) to avoid supermarket bump speeds. Sounds as if you were lucky at 25KPH because .05KPH faster and you would be wearing airbags and be deaf.
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| 14th Jun 2005 2:06 pm |
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lawman
Member Since: 06 May 2005
Location: South East
Posts: 72
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BN, at what speed does the car lower itself please? Also, if the RRS has the same system, then I assume that when Clarkson was racing the tank it must have been at normal height?
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| 15th Jun 2005 1:15 pm |
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simon
Member Since: 11 Jan 2005
Location: Shropshire
Posts: 18296
  
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Shame you cannot lock it in off road height like you can for access height. All LR need to do to cover themselves is have large print statements in the manuals and a warning in the message centre and ONE bing as soon as the max speed is reached... NOT continuous bings like the seat belt warning (thank god this can be turned off).
-s
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| 15th Jun 2005 6:19 pm |
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BN
Member Since: 18 Mar 2005
Location: Here
Posts: 6463
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lawman, the Clarkson thing, I am positive was a set up, unless it was fixed by LR. At the speed he was going everything would have operated or not as the case may be. He also had a car with locking rear diff, which is an optional extra.
I think you will find the height will alter around the 8 - 10 MPH, nothing is accurate. You set the system to lower at any speed provided you reach the speed of around 5-6 MPH within 1 minute.
The only lock down that I know of is the access at park or below 5 MPH. When in 'lock down' some people report a crunching sound by the way, I think it is the ABS kicking in. It should not, but it does.
What you may find is in Rock Crawl the whole car is controlled by the setting, even the speed to a degree.
The RRS has basically the same set up and chassis as the D3.
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| 15th Jun 2005 6:41 pm |
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Cocker
Member Since: 10 Feb 2005
Location: Edinburgh, Scotland.
Posts: 26
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Simon,
How do you turn the seat belt warning chim off.......?
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| 16th Jun 2005 12:44 am |
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simon
Member Since: 11 Jan 2005
Location: Shropshire
Posts: 18296
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As discovered by the great Scot...
"Safety Belt alarm (disabled)
A very good safety device, but the beeping is so annoying (eg when moving a trailer around & need to take safety belt off). ?But it can be disabled! the same system as applies to Fords works - simply turn ignition on then rapidly (within 1 min) put the safety belt in & out of the clip 9 times! On the 9th time the safety belt light will stay on for a while & then after that you still get the safety belt light but not the "beep". One caution... I don't yet know how to re-enable the "beep"
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| 16th Jun 2005 8:59 am |
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ducati
Member Since: 06 May 2005
Location: Ohio, USA
Posts: 180
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I can stay at offroad height much higher than 8-10mph. It doesn't start getting mad until ~20, IIRC.
Still, not that fast in terms of sand driving. The one nice feature is it takes a bit of time to actually lower; that is, if you need the momentum you might just have enough time to use it. Of course, not in the aforementioned situation  '05 LR3 HSE
Departed: '62 Series IIA, '02 Freelander, '03 Disco
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| 16th Jun 2005 12:47 pm |
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BN
Member Since: 18 Mar 2005
Location: Here
Posts: 6463
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Ducati, the actuall max speed you can acheive is 40 kph, just looked it up. Still no good for sand, I know.
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| 16th Jun 2005 12:57 pm |
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simon
Member Since: 11 Jan 2005
Location: Shropshire
Posts: 18296
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I assume that Sand is selected with TR ? Would have thought the LR techs would have built in this speed / suspension setting for this very reason of momentum required etc... the engine mapping is changed and over runs (apparently) to keep the revs up.
-s
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| 16th Jun 2005 1:02 pm |
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ducati
Member Since: 06 May 2005
Location: Ohio, USA
Posts: 180
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40km/h it is, then. That sounds about right.
Sand mode definitely overruns on throttle lift... It's interesting, to say the least, if your passenger twirls TR into Sand when you're on the bitumen  '05 LR3 HSE
Departed: '62 Series IIA, '02 Freelander, '03 Disco
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| 16th Jun 2005 8:42 pm |
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Gareth
Site Moderator
Member Since: 07 Dec 2004
Location: Bramhall
Posts: 26701
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Have you tried SAND in the traffic lights Grand Prix? Quite impressive 8)
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| 16th Jun 2005 10:30 pm |
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simon
Member Since: 11 Jan 2005
Location: Shropshire
Posts: 18296
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Does it up the power ? or just the change time on your auto ?
Have a manual and thought about this very thing as you'd assume the Sand setting would increase the power to keep you moving.
Will try tomorrow.
-s
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| 16th Jun 2005 11:19 pm |
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