My wife & I have been looking for a small, decent SUV/CUV for her. Test drove a bunch of vehicles with quotes on all. She's decided on the Land Rover LR2. According to Consumer Reports, all Land Rovers are basically unreliable pieces of crap. However, for a 2 year lease I strongly suspect that it will be completely fine. A nice higher mileage lease with a cost that is actually less than, say a CRV or RAV4. It's luxurious & pretty cool but we would never buy one - with the Z plan from her grandfather that takes off about $3K off the price since Ford owns it. Anyway.

One of the things that Land Rover salesmen do is to take you in the vehicle then go on a course in front or on the side of the store. Small course but pretty intense. The vehicle ends up being extremely to the side on a very steep angle (my wife thought it was going to flip) then they take you up an extremely intense incline (this time I thought the LR2 would flip). Pretty demanding course, not sure how many vehicles would be able to do it, I mean that, it's intense.

So, after the course when we are driving I say "that course was interesting, my 4Runner would be able to do that". So, this smug SOB says "sure it could, as long as I grabbed a LR3 with a winch to pull it up the hill after it flipped over" & that "there is no way a 4Runner could possibly do this course because of the blah blah blah blah technology of our products". Now, this kind of pissed me off. When we get back to the dealership, I say "well I am certain my 4Runner can do the course as good if not better than any of your Land Rovers". He states that customer's really are not allowed to take their own vehicles on the course but I persist. He goes into the dealership, talks to his boss (I hear him as he says 'possible customer for a LR2 thinks his Toyota can do the course'). So, his bosses say that they are not liable as they 'look the other way'. By this time, a group of maybe 8 or so Land Rover salesmen are standing outside, watching.

I get into my 2002 4Runner, unlock the center differencial, put in 4WD, put on overdrive & enter the course. I went higher on the side than the Land Rover did (when he drove it), stopped (to prove a point), continued with one point having only one wheel actually on the ground (going very slow of course), went up the incline with no stalls, no slipping, no problems, made it down & parked.

Looked at that son of a bitch & his cocky smug was gone. I saw one of the servicemen pay up a dollar to one of the guys standing there. I cannot believe these people were surprised.

*edit*

Pictures as of 07/22/2007 - I hope the pictures give evidence about how the vehicles are challenged...

http://collectiveunconscious.org/t1.jpg
http://collectiveunconscious.org/t2.jpg
http://collectiveunconscious.org/t3.jpg

 

HaHa Great story... maybe drive by there sometime and take a picture of the 'course' id like to see it.

 

hhahaa take that fancy schmancy mobile!!!!

4Runner-1
Mallrover-0

 

does the course look like this?

 

good to hear hahaha, get some contact info from that salesman and tell him to issue an apology on here

 

We will be going back there in a week or so to get the vehicle. I will take a couple pictures & post here. I'm not sure I'll do the course again (not sure they would let me) but I can definitely snap some photos.

It looks steeper than the pictures above. For example, the car on the left should be much more on a slope.

 

great story! Would love to see the pics when you get a chance!

 

unlocked the center differential?? can you explain?? pics too of your ride! lol nice story btw! awesome

 

Oh, that is a great story!

Before i turned Toyota i had always liked the rovers and had wanted to get one but after seeing the 4runners and a friend that has a rover and always had to work on it I decided to go Toyota and will never look back!

Be sure to get some pics!

 

nice

 

Seems you would have wanted to keep the center locked, why put it in overdrive? Low Range would have been the ticket...Nice job though

 

"anything you can do, i can do better" comes to mind doesn't it

 

Ditto, and along the same point. you dirve with the center locked?

 

Glad to see a 4Runner (an '02 for that matter) do as good, if not better, than the LR.

Would have been cool if your wife had a camera to snap some pics while you were on the course.

 

Great story. I love it. Please post some pics of the course soon.

 

x2 what is the center differential?

 

The center "differential" is the transfer case. It acts like a diff when it is unlocked and thus allows you to use the 4WD full time. With a locked t-case it will ruin it if you drive on road with it. but off road it give you a LOT more traction as you have both the front and back getting power all the time. Then if you have a locker/SAS you can get REAL 4x4.

Edit: I don't think that all 4runners had full time and thus you might not have the option to unlock the t-case. I think it is only the limiteds that have it. I know they are the only ones with the shift on the fly button just don't know about the full-time 4WD

 

That's awesome. I love it. Arent the LR3s the ones that IRS and IFS?

 

I wheel with rovers, and unlike Jeep people they are cool. Now as for the salesman. That is trues with salesman across the board they get chipped when they show up for work and their product is the best. I go to rover only events and everybody is cool. There isnt a mine is better than yours mentality I do get joked with on the radio about driving a camry, or a kia . But I usually get them with their festiva or escape seeing as how LR is now ford owned.


Aaron

 

Back when I had my 92' pickup, we used to wheel with this guy who had a land rover (actually his parents). Anyways, that thing could not go many places we, in our toyota's, could. Lots of people think that Jeeps are the ultimate off-road vehicle too. Last time I was out in the fo-runna was with two jeeps. I didn't even have the e-locker engaged and was crawling through stuff they were getting stuck in. We all are running 33's. I had to do multiple jeep recoveries that day. Basically toyota's are the $h*t.