Off Road write up
 

This week end i went camping. Yesterday, The idea was to go caving in some mountain... at first, the guide said the road is moderately off-road and just 30 minutes drive...

The guy turned out to be a liar, not only did he lie about the road, but even the cave there was closed and no one allowed to enter... so he ruined our day, but most importantly I had the opportunity to have a nice off-road drive with the X... the trip was 1.5 hours up and 1.5 hours down (from 1500m to 2100m altitude). The road turned out to be moderate to tough... very rocky, with those little rocks sticking out from between the gravel with occasionaly deeb pits that almost got the bottom hit the ground (luckily I did not hit it) and some upward crowling with a lot of mid-sized (like apples) gravels and pits...

The X drove strong, but with the SP and 18'', I was very shaky and bouncy... you feel the front suspension going apart, and the steering wheel feels like braking in your hand... It was not pleasant to drive... when things got hard, going uphill with apple sized rocks and big pits, the DSC kicked in big time and was almost 100% of the time intervening and keeping it running... I can tell you something, this machine was not built for off-roading... I drove many 4x4, pajero, pathfinder, 4 runner, etc... and they would all feel at home on such roads, but the X had hard time... I mean we had hard time inside it with all the shakes and our feel of "poor X, it should be suffering now".... but about the machine as machine, it drove like a champ: it kept surely walking and negotiated obtacles fairely good (specially the few muddy pits)... and when back on asfalt, it drove as smoothly as ever, not a single strange sound (the pathfinder would have plenty of strange sounds after an off-road... joints, heat shields, etc..)

So the car is tough, but was not built for serious offroad and is not confortable outside asfalt... wish i had some pics, but we were tight on schedule, and then mad for not entering the cave, etc...

We know it was not made for serious off-roading, next time try turning DSC off, maybe it will help a bit .

agreed - you should try with DSC off - the car will make all sorts of electronic buzzes with it on. More all terrain tires could help as well.

If you put a 4 runner out there with sport wheels/tires, you could have a similar experience, although I still put my money on the Toyota regarding off-road.

Did you try the hill disent? If so, is it working ok?

awesome sounds like you had quite an experience.

I might consider getting some 18" wheels to fit taller/more narrow all terrain tires for my X in the future since some of the areas I go with the trailer and friends boats are less paved and more off road/muddy. I have absolutely no need for winter wheels down here, but could just as often use off road wheels.

And I agree that on the way up you would have done better with the DSC turned off, and on the way down you could have tried out the hill decent depending on grade.

Honestly, I totally forgot about turning off the DSC... Maybe because I was feeling (wrongly maybe) that this all humming and electronics are saving my ass to get out from each pit (this 200m stretch going uphill with big pits, where the DSC was active almost all the time)... Damn it, I should have tried it without DSC!!! :(

About the HDC, I tried it the day before this long journey, while going down from the camping site. It works fine, but for me, I felt that it is letting the car go faster than it should. I didn't feel safe rolling with HDC taking control of the car... sometimes you might have like 3 meters of rocks-free stretch, so the HDC migh let you go a little faster, then you suddenly hit a bunch or rocks and the HDC gets "suprised" and activates... this "surpise" may send the car out of control... I don't know, but i felt that HDC works best in a uniform road with light slope... we all know that for steep slopes you have to go inch by inch and the HDC can't do that, and it can't see what's coming next to behave accordingly....

It's a nice gadget, but of limited application I believe...

Standard (non-sport) suspension and 17s are essentials if you are going to have any sort of enjoyable off roading in the rocky stuff. Even then it's a very rough-riding experience compared to something like a LandCruiser.

HDC was stolen directly from Rover so I'm sure its not a bad system. I think the issue here is the older 4WD system prior to XDrive. It was tremendously improved after 04 and I've been able to do things I never thought a sporty SAV could do in Sand and dirt. I haven't tried climbing rocks but I don't think it was ever meant for that.

And who said Range Rovers are perfect and never do a not-so-briallant system? HDC seems to operate best in moderate slopes with uniform texture/topology, like a stretch of sand or a stretch of pebbles of the same size, etc...
I don't know about the post 04 improvement, but i am almost sure that no electronic system can negotiate a really steep rocky desent... in such cases you have to litteraly go inch by inch with occasionally comming to a total stop in order to avoid building kinetic energy that can make you slide all the way down like a folling rock...
The tougher the road is the less electronics you want to use... even the DSC should have been turned off as the guys said above... and if you really want an off-road vehicle, it should be manual transmission, but we're not going to the extreme here... Just this DSC seems to be handy in some really specific circumstances (maybe around 10-20% of your offroad adventures)