manoftaste
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- Joined
- Sep 18, 2006
- Posts
- 618
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That may be a touch harsh - while I have not cared for the outward aesthetics of everything new starting with the Evoque, LR has advanced the Terrain system with an auto sytem, created the All-Terrain Progress Control system, invented the Invisible Bonnet System (whatever it is actually called these days), added flush door handles (love it or hate it), came up with a nice interior non-leather fabric option, has a patent out on a central tire inflation system, etc. They are working on nifty stuff, they are just having trouble creating "the whole package".
Their engineering department is great, no doubt about that, and they have already demonstrated that (IBF, TerrainResponse, cross-linked air setup, etc). But my harshness is toward the bean counters, the lazy suites, the clueless marketing team.
With all due respect, they sat on their Terrain Response for nearly a decade before advancing it a little, yes, little. Not their engineers' 'fault, as the engineers would only do what their talent is being forced and directed at by the retards who write their checks.
And, they didn't even bother to market it properly and secure this tech properly (in terms of customer perception at least), a tech that they themselves had invented/developed to begin with. A trend that they themselves had originated and set for others to only follow. Instead, they let this tech sit and rot for years and let it slip away and become lost in the maze of similar looking/sounding systems that sprouted all around TerrainResponse, and hence lost this LR engineered intellectual property to the rest. Way to go, LR.
Terrain Response, today, for a soccer mom and an off roader, should have been synonymous with the words "safety" and an "absolute off-roading necessity", respectively. It should have been way more advanced by now and should have had user-selectable full auto and full manual modes.
And the auto mode should have been so advanced and accurate by now that it should have satisfied the needs of the hardest off roaders.
LR TerrainResponse by now should have been equivalent to the "fly-by-wire" systems found in modern day airplanes where based on pilot' slightest input(s) an onboard computer decides which control surface to push/pull (still with the help of hydraulics) in order for the plane to bank/pitch in the direction and by what amount/degree that the pilot has intended it to do, giving the pilot the finest control like a fighter bird even in a behemoth such as an A380. It should have been so efficient by now that no serious off roader would have ever want to consider going back to manually locking/unlocking etc, much like no pilot today, doesn't matter how experienced they maybe, would want to go back to flying by controlling the individual control surfaces manually and constantly throughout the flight.
To the off roader, TR should have been by now as important as having a proper set of off road tire. Yet, it still should have offered a full on manual mode for tailoring the system for certain situations. A decade is more than enough time for it to have included by now a central tire inflation/deflation system controlled by on-screen menu interface with ability to control individual tire' air pressure, maybe offered as a purchasable advanced 4x4 option. Etc, etc.
In other words, they should literally have owned and continued to own this tech (via proper development, and equally important, via marketing it) in terms of customer perception that everything else out there is just a bad and inefficient copy and that the original LR' patented TerrainResponse is the one thats most sophisticated and generations ahead, both interns of on-road safety (wintry/harsh weather situations) and offload efficiency. And then the lazy dealers/sales guide should have been trained to bank on this tech which was applicable to both the soccer moms and the real deal off roaders, and the weekend warrior off roaders.
But, again, putting ovens in the D5 cargo area is way more important.
Unfortunately, flash and bling are the only two things that have been on the minds of LR suits. So much so that it started to and in someways finally has crippled one of their best creations, LR4. The suspension tuning is one of the casualties. Recently I ventured out into the desert (terrain/geology my interest/weakness) and was surprised to find how badly the LR4' suspension does on the washboard type dirt roads/surfaces. Washboarded dirt roads where my LR3 would have literally floated over and thru even with those ****** street stock goodyears, my LR4, even with the amazingly conformable 19"/TerrainContacts combo was shaking and vibrating so bad that I became concerned and finally had to turn back as the road was snaking/winding with curves and I simply couldn't continue with that sweet spot speed that I needed in order to not have the nuts and bolts start to fall off my LR4. And I am all hip to the correct tire pressures, etc.
Similar thing happened this year when I went out to the mountains during winter time with snowy conditions. On my way back down I was on this road with hard pack ice/snow combo with evenly spaced out grooves on the ice formed by the vehicles with chains. Again the truck was vibrating quite a bit going over that surface. I made a video at the time trying to capture this but its hard to gauge this type of thing in a video. My former LR3 had no issues with these type of surfaces.
They basically re-tuned LR4 suspension for the streets of LA/soccer moms for better cornering and to reduce nose dives during braking but forgot that with tighter suspension tuning, contact patch' integrity and stably would take a hit on the highway/freeway at high speeds when you pass subtle bumps and sharp uneven patches, specially on wet surfaces and during downpours, let alone washboard type of surfaces. And to add insult to injury, they made the steering weight lither, even at highway speeds. No wonder an LR3 with its heavier steering weight and relatively softer suspension feels more well-planted and stable at cruising speeds, specially during heavy downpours. But hey, at least now the critics can say that "it feels lighter on its feet."
I recently read somewhere that when LR4/D4 became available in Australia, folks over there started swapping its suspension components with those of LR3/D3. This was because due to its street oriented suspension tuning, LR4/D4 couldn't do the washboards dirt roads over there. Glad to know that I wasn't the only crazy one who had noticed that with LR4.
To alleviate the above, all this lazy bunch had to do was to offer a user selectable suspension softness setting, something that I had available to me in my 1995 Montero SR (a luxury yet rugged SUV of the time), some twenty two years ago. It had three settings to chose from, soft, medium and hard.", see attached.
Now, how hard achieving an engineering feat like this could have been? I mean, Mtisu did it a quarter of a century ago in their Montego back in 1993 or '94. We already had the stiffer anti-sway bars in LR4 (compared with LR3), all these jokers had to do here is add a module or two to regulate the softness and throw in a user selectable switch up on the dashboard (or on-screen menu), do some testing/R&D and that would have been it. A softer setting mimicking LR3' ride quality and a normal setting mimicking the current LR4 ride quality, and that would have simply been it. And before handing over the demo LR4 to that automotive pundit/critic, all LR had to do was to make sure that this setting is set to the second or firmer mode so this pundit could write the review that satisfies the soccer mom.
But again, when the needed spirit and the desire is not there in those bean counting suits to begin with, having even the best of the best engineering/design team could literally mean nothing.
For me personally, at this point if all LR did was devoted all of their focus and energy on doing exactly the stuff which makes a land cruiser as rock solid and reliable as it is, I would be happy to re-consider going back to giving my business to LR. But unfortunately as of now there is not a single product in their entire lineup that speaks to me. The discontinued LR3/4 on the other hand is a different beast altogether and thats why I have stuck to it for more than twelve years now (along with putting up with incompetence and greed of the service departments) and intend to keep it for as long as I can or at least until someone comes up with something worthwhile looking into
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