Comments about this vehicle

Author	Message
m.pfaffeneder ◊ 2011-07-12 12:20	That is a beautiful car. It looks fantastic, it´s comfortable and it is quite good on offroad tracks.
TheHeartbreakKid15 ◊ 2011-07-12 20:45	The vehicle details for VU11 DHA are: Date of Liability 01 05 2012 Date of First Registration 05 05 2011 Year of Manufacture 2011 Cylinder Capacity (cc) 2200CC CO2 Emissions 0g/Km Fuel Type Heavy Oil Export Marker Not Applicable Vehicle Status Licence Not Due Vehicle Colour WHITE Vehicle Type Approval
dudley ◊ 2011-07-15 12:06	It's a posh Freelander 2. Quite like it though.
dsl ◊ 2011-07-15 13:03	Horrible ugly mess - Land Rover's Juke. Probably a miserable experience for passengers in the dark and gloomy dungeon of a cabin with slits instead of windows - what's wrong with having windows big enough to see out of? Probably a sales success for LR as all the media flock like sheep to say how wonderful it is and I guess it has huge profit margins built in to its pricing. So LR win all ends up, and car design plummets backwards as fashion takes over from fitness for purpose. This one was LHD on film.
G-MANN ◊ 2011-07-15 13:29	Partly designed by Victoria Beckham apparentely...
Ingo ◊ 2011-07-15 13:43	m.pfaffeneder wrote That is a beautiful car. It looks fantastic, it´s comfortable and it is quite good on offroad tracks. How do you know? How many of them have you tested by yourself? Or are you referring only sapiences from the AutoBILD?
G-MANN ◊ 2011-07-15 13:46	James May takes it offroad in this episode but you wouldn't know because you don't watch Top Gear despite commenting about it a lot
Ingo ◊ 2011-07-15 13:58	Aha. So Top Gear-sapiences are really trustworthy? More than http://www.autobild.de/ ? For people, who don't have any own experience? Sorry, G-Mann, you've shooted in your own foot with that comment.
Sandie ◊ 2011-07-15 14:01	18,000 pre-orders apparently. I don't mind it but at the end of the day it's £40,000 for a Ford Focus sized car and you can get more impressive things for that. Clearly it is intended for the vacuous people in society who want a designer brand rather than what they actually need. There are lots of those around thankfully for JLR. As May showed it has good off-road capability but at the end of the day there is more chance of seeing me modelling clothes at London Fashion Week than one of these being taken off road by anyone other than James May. Why on earth does everyone think they need a 4x4 these days? I understand people who live in the countryside or who like off-roading or who need the extra weight and power for towing but barely anyone who buys one of these will do that.
G-MANN ◊ 2011-07-15 14:06	ingo wrote Aha. So Top Gear-sapiences are really trustworthy? More than http://www.autobild.de/ ? For people, who don't have any own experience? Sorry, G-Mann, you've shooted in your own foot with that comment. You shoot yourself in the foot whenever you say things like "Top Gear is a total bullshit, produced to only lower class and uneducated shitheads. To own this opinion, I do not even need to watch it." "Sapiences" Why don't you just use simpler, easier words? Your writing would look better. BTW Sandie I agree with you. Most people don't need these cars (a lot are a bit pointless) they just end up buying them because of how they're marketed. Range Rovers have really become status symbols now. -- Last edit: 2011-07-15 14:20:07
Sandie ◊ 2011-07-15 14:20	To be fair to him May did actually manage to prove the car was decent off road as I saw him do pretty well in the desert with this so it's not quite like some of the auto weeklys and monthlys which come to sometimes bizarre conclusions based on the evidence at hand. I saw him prove what he was saying. Due to the short front and rear overhangs the aparture angles are pretty decent (25 and 33 degrees front and rear respectively) and it has other decent capabilities. Of course other factors such as its beauty and value for money are entirely subjective. Also - in the reviews of this I've read - the journalists do as motoring journalists do and refer to intangible qualities that probably don't matter. -- Last edit: 2011-07-15 14:23:01
G-MANN ◊ 2011-07-15 14:38	I don't know if value for money is much of an issue when you're spending £40 grand on a car. Also where he was driving it (the bit where he got stuck), just looked to me that somewhere you'd be hiking rather than trying drive a car through it. -- Last edit: 2011-07-15 14:45:30
m.pfaffeneder ◊ 2011-07-15 14:53	@ingo: I think you can trust Top Gear more than car magazines like AutoBild. @Sandie and G-MANN: In Germany, SUV´s like Ford Kuga, VW Tiguan, BMW X1 & X3,... are quite popular. I agree with you that most of the people will never drive their cars through mud and on offroad tracks. But the majority of the SUV´s in Germany are front-wheel-drived. Only the Audi Q5 and the new BMW X3 are 4WD. But most of the others (VW Tiguan, Ford Kuga, Hyundai ix35, Kia Sportage, Mercedes GLK, BMW X1, Nissan Qashqai) are front-wheel-drived.
m.pfaffeneder ◊ 2011-07-15 15:06	BTW: My brother-in-law has got a Hyundai ix35 2.0 (June 2010+) with 163 HP, and it´s FWD. They have got two children so they needed a spacious car. They took a look at a Ford S-Max but it was too big for them. Unfortunately the C-Max was a bit too small. An Estate was a bit too low (sitting) and they drove a Ford Focus Turnier 1.8 for 10 years. So they´ve decided to look for a SUV. The Kuga/Tiguan were too expensive, an Opel was out of the question and a Dacia Duster was cheap. Then they went to a local Hyundai-dealership, and then they bought the ix35. Even though it´s not 4WD, it´s a fantastic car. It´s very spacious, the boot is big, the engine is powerful (although it´s not turbocharged), the price was very good (about 20000 €) and it´s a reliable car. They haven´t regret anything since they´ve bought it. BTW: My brother-in-law says, that it was quite hard for him to sell the Focus, cause they really loved it.
dsl ◊ 2011-07-15 15:24	m.pfaffeneder wrote I think you can trust Top Gear more than car magazines like AutoBild. Really?? I wouldn't trust TG for more than an entertaining (sometimes) summary of how zoomy or cool they think a car is - nothing about what it's actually like to live with or run, because they never look deep enough. If TG is better than Autobild, AB must be pretty awful.
dsl ◊ 2011-07-15 15:28	G-MANN wrote I don't know if value for money is much of an issue when you're spending £40 grand on a car. Probably not in a direct analysis. But if you turn it on its head and think - what's the most satisfying way to spend £40,000, the logic of choosing an Evoque is difficult to justify, except in the hope that other people are impressed.
Sandie ◊ 2011-07-15 15:29	dsl wrote Really?? I wouldn't trust TG for more than an entertaining (sometimes) summary of how zoomy or cool they think a car is - nothing about what it's actually like to live with or run, because they never look deep enough. If TG is better than Autobild, AB must be pretty awful. Auto Bild is the German version of Auto Express so probably. Look at it this way at £40K: Range Rover Evoque or BMW 1M or a well specced MB E 250 Coupe, sedan or estate? Maybe An Audi TT with £10K worth of options? You could get a decent Discovery for that too. -- Last edit: 2011-07-15 15:33:30
Ingo ◊ 2011-07-15 15:33	m.pfaffeneder wrote @ingo: I think you can trust Top Gear more than car magazines like AutoBild. Sorry, but this is wrong. Though I always dislike everything BILD-related (also caused by the education, I got from my 1968-influenced parents), it has to be admitted, that at AutoBILD there are working some people with professional (about cars) knowledge. Especially at the http://www.autobild.de/klassik/ I know the most journalists there since years, some of them are well known in the classic car scene since years. They are working there also for the reason, that the wages at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axel_Springer_AG are higher than at the competitor-magazines http://www.motor-klassik.de/ and http://www.oldtimer-markt.de/ (where they had been before. The classic car scene is small enough to know each other). -- Last edit: 2011-07-15 15:33:56
dsl ◊ 2011-07-15 15:36	So no articles longer than 30 words then? I begin to understand m.p's point now, but the conclusion seems to be don't trust either of them to tell you anything useful.
Ingo ◊ 2011-07-15 15:47	Sandie wrote Auto Bild is the German version of Auto Express so probably Yes, and in other countries (IIRC Poland and Italy for example), they are also on the market.
Ingo ◊ 2011-07-15 15:55	dsl wrote So no articles longer than 30 words then? In the original http://www.bild.de/ not. It's a kind of the German http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/ with a similar reputation and readership (@G-Mann: yes. All morons and shitheads in my eyes. Over 10 million per day. And yes, too: I've never ever have bought one issue ) but AutoBILD and AutoBILD Klassik are really better quality. The writers there are o.k., subject-specific and private.
m.pfaffeneder ◊ 2011-07-15 17:45	@ingo: Well, I buy the AutoBild every week and my neighbour gives me his car magazines (AutoStraßenverkehr, AutoBild Allrad) and there are sometimes some interesting tests. Of course, the people who test the cars have got a good knowledge. But I think very often, that they will fool us.
Neptune ◊ 2011-07-16 01:53	G-MANN wrote ...Also where he was driving it (the bit where he got stuck), just looked to me that somewhere you'd be hiking rather than trying drive a car through it. You mean this? That’s actually not that high, even the bumper clears the rock. That would be like driving up a parking lot curb. The two main issues are the short travel suspension (how far the drive-wheels can move up and down) and the factory on road biased tires. A 4x4 with long travel suspension is preferred. They show here that the suspension travel is exhausted. When it’s exhausted, a wheel will become "airborne". The right rear-wheel was only about an inch off the ground, but that's all that is needed. Air takes up residence between the bottom of the tire and the top of the ground, and as a result, the drive wheels cannot get traction and slip (spin) helplessly in the air. Which was what was happing in that capture. The drive-wheels must stay grounded to retain proper traction, and forward momentum. Bottom line, there was not enough traction for the rear-wheels to push the front-wheels up and over the "step-up" or "steps". The conventional "open" rear differential also helped hinder the Range Rover Evoque. The Evoque did have 4-wheel electronic traction control (like all its Land Rover siblings), and you could see the drive-wheels being grabbed by the ABS brakes when one or more of them lost traction. But, again since the front wheels where blocked, there is only so much traction control can do. The best thing to do in that situation is try driving up the step-up at a slight angle (if possible), so both front wheels are not blocked. I have actually driven my truck up step-ups just like that before; just replace the vertical rock wall (to James' left hand side) with a bank of earth and trees. -- Last edit: 2011-07-16 01:58:51
G-MANN ◊ 2011-07-17 22:49	Neptune wrote That would be like driving up a parking lot curb. Probably a bit harder than that Unless you have really big kerbs in the US If anyone wants to watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqz7umrbt4Y -- Last edit: 2011-07-17 23:00:33
Neptune ◊ 2011-07-18 02:13	It is like driving up a large curb, I didn’t say it was easy like driving up a large curb. In a parking lot, the rear-wheels sit atop flat tarmac, providing more than enough traction to push the front-wheels up and over a large curb. Here (in the capture) the ground is uneven and littered with slippery rocks. You need long travel suspension and better tires. Also a better driver with driving technique would help. Not someone like James who gets out and gives-up. A "spotter" would also be beneficial, as seen here with these 4x4s climbing the "Golden Stairs" (a 4,669 ft mountain peak) near Moab, Utah. Note the spotters helping the drivers. Spotters show the driver where to point the front tires. -- Last edit: 2011-07-18 03:34:52
G-MANN ◊ 2011-07-18 20:20	Well, as he said, I doubt many Evoque owners are going to take it places like that anyway.
tali ◊ 2011-07-19 22:48	The rear visibility on these seems almost zero- with narrowest rear window i have seen - not good for the Ms Beckham wannabees
dsl ◊ 2011-07-20 01:29	tali wrote narrowest rear window i have seen ... Maybe we could launch an annual imcdb award for the car with the shortest rear screen wiper in the world.
m.pfaffeneder ◊ 2011-07-20 11:56	@dsl: I think this car should be awarded: Citroen DS4 Link to "de.wikipedia.org" -- Last edit: 2011-07-20 11:58:24
Sandie ◊ 2011-09-25 14:27	But they never sold Defenders to anyone other than farmers (or to be more general people who lived in the countryside) because prior to the 1990s noone else needed or wanted a 4x4. And noone else needs one now. Let alone a crossover which marries many of the disadvantages and few of the advantages of a real 4x4.
dsl ◊ 2011-09-25 14:34	@kudflap - agree with a lot of what you say apart from the looks. The problem for me is that LR - probably inspired by BMW's similar strategies - are abandoning their core strengths as producers of models which have a distinct purpose and market identity in favour of inventing niches to sell posh handbags, which is a much more short-term series of opportunities. Sales and media hype may go through the roof but the collapse could be equally dramatic, and with the core values increasingly diluted, they're throwing away their strength of brand loyalty. And don't underestimate Defender sales - there are a vast number of uses for which the Defender gives a unique match in and outside the UK, so it has a global reputation. High profit RAV4-type cars mean LR is vulnerable to all the other products available in that pond with nothing to fall back on when the bubble bursts.
dsl ◊ 2011-09-25 14:53	The Defender definitely needs replacing, but with something similar in capabilities, durability and practicality - not the blingy DC100 concept. If LR were serious they would show their proposals with functional wheels and body detailing, not designer alloys on low profile tyres.
Sandie ◊ 2011-09-25 14:59	There will be more money in it if they made a fashionable bling bling replacement than a simple, solid workmanlike truck aimed at the developing world. I'd like the latter but would anticipate the former.
thefineprint ◊ 2012-05-13 19:45	Land Rover lost the large true 4x4 off-road market decades ago. You just have to check what's being driven in the developing world: 90% LandCruiser 75/78 series; Defenders mainly by anglophile governments, Camel Trophy wannabees and other romantics. So, I don't know what the Defender is, perhaps a crusty remnant of British stoicism.... Don't get me wrong, I liked using them and working on them (mostly 110s); problem was I spend more quality time under my ones than in them. And don't even get me started on the 130. Re "AutoBild" comment....It's damn hard to find ANY off-road tracks in Germany. So, how do they test them there :)? At the local "Land Rover Experience"? -- Last edit: 2012-05-13 19:46:46

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2011 Land-Rover Range Rover Evoque SD4 [L538]

2011 Land-Rover Range Rover Evoque [L538] in Top Gear, Non-fiction TV, 2002-2015 Ep. 17.03

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