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the main reason i bought the territory is that it is basicly a comfy road car with more clearance at the right price. its perfect for central queensland where i live , it handles dirt roads great and really, rainy , muddy conditions are about 80% driver and 20% veichle .so if you want to climb mountains buy a goat. thats not what this car is for , although both the terri and adventura ads imply they can go anywhere. also remember that jeep ad where he inherits the swampland and drives at about 100k through the mud ,yeah right
Want to go to KAKADOO national park get a TOYOTA LAND CRUIZER, or somthing along those tough bush bashers.
There is NO place in Kakadu, that you'd visit, that a Territory or an RTV ute for that matter, couldn't get you to.
Only exception is some places in the wet season .... but by then the roads would be closed to those places anyway for ALL vehicles (eg. Jim Jim, Ubirr).
The research would then show that the Terri is NOT a serious 4wd and is NOT targeted at serious 4WDrivers.
Well I would contend that whilst clearly Ford didn't design the car as an off roader and had a very defined set of customer needs in mind;
a. the T is very much a serious 4WD for the 'normal' traveller, and as a road vehicle it is so far ahead of other more 'serious' 4WD's it isn't even worth discussing.
b. ask the person who contends that the T won't go somewhere that a serious 4WD will go, where exactly they are talking about. If they say the Canning Stock Route or something like the Simpson Desert ... then you might have to agree with them (although I reckon you could probably make it across the Simpson with a relatively lightly loaded car -- fuel would be the killer though), but unless they are talking about a mud bash or near vertical climb or descent ... then they are hopelessly misinformed.
As a couple of people have said in this thread ... the T is just brilliantly controlled on dirt roads and tracks.
c. this is not to say that the T couldn't become a better off roader though. Not by a long shot .... definitely needs a high tech diesel, much longer range tanks and another 20-40mm of ground clearance (please God, with negligible effect on steering/roadholding and ride) would be divine.
d. and just what is a serious 4WD'er?? Would most people say a Cruiser or a Patrol? A Landie of some description maybe? Well OK .... let's say they are serious off roaders for a second .... please tell me how many off these types of cars go "serious off roading" without between $5 and $10K worth of formidable modification from the manufacturer's product before they hit the dirt .... suspension, tyres, wheels, longe range tanks, dual batteries etc etc
T owners .... be proud and stand up for your car. The critics (journo's and other make 4wd'ers) are just jealous that something so different is showing up their choice and as for the journo's ... unless a car has a significant brand value (eg. BMW, Mercedes and the like) its never going to really rate with them .... the majority of them would get lost trying to get to the Flinders Ranges let alone, be credentialled enough to crticise any of the 4WD's.
Basically they took a Territory, Kluger, Adventra and Pajero on a loop through western NSW, the NT and SA .... and the biggest problem they had with the T was that the cable to the rear wheels that was involved with the ABS, traction control and DSC ... broke off its mounting and was torn out of the rear wheel housing .... thereby rendering the three systems disabled ..... a BIG problem when in the middle of nowhere and the AWD system is compromised. But the same thing COULD have happened to the Adventra or the Kluger as well .... just that this time on a sample of one ... it happened to the T. All use electronic systems .... rather than mechanical systems .... what you gain in smoothness, lack of friction, noise supression and efficiency .... you may lose in complexity and an inability to fix it in the middle of nowhere.
Fair enough .... you'd not want that to happen .... but they extrapolated that issue and one of two more minor things to present a view that the car was less than ideal as a 4WD'er - at least compared to the Kluger that was also on test.
If you keep abreast of the Drive opinions .... Jonathan Hawley is a pretty severe critic of everything he drives ... and that's his right .... up until this year I would have called him a Holden sympathiser .... until he righted himself by blasting the Adventra and then giving the most critical opinion on the VZ Commode amongst the journo fraternity ....
The one ironic thing about this story though was that the same thing happened to me on my trip in mid year. Because I was aware of the issue I was occasionally checking underneath the car and the same cable to the rear brakes broke off its mounting on the control blade on the rear IRS on my car!!! It is true that it is not well affixed to the IRS --- a simple plastic clip really ... and you can see why the Drive team had the problem. But it's not a major drama like they made it out to be.
Fortunately though I caught it before it was damaged by a rock or undergrowth and fixed the problem by attaching a simple plastic ratchet tiedown to the cable and the control blade and it was fine ... no issue at all.
It's not really the publication itself - it's the drivers. They are not consistent with each other. I know that testing a vehicle is very much a matter of personal opinion but they need to professionalise to a point where they can show that most testers, using the same testing method, would come up with a similar result - ie more scientific.
At the moment you get someone on a grumpy day and everything's rubbish, in another mag or paper you get someone writing glorious prose about the latest $10,000 buz box (often looking very similar to the brochure material). You end up needing to read too many articles to work out the average opinion.
For me the one Autoweb/Autospeed writer that I have some confidence in is Julian Edgar who seems to think a bit before/while/after driving so that he is able to critically assess the car for it's intended audience. It's just a shame that there are other writers around who write rubbish (or seem to be stuck by the deadlines)
For me the one Autoweb/Autospeed writer that I have some confidence in is Julian Edgar who seems to think a bit before/while/after driving so that he is able to critically assess the car for it's intended audience. It's just a shame that there are other writers around who write rubbish (or seem to be stuck by the deadlines)
Thats really funny, cause I beleive it was mostly julian edgar that caused all of FF hate autospeed and cancel their memberships a while back.
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Do I really have to write something funny in here?
DILLIGAF: a subsiduary of the DGAF NOP group of companies. BSR Member - 'Blanky' 'ConeKiller'
Well I would contend that whilst clearly Ford didn't design the car as an off roader and had a very defined set of customer needs in mind;
a. the T is very much a serious 4WD for the 'normal' traveller, and as a road vehicle it is so far ahead of other more 'serious' 4WD's it isn't even worth discussing.
b. ask the person who contends that the T won't go somewhere that a serious 4WD will go, where exactly they are talking about. If they say the Canning Stock Route or something like the Simpson Desert ... then you might have to agree with them (although I reckon you could probably make it across the Simpson with a relatively lightly loaded car -- fuel would be the killer though), but unless they are talking about a mud bash or near vertical climb or descent ... then they are hopelessly misinformed.
As a couple of people have said in this thread ... the T is just brilliantly controlled on dirt roads and tracks.
c. this is not to say that the T couldn't become a better off roader though. Not by a long shot .... definitely needs a high tech diesel, much longer range tanks and another 20-40mm of ground clearance (please God, with negligible effect on steering/roadholding and ride) would be divine.
d. and just what is a serious 4WD'er?? Would most people say a Cruiser or a Patrol? A Landie of some description maybe? Well OK .... let's say they are serious off roaders for a second .... please tell me how many off these types of cars go "serious off roading" without between $5 and $10K worth of formidable modification from the manufacturer's product before they hit the dirt .... suspension, tyres, wheels, longe range tanks, dual batteries etc etc
T owners .... be proud and stand up for your car. The critics (journo's and other make 4wd'ers) are just jealous that something so different is showing up their choice and as for the journo's ... unless a car has a significant brand value (eg. BMW, Mercedes and the like) its never going to really rate with them .... the majority of them would get lost trying to get to the Flinders Ranges let alone, be credentialled enough to crticise any of the 4WD's.
My friend has a new Discovery, and there is no way I will take my Territory where he takes his Discovery.
It is a bog standard Turbo Diesel Auto, and if I followed him through some of the places he has been he would have to pull me through a quarter of them, and I wont even mention the under body damage I would create.
I am proud of my Terri, I purchased it for exactly what I know it can do & I am happy.
The Discovery has had some problems, 4 weeks into ownership it kept stalling cold, the dealer laughed at him and said "no way", put a diagnostic tool on it & all was well.
He insisted, so they kept it over night and phoned him next day with an apology, it stalled for them. They had it for three weeks, phoned every dealer in Australia & then England, finally they tried a new computer & fixed the problem.
So much for Diagnostics.
A mont after that it developed a oil leak, again they laughed at him, told him "Landrovers do not leak", they quickly apologised when they found a loose hose conection.
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