4X4

What my readers would do: As Land Rover Managing Director

28 October 2020 Robert Pepper

Jaguar Land Rover just changed its boss to Thierry Bollore, which prompted me to wonder what my readers would do if they were slotted into the top job. Now bear in mind my readers are all car and 4X4 enthusiasts, so they tend to approach the job from that perspective. It’s very clear that Land […]

4X4

Why modern 4x4s break the laws of robotics

21 October 2020 Robert Pepper

The modern vehicle is an amazing feat of engineering, and an even more amazing feat of electronic and computing design. There are sensors everywhere, for everything – wheel speeds, steering wheel angles, all over the engine, even monitors to detect how dark or wet it is. And soon there’ll be more, fed by data over […]

4X4

That’s NOT triple locked!

27 September 2020 Robert Pepper

Don’t confuse centre and cross-axle lockers! There has been a recent trend to refer to vehicles such as the Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen as triple locked, and it’s wrong to do so, even though it’s right. In 4X4 terms, a locker always refers to a cross-axle differential locker. So when we say a vehicle has a rear […]

4X4

European Snow and Australian Sand

22 September 2020 Robert Pepper

Experience in one of type driving is a mixed blessing when you come to try something else. Sometimes the skills carry over, sometimes they need to be unlearned. And other times two terrains which appear to have lots in common do not. I’m talking here about European snow, and Aussie sand which are very different, […]

4X4

Dirty on dirty

20 September 2020 Robert Pepper

So you own a 4WD and you use it offroad. Often it’ll get dirty in the course of those trips, but when it does, take a few moments clean it. There is no point driving around for days or even weeks with a dirty 4WD as some misguided badge of honour – you won’t do […]

4X4

Pride and Prejudice – Hummer H3 Review

15 September 2020 Robert Pepper

Hummer says it’s like nothing else. They mean the vehicle, but that also goes for the emotions. Reprint of a roadtest from 2009! The pictures show a car, but it’s not a car, it’s an emotion grenade. Mentioning you’re driving this car is the roughly equivalent to saying you’ve dumped your partner; people instantly split […]

4X4

Should I buy a Range Rover Sport or a Defender 90?

8 September 2020 Robert Pepper

A reader contacted me to ask for help with a vehicle buying decision. I will assist with these queries where I can, provided I can use the information in publications. Happy to change names and details if preferred as long as the gist of the vehicle decision is clear to the readers. I also edit […]

4X4

More on the 4×4 fiddle blocks – forces and minimum rope lengths

3 September 2020 Robert Pepper

The fiddle block I published a video about, and wrote about on Motofomo has generated a fair bit of interest. Here’s a couple of extra answers to questions: What’s the minimum rope for a given distance? Multiply the distance you intend to pull by 6, so for a 10m pull, allow 60m of rope. Now […]

4X4

How modern 4X4s should be designed

24 August 2020 Robert Pepper

I’d like to introduce a new concept to the designers of offroad vehicles. It’s the same one used to design complex IT systems when the consequences of failure cost a lot of money, loss of reputation or even lives. It’s called graceful degradation, and it’s not that hard. Let’s say you’re designing a high-volume retail […]

4X4

So what is track damage, and how do we prevent it?

23 August 2020 Robert Pepper

Nobody wants to see more track closures. We all want tracks that offer us a choice of anything from a scenic drive to a winch challenge, and we want emergency vehicles to be able to use the access tracks they need. Yet tracks aren’t static paths, but are in a state of perpetual change. As […]

4X4

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