Who is the biggest

[bry]

So Who is the biggest idiot 4x4 driver that you have come across?
Mine was a couple of years ago when i was at Whitby off road centre.
And this Suit rolled up with a brand new Pearl White Fifty Grand Discovery.
And he had all of his family on board.

I was parked up having a short break,when the Muppet pulled along side and asked how to deal with a very very steep descent.
I explained that my Terry was All mechanical/manual 4x4 drive.And i was not too clued up on the Electronics of his vehicle.

So I advised him to select hill descent and see if he had any option for low range.I also told him to keep his foot off of the brakes.But to cover the brakes.

Well he decided to go down the hill(Wife and kids on board)
And guess what most of the way down his wheels were locked(Braking)And skidding/slewing.
He was totally out of control.It was only good fortune that he did not kill him self and his wife and kids.
Myself and some other 4x4 drivers and Moto crossers were in total disbelief.
It just proves Money can buy happiness,but it could come at cost money cannot buy.

[96terrano]

Mechanics are way better that stupid electronic Crap, seriously, terrano is the best.. period:)

[firebobby]

Many years ago, I went to a local 4x4 event in my old series 2 Landy, there was a bomb hole with plenty of mud and dirty water in the bottom and a very steep exit, I stopped and watched a few go through and then struggle out of the exit.
Then this dirty great Toyota land cruiser LWB turns up and goes straight in, well the towbar dug in and the more he span the wheels, the deeper he went.
The doors sudemly opened and there must have been 7 people get out, straight into the mud and shite :lol
They winched him out in the end

[clivvy]

^^:lol

not seen any bad things with 4x4 drivers so far, apart from silly range rovers driving too fast that sort of thing.

I cant imagine WHY someone would spend over 50k on a car, especially a Discovery and take it off roading? Makes no sense. See, the Discovery is all about looks, sure its got some electronic capabilities built in, and it IS capable, but not like that! If I had 50k for a Discovery, id have 2k for an off road toy. Basically, what that was about in Whitby was showing off.

[rustic]

Long before we had the Mav, and we've had that over 18 years, we were caravanning at Brean Sands near Weston Super MUD.
Here you can drive on the so called beach, well 100 yards of sand then a half a mile of MUD to the sea. There were past remnants of rusty submerged cars as all you could see was the roof.

One afternoon this idiot guy, was trying to impress his mates in his Dad's fairly new Discovery. ( less than a year old) He had borrowed it from his dad. ( we spoke to him later after THIS event).

He drove at an angle of 45 degrees to the beach at about 30 mph, going clearly into the salty MUD. Eventually the discovery slowed and stopped in a fury of flying mud from all his wheels. He tried to reverse but the discovery just dug in deeper.
You could clearly see that the thick gooey mud was up past his doors as when they opened the doors and swept some mud away, they all got out to push, gave up, got back in and tried again

He and his passengers waded through the sticky stuff and after 20 minutes made it to the shore.

I said to him, I was impressed only a Discovery would get that far out...:lol:lol
That comment didn't go down that well... he didn't see the funny side..:augie

At this point the Terrano wasn't even a twinkle in any engineers eye, well before it's time.

Two land rovers with long ropes went to the rescue, they both got stuck...
Then a breaker truck arrived with a winch, it got the two land rovers out, but when he tried to get the discovery out, he had extra long chains and wire cables, but they broke and the discovery didn't even move.
They attempted to recover the discovery for another hour or so, then the tide turned.
Then a JCB digger arrived, the driver was on a near by hill watching the event unfold, then thought he would come to the rescue.
He went out as far as he could, tried a chain direct and reversed back...
The JCB dug in and started to sink too.

So he tried a new approach, tied the chain to the forward digger arm, and with the JCB stationary, used the digger arm which was also quite high up to suck the discovery out of the mud hole.

This was quite successful and saved a discovery from a watery grave.

The incident took about 2 hours, now, as this is off road would the driver of the JCB claim some sort of salvage, ie 10% or more of the vehicles value?

Salvage was mentioned when we talked to a few people, but I guess the insurance wouldn't pay out for this stupid idiot.

Imagine the conversation when the lad got home, mud all in the car on the inside door panel, steering wheel, all seats, salty mud under neath, in the chassis :doh

" you know you said to take care if I took it off road.. well...."


Rustic

[puddle hoppers inc.]

he he! we were at brean a good 20 years ago and saw a defender lost to the mud then sea, until it reappeared the next day(well partly appeared). it wasnt very old either. another defender tried to pull it out but no good :nenau

[bry]

He was'nt do a good job of showing off tho.