This simple piece of advice has saved my arse more than once. But it’s gonna require ALL your will power to nail.
Bit like taking your foot off the brakes when your front wheels lock up. (doesn’t count with ABS)
Say you’re driving down a snowy road, you hit the brakes, lock up and you lose steering – because the front wheels aren’t turning. Your natural reaction is to stomp the brake pedal even harder. Burying it like a dog turd in the back garden.
Thing is… what you SHOULD do is jump OFF the brakes. Then the wheels turn and your steering comes back, you laugh – nervously, and carry on your way with everything intact – including your ego.
But it’s haaaard. Every fibre of your being wants you to bury that brake pedal even deeper. You’ve really gotta push yourself beyond your instincts.
And it’s the same for this bit of advice – albeit in a much calmer context…
Watching (yet another) YouTube vid the other day, of a Series 3 Landy hacking around in France somewhere. And the driver appeared to be a seasoned pro at first glance – you can always tell the newbies from the grizzled old timers (something about a ‘loud right foot’).
So I put his faux pas down to a hiccup. But a few minutes later he goes and does the same again.
Here’s the vid at a that point. See if you can spot what I’m on about: https://youtu.be/W9pkQks8SEE?t=116
Spot it?
OK, try this one (same vid, bit further on): https://youtu.be/W9pkQks8SEE?t=263
No?
OK…
So, you think your Landy sits nice and high off the ground. And the body does. But peer underneath and you’ll see two axles – 1 front, 1 rear – that sit below the body, mere inches off the ground. You’ll also spot the bulge of the differentials in the axles – offset slightly to one side.
These are your low points.
And these bad boys are also relatively fragile. And by fragile, I mean if you bang ’em hard on a rock, you run a high risk of splitting open the axle casing and royally fucking up your day.
That’s why diff-guards exist. (if you haven’t already, grab yourself a set)
Last thing you want is to bust open your diff, in the arse-end of nowhere, and wind up stranded.
Can’t drive. Can’t get a tow truck in. Maybe not even get mobile reception. Worse: your Thermos of Tea’s gone cold.
But do the opposite of this guy and your Landy should live to drive another day, giving you mucho laning pleasure…
On the video – at both points, as the guy approaches rocks in the road he centres the Landy over them. It’s natural. You do it in your car if there’s something in the road.
Your instinct’s to avoid hitting whatever it is with your wheels.
At 60 mph it make sense.
At 6 mph in your Landy, it make no sense.
What you want to do is drive one of your wheels directly over that diff-duffing rock. But you’re gonna battle with your instincts more ferociously than a Tasmanian Devil playing tag with a Honey Badger.
Why?
Because if the rock’s going under your WHEELS, it’s not going under the middle of your CAR. And if that diff-busting super-rock isn’t going under the middle of your car, you stand little chance of it bashing up your axles, diffs or anything else that happens to get in the way.
(Rocks have a nasty habit of sniffing out your diffs and then chowing down on them, spitting them out once destroyed)
It’s a simple bit of advice. But one of those that makes you go “oh yeaaah. Bit obvious really”.
Just like ‘thumbs in the steering wheel’… but that’s another conversation.
Old Landys Rule!
Cheers, Phil.