....
luckily we have a friend who has a "spare" LR discovery that he will lend us for 2 weeks.... so we WILL go on holiday ... just a tad late by the time we sort our act out.
how did you get on towing with the 4x4? I always though my Omega towed well, but my R Class tows even better 
Well it got me there and back, and we have the use of it for another 2 weeks until Daz can come and work his magic !!
As for towing with the Disco, it is without doubt a very capable machine, although it nearly wrote us and the van off very early on in our relationship !!
Towed fine along the A417/419 in fairly heavy traffic at around 45-50 mph. Got onto the M5 and was aiming for a steady 60 mph, at 55 mph it suddenly developed the mother of all tank slappers, for no reason whatsoever, no gusty wind, no lane changes, no trucks going past .... it just went ..
luckily all the traffic behind backed right off and left me alone .. all three lanes + the hard shoulder for about 30 seconds .. I REALLY thought I was going to lose it and roll .. but as the speed dropped back to 50mph it came back under control .... certainly a "brown trouser" moment ... we continued on at 45-50mph solid as a rock to the next services to ponder and breath properly....
Walking back from the coffee house I noticed that the van was sitting quite nose high on the towball, it should sit slightly nose down. Nowt I could do about it so we continued at 50mph for the rest of the journey there and back whilst towing, car was fine up to 70mph solo.
On return I mentioned this to the owner who's enlightening response was "Oh sh*t .. drop plate" ... seems that when he sold his Range Rover the purchaser needed a drop plate, which he took off the Disco and never replaced, and had forgotten about ...plus he has recently replaced the suspension airbags ..... so the towball is actually some 4 inches higher than the max height !! hence the nose high attitude !!
For those who have never towed .... if the nose is up rather than down, then at speed the wind gets under the nose and lifts it, making the front end light and the back end heavy, in relative terms, which leads to the "pendulum effect", which is a major cause of instability and is the reason for many of the caravan wrecks you see on motorways, and yes .. we were nearly one of them....
Should I have noticed it beforehand ?? perhaps .. but I assumed the towball was the right height, and because the road slopes outside our house the van didn't look nose high when hitched up.
As they say ... lesson learned ... we were lucky.
Would I buy a Disco ?? Nope, and not because of this, but I still don't like the driving position, the seats, the noise, the (lack of) turning circle, and a few other points.... I want my Miggy back !!
As an aside, in just under 1000 miles over the 2 weeks we saw 1, yup, just 1, omega ...
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Topic: P*****d off of Wootty Bassett (Read 13818 times)