Hello Everybody,

I am new to the forum and would like to introduce myself. I'm Chris, an Austrian living in Moscow. Before the crisis there were strangely enough good reasons to come here. But the main reason for me always was my beautiful Russian wife. The once who have been to Moscow before will certainly know what I mean by beautiful


I have been driving my RRSport TDV8 HSE for almost a year now. It certainly comes very close to the perfect car for the environment in Russia. I am very happy with it and it is a pleasure to drive it - or should I better say park it in a multi-hour traffic jam No, seriously it fits all conditions perfectly and even the opporuntiy to go offraod in Russia is unlimited.

For the hot summer days on Moscow beach I brought my SLK 55 AMG from Europe Certainly the most useful car in this place - 400hp and convertable in a completely poluted environment with bad raod and no more than 4 hours sun shine in a row but I love this car. It is the perfect fun and driving machine and selling it would have had broken my heard. And I have to say that I am an explicit sports car fan.

Even though I started to like my Range and we became very good friend in the meantime struggeling together through lovely Moscow.

I have a questions now where I would appreciate your opinion and experience:

Over XMas we drove in the Range to the Ukraine - about a thousand km on bad roads. The quality of the roads in Russia is completely inconceivable for Europeans or at least Central Europeans. When I see this I always wonder what Putin did with all the money we paid him for oil and gas ... certainly not building the country's infrastructure. Anyways I drove slowly (60-80 kmh) and tried to avoid the biggest holes. Nevertheless when coming back to Moscow I felt strong vibrations in the steering and went to the dealer to check. They told me that both back wheels/alloys we damaged and had to be replaced. They just could not balance them anymore - this on a proofen offroad car I was disappointed and now fear that this will happen more often. Apart from the quite expensive spare alloys I am also worried that the suspension system could suffer...

Any experience with this? any recommendations apart from dont drive or only drive 20 kmh. Has someone made similar experience even with the suspension?

Appreciate your feedback

Chris

Hi and welcome!

Well, I'm in a similar situation but it was my fault, not the road's... Basically, I was driving donwhill on snow with worn summer tyres, and bang, during a turn the car went straight in a curb at 30 km/h with my front left wheel. The wheel obviously has taken damage so did the suspension. Result: I have to change a couple of suspension parts (around 700 CHF for both) and repair my rim, around 100 € to have it balanced and painted. It seems strange that your rims couldn't be repaired, after all you haven't hit anything... As for the suspension, take it to the dealer, explain the situation and maybe try to have the geometry checked, anything unusual will be spotted!

Welcome Chris!
What size are your rims? I suspect they are 20"? If so, go down to 19" and buy tires with a bigger sidewall than standard or keep the rims and buy some of these: Cooper Zeon LTZ in 285/50/20 - you will need 5mm spacers in the front.

I'm living also in eastern europe, though not so far east as you. Balkan infrastructure east of Slovenia and Croatia is pretty dire. I changed my TDV6 for a TDV8 in the summer - the V6 had only 19" wheels, the V8 has 20". There's a huge difference in terms of ride comfort on bad roads - the 20" wheels seem to find every hole in the road. I'm also about to check it in for the dreaded knocking - I'm fairly sure my front ball joints are gone already. I think Leo is right, change down to 19"wheels and keep the 20" for travelling west. RRS TDV6 (gone)
RRS TDV8 HSE(gone, burned out)
ML 320 CDI Airmatic

Chris - welcome

I would blame the state of the roards rather than the RRS. Yes the car is an offroad machine BUT it is 2.5 ton of car and when you drive offroad you tend to go a lot slower than 60 kmph or at least it is advisable to do so. The 20 inch wheels are delicate and as you have the TDV8 the 19's are basically the smallest wheels you can put on the RRS - I would always use the 19's when you drive out of town and get a set of hard rubber such as Goodyear MTRs. 2005 Zambezi TDV6 - Gone but not forgotten
2009 Alaska TDV8 - Gone and much missed.



WINNER - 2009 �Idler Of The Year� Award
Runner Up - 2009 �Just Doing What It�s Designed To Do� Award


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Thanks a lot for your replies guys,

I think I will certainly go down to 19" and put some all terrain tires on maybe even in the size 255/55/19 rather than 255/50/19. For Europe the 20" should be fine - if I go west I anyhow would go through Helsinki and put the car on a truck between Moscow and St. Petersburg. I made this experience once when I brought my Merc to Russia through Finland. 30 km after St. Peterburg I thought the car would fall into one of the holes in the road and never be seen again - I mean the whole car I had to stop and call for a truck to bring me and my car the whole way down to Moscow Region (700km). No way to drive on this road in a sports car specifically not with coilovers. In the Range you can certainly drive but the danger to damage something is very high as I learned from my trip to Ukraine.

When I bought the Range the dealer in Moscow wanted me to sign a contract in which he disclaimed all warranty in case I drive the car on Russian roads or use Russia fuel No joke and there is lots of people who actually sign these contracts. I requested the dealer to remove these terms from my contract which he did. I think this was the right decision  Chris

RRSport TDV8 HSE
Mercedes SLK 55 AMG for warm days in sunny Moscow

Apparently until about 5 years ago Range Rover didn't even want to sell diesels into eastern europe because of the crappy fuel quality and the risk of damage to the high pressure fuel pump. Even now I take a deep breath when filling the tank - they claim that "eurodiesel" is european standard but the sulpher content is still around 300ppm whereas in western europe its only around 50ppm. Fuel imports are prohibited and all fuel products are "refined" here so it doesn't matter who you buy it from - it's all from the same tap. RRS TDV6 (gone)
RRS TDV8 HSE(gone, burned out)
ML 320 CDI Airmatic