I have had my RRS S/C for nearly 3 weeks now and haven't had the chance to see what it was like off-road, well Sunday night I had a spare couple of hours so I went to a popular green lane near to me, I was pleasantly surprised on how the sport handled itself my only issue was it was way too low with the side steps on and managed to beach it and bend the drivers side step up so I couldn't get out the door anyway I climbed over and went and jumped up and down on it for a few mins ha all seems ok just bent the brackets up a bit, if it went a bit higher and had some decent tyres I would put it up against some of the Offroad toys I have had in the past. Didn't get chance to get any good pics as could t get out, these pics don't do it justice, can I ask what are the S/C like with water as I was going through some pretty deep water and all was ok. Anyway here are a couple pics of its green lane and then it's wash the day after. The pic of the wheels in case anyone is interested was a little experiment I was doing with some new spray on wheel sealer/repellant on one wheel and as you can see it has worked a bit but the best part is the pressure washer took all the muck straight off barely needed to clean by hand so good result and will be doing the other wheels.

RRS 1 offroad is exactly the same as the highly rated Disco3 and 4 (it is one under the clothes anyway!) just fewer people take their RRS offroad which is a pity as they are very very good at it even on road biased tyres. More people should try a session of green laning or drivning forest fire roads.
S/C and water should be no different to any other RRS so long as you don't get too enthusiastic and try to drown the intake. The wading depth is the same regardless of the engine type.

One thing you need to do is to put your front wheels on full lock (or jack the car up and remove the wheels) and clean inside the back of the alloys as any mud stuck on the inside of the rims will act like small balance weights in the wrong place and cause wheel wobble / vibrations at speed and accelerated tyre wear. 2020 Pangea Green 1st Edition D240 New Defender 110 is here and loving it
2018 Melting Silver Mini Countryman PHEV - soon to be replaced
2015MY Corris Grey SDv6 HSE Dynamic, the best car I have ever owned, totally reliable only a cou0le of rattles in 3 years, now no longer in my care
Also in my garage is a 1996 TDi300 Defender 90 County HT made into a fake CSW

Oh that's good to know as I have always been a bit worried about running patrols through water, I had a modified Offroad Jimmy which died just looking at water lol also a TD5 defender even though been a diesel knackered the alternator everytime I went in any water, the disco 200tdi was my favourite I had that in some real deep water where the back end started to float but it just kept going, granted it had a snorkel but still water was coming over the doors I was really worried when going through the deep water yesterday what with my previous experience of breaking 4x4s in water and the Range Rover having how many on board computers lol so I drove to one side which cost me a dint in the passenger side step and 2 scraped wheels as I was driving though it at a steep angle to try get far over to one side
here's the old TD5 which you can see didn't go too deep but still broke down



Here's the disco at Tong


My favourite alround off-roader was the Jimmy apart from not liking water was brilliant off-road and put nearly all the defenders to shame


This is the aftermath of the deep water in the disco as you can see it filled the cab up nicely

Ps now I know the S/C is ok with water I have a lovely clean running ford crossing near me which I always used to use to clean off under my off-roaders so I will go for a drive through that and it will clean the under side for me and get rid of any grit and mud from hard to reach places

You can get a Safari Snorkel for your RRS............... the LR Raised intake isn't waterproof so not recommended for deep water stuff. A good spray round under the bonnet with WD40 before a wade in the S/C will reduce the risk of drowing anything vital and the intakes on the wing of RRS really are intakes so you should have 50cm wading depth with the offroad height activated.
I haver a TDi300 Defender90 as well as the RRS - all my previous Land Rovers (except my last Evoque which never went offroad once in the year I owned it) since 1996 have all gone offroading on green lane type stuff even though I have the 90 - I took a 3 week old FFRR on a severe Forest Drive Weekend when it was 3 weeks old and confounded the sceptics by not getting stuck despite being on M&S tyres and my first Evoque was delivered on launch day, drove 450 miles from London to Scotland and then went off on a green laning day the next day - I can claim it was the first Evoque in private hands ever to hit the muddy stuff and it was shod with Continents Cross Contact road biased tyres on 20" wheels. It is because of my need for the odd green laning session that I went for an HSE Dynamic rather than the HSE, but it is proving very difficult to part with the 90!
BTW it might be a good idea to take off the side steps and use the access height setting instead before you go offroad next time! My nextdoor neighbour ripped the bottom out of an Isuzu Trooper when a side step got caught when driving across a field............. car had to be written off the damage was so bad. 2020 Pangea Green 1st Edition D240 New Defender 110 is here and loving it
2018 Melting Silver Mini Countryman PHEV - soon to be replaced
2015MY Corris Grey SDv6 HSE Dynamic, the best car I have ever owned, totally reliable only a cou0le of rattles in 3 years, now no longer in my care
Also in my garage is a 1996 TDi300 Defender 90 County HT made into a fake CSW

Sounds like you use them properly Tim that's good to hear, I'm pretty much the same, I have always owned a 4x4 except for my last car which I bought as I have never had a an actual car but soon found it to be not up to my needs so had to go, nearly always had Land Rovers as I have been brought up with them and my old man is a big landy fanatic, my mum has a new Disco 4 HSE and my dad just bought this 90 overland edition which he had specced up with the winch and led lights, heated leather bucket seats etc etc


The TD05 MUD registration I have kept on retention for 5 years now with hope I would get another but it's looking less likely now so I have put it on eBay but to my surprise not a lot of interest, I would have thought somebody would have bitten my hand off for that plate, I mean TD5 MUD what better plate for a Landy TD5 is there :/
Anyway thanks for the comments it's great when a forum works and people speak to each other and advises each other instead of just looking and not replying I will look in to the snorkel for my S/C for sure 👍🏼

I have P12 MUD on my 90 (it is a P plate car anyway) and I have P13 MUD on retention. I too had no takers for FA57 RRS when I tried to sell it and ended up lending P13 MUD and FA57 RRS to Hadley Green Garage now Grange Garage until they got traken over and then James Taylor returned them with a couple of years retention fee paid as a thankyou. My last Evoque was on my 4th private plate - FA57 RRE.............. when I collected the RRS it got registered on FA57 RRS even though it is an SDv6, FA57 RRE was left on the car and the dealership is advertising it with that plate on it. I was offered £10000 for the RRS plate about 6 months after I put it on my TDv8 - the person making the offer wanted it for his Focus RS. It would look good on an SVR and FA57 SVR is not available on the DVLA website.
As I type this my 90 is in the fettling bay having a new tailgate with all new fittings (they are 19 years old and I didn't see the point in fitting already used bits that might fail fairly soon) LED headlights and it's annual service and MOT. Hopefully I will get it back before 26th April otherwise the RRS will get it's offroad christening and it will be on 22" wheels for it! 2020 Pangea Green 1st Edition D240 New Defender 110 is here and loving it
2018 Melting Silver Mini Countryman PHEV - soon to be replaced
2015MY Corris Grey SDv6 HSE Dynamic, the best car I have ever owned, totally reliable only a cou0le of rattles in 3 years, now no longer in my care
Also in my garage is a 1996 TDi300 Defender 90 County HT made into a fake CSW

Last edited by Tim in Scotland on Wed Apr 15 2015 1:46pm. Edited 1 time in total

Si-W85 wrote:

My favourite alround off-roader was the Jimmy apart from not liking water was brilliant off-road and put nearly all the defenders to shame

 2016 RRS 4.4 TDV8 Autobiography Dynamic in Montalcino Red and Stealth Kit

I thoroughly recommend visiting the LandRover Experience centers. We were invited to one when they launched the update on RRS and wow. It is truly amazing what the Disco and even the RRS can do will try and upload some pics but i am new so please bare with me!

EvoMad, LRE's are a bit tame for some of us, we like to do wilder things with our cars offroad! They are excellent for introducing people to the marque and the capabilities of the cars. I've enjoyed all the LRE's I've been on though and I'm always surprised that so few do take up the half day voucher they get because it is a fun day out. 2020 Pangea Green 1st Edition D240 New Defender 110 is here and loving it
2018 Melting Silver Mini Countryman PHEV - soon to be replaced
2015MY Corris Grey SDv6 HSE Dynamic, the best car I have ever owned, totally reliable only a cou0le of rattles in 3 years, now no longer in my care
Also in my garage is a 1996 TDi300 Defender 90 County HT made into a fake CSW

Haha well for me this was more than enough! Yes totally agree, there were so many no shows and for a, enjoyable freebie i thought it was a no brainer!

Though the hill dissent was squeeky bum time!!

Next offer you get ask for a Defender and try the scary bits without HDC! Engine braking works just as well in low ratio first gear until the surface gets slippery................. also on older Defenders without Traction Control even an Evoque or Freelander 1 will get further in some situations where the Defender will be stopped in it's tracks! The die-hardfolks have difficulty understanding that TR and modern electronics can make offloading even more fun. A lot of Defender owners scoff at Suzuki SJ's and Jimmy's but they are hugely capable offroaders that are so light that they defy belief sometimes - not vehicles to be smeared at and they are so cheap that you can be less concerned at damaging them. 2020 Pangea Green 1st Edition D240 New Defender 110 is here and loving it
2018 Melting Silver Mini Countryman PHEV - soon to be replaced
2015MY Corris Grey SDv6 HSE Dynamic, the best car I have ever owned, totally reliable only a cou0le of rattles in 3 years, now no longer in my care
Also in my garage is a 1996 TDi300 Defender 90 County HT made into a fake CSW

wihtout the HDC and i might just go further than squeeky bum time!!
Yes im sure i saw a programme recently and the Suzuki jeep did so much better than far more expensive machinery.

If im honest im more into speed and handling than offroading but it certainly is fun. Hopefully a new RRS in the future will tick a few more boxes. I hired one for the weekend and took it to london and back, such a big step up from mine. You must be loving yours! Just need me an extra 50k!

The LR Experience centres are great fun but they are designed to show off the vehicle in seemingly quite shocking situations but in safety. The ground usually gives good traction - quite a few obstacles are concrete faced, for example.

Trying the same sort of stuff "in the wild" really makes you appreciate TR, HDC et al. One of the useful things to remember is that HDC works in reverse as well as in forward gears. That can be very useful and removes much of the worry of a failed hill ascent attempt. HDC is excellent in icy conditions - I've used it to descend icy tarmac that was difficult to walk down. I actually tried it again without HDC and it was so slippery that I gave up and switched HDC back on to finish the descent! The RRS was sliding all over the place without it.

As Tim says, the older Defenders can be shown up by the newer vehicles which is annoying to those who believe that things like the RRS are footballers' cars. At a recent trip to Yarwell pay and play site, my friend failed to get up a steep climb with a hole midway up. After a couple of attempts he gave up. He didn't believe I'd have a go at it. The Sport just walked up it. Selected rock crawl on TR and just trickled up to the hole where upon the wheels articulated, grip was maintained all round a touch more throttle and up we went. Very easy. He was amazed. Indeed, he was impressed that I followed him around the site all day - all bar one descent that I declined because the departure angle would have had my rear bumper in severe danger of being ripped off.

Where the Defender etc. are able to leave the newer vehicles behind is when the mud gets very deep. The difficulty to get a mud tyre means the RRS, D3/4 etc. will struggle in those situations.

The best detailing for a RRS is dirt, not polish!  2012 SDV6 - it's missing a couple of cylinders
2008 TDV8 - it was a labour of love and is much missed

Must say it does sound fun and yes it is amazing what the newer models are capable of. One tip the LR instructor gave me was to use the gravel mode for a better launch off the lights