http://www.hillnditch4x4.com/ have a pay n play this sunday 18th and I was thinking i would like to give it a go

has anyone ever used there site and is it or can it be damage free? also any reviews.

Thanks

Pay and Play places can be well muddy and have some very deep water due to over use because so many folks take cars shod with very aggressive jungle mud tyres that really chew up the surface. If you have good tread on your tyres and they are AT’s or MT’s then your car should handle 90% of what these sites can throw at you. However with any sort of off-roading be it plugging mud at a pay and play or on a gentle green lane you have to accept that you will get some sort of damage. So if you are prepared to get a few scratches from low hanging branches or brambles sticking out into the tracks and scuffed alloys in thick mud by all means have a go. One suggestion though is if you haven’t offroaded before and are keen to try then contact your local Land Rover Experince Centre and book a full day course IN THEIR CAR! LRE’s are a great way to find out how the car’s systems operate if you are not familiar with them and quite a few of the centres also run Green Laning days now where you take your own car but have the benefit of travelling in a smallish group of other Land Rover products and gave a guide too!
One word of warning........... taking a nice shiny RRS on road tyres to a pay and play centre can be a humiliating experience when you see all the ancient Defenders, Duscoveries and Series as well as the more capable Japanese off-roaders all tricked up with winches, sand ladders and all the other offroad toys. All 3 of my RRS’s and my 2 FFRR’s were offroaded BUT I never took them somwhere where I had not previously recce’d the trails in my Defender first...... i don’t mind damaging my 23 year old Defender 90 as it is a lot cheaper to repair than the modern cars. Generally I restricted my off-roading in the RRS’s, FFRR’s and Evoques to Greenlaning Type tracks and Forest Fire Roads. RRS is hugely capable offroad with the right tyres although I never needed any recoveries when on the 22” wheels and road tyres fitted my last HSE Dynamic.
One suggestion - contact the site and see if it is possible to ride in with somebody who knows the place before risking your pride and joy, and remember AA/RAC and the other recovery organisations generally will not come to recover you from anywhere that doesn’t have firm tarmac under the wheels! 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

Hi Tim,

I have GT AT3's on mine and already scuffed alloy's

i totally understand what you are saying re being embarrassed and this is one of the reasons why i was asking for reviews / experiences from other people who may have tried this location before.

As for acceptable damage... well bramble rash is ok, I can soon polish them out but anything requiring new panels and / or spray painting then I will certainly lol

but i didnt buy yhe car to sit in and look pretty

At least you have the right attitude that the car should be used for what it was designed to do! That was my attitude to all the Land Rovers I have owned but the one that really got me into severe off-roading was .......................... a Freelander1 TD4 Auto. That little car just went everywhere I pointed it at and astounded nearly all the naysayers who claimed the Freelander was a toy Land Rover. It’s lack of ground clearance was its biggest shortcoming though as suspension lifts and MTR’s were not available for them then like they are now. Last month I went on a fairly serious off-road day in a forest and the two lifted and MTR shod Freelander1s there joined in on all the special stages - even the unmodified ones coped very well but neither is a good off road as a Jimny or an SJ410. We also had a 9 month old L405 Vogue on road tyres come along that did all the special stages except one on flinty rocks, on its OEM road tyres........ 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

Tim in Scotland wrote:

AA/RAC and the other recovery organisations generally will not come to recover you from anywhere that doesn’t have firm tarmac under the wheels!

Go and enjoy it, you will be suprised just how good they are! Make sure you expose the recovery points just incase you get stuck and need a helping hand.  2003 BMW M5 - 5 Litres of V8 Optimax Slurping Goodness in Carbon Black

2013 SDV6 HSE Black Edition- Orkney Grey with Ebony & Ivory. LR Facelift RAI, Genuine G4 Expedition Rack, 4x Warn SBD-160 Spotlights, Warn 9.5XPS Winch, Mantec Underbody Protection and Sump Guard, Full Easy Lift Suspension Module, LR Light Guards, Light Force HTX230 Hybrid spotlights, 18” Compomotive PD1881 on 265/65/18 BF Goodrich KO2, ARB fridge, TuffTrek awning 😎

ok, for those of you that have taken your "highly capable" sport off road, what are your helpful tips?

1) expose recovery points (perhaps not so capable )

Do what I did when I first ventured "off road" at a Pay N Play last year:
Explain you're a n00b
Ask for advice on where you think you can safely go on the site
Follow a Marshall around for a while on routes that he would consider OK for you to go.
Watch others
Gently press the boundaries to see where you might be able to go. Believe me, if you're just starting you'll be bricking it following the Marshall!
My personal one is not to put yourself in a position where you might roll due to inexperience.
Prepare to get muddy and prepare to get stuck in to help other people. Gumboots & thick gloves are a good idea.
Your pristine virgin RRS will get marked in some places, so don't do it unless you're prepared for that.
Enjoy!

Otherwise, I just turned up and had a good time, no particular preparation.

I was on GT AT3s too, really didn't have a problem except in the entrance field where it was just pure wet slippery mud!

Thanks for that.

I will defiantly telling them I'm a noob....

The point about rolling is a good one - you'll generally wimp out before you deliberately get too high an angle, but the risk is sliding in to a roll. Take slopes along the "natural fall line" which is how water would run down the slope. If you do need to cross a slope, stay away from anything steeper than 30 degrees. You can go steeper than that but the risk is that a lump/hole can suddenly put you in to a roll. You can also lower the vehicle to access height if the slope isn't too lumpy - this helps lower your centre of gravity, not by much but it can be enough to keep you shiny side up.

Generally, you'll wimp out before the vehicle does but even the vehicle struggles once the tyres give up.

If you find yourself stuck then initially try a light throttle and hold it there. A bit of wheelspin is needed for the traction control to work out what's going on and start applying the brakes. This assumes you've remembered to select the correct setting on Terrain Response before you venture into uncharted ground!

Set HDC speed before you take on a steep descent - easy to forget and then go too quickly down the slope. Bear in mind that low range, first gear (use Command Shift / paddles to select first) will take you down a steepish slope quite happily.

What really causes problems is deep mud or a thin layer of mud on a hard subbase. The first can get you beached, the second can have all four wheels spinning helplessly. The latter is particularly interesting on steep descents - HDC is a real life saver here.

Above all, have fun and don't get sucked in to doing silly things. "Live to fight another day".  2012 SDV6 - it's missing a couple of cylinders
2008 TDV8 - it was a labour of love and is much missed