Innehållsförteckning för October 2018 från NZ4WD

Land Rover took its 70th anniversary celebrations to new heights last month by visiting a remote rural community in West Bengal that relies on a fleet of classic models for its very survival. Known as the ‘Land of Land Rovers’, the rural location deep in the Himalayas is reliant on a fleet of meticulously maintained Series Land Rovers dating back as far as 1957. A film (which you can check out yourself on https://youtu.be/YNXU1IR2LR8) highlights the spectacular 31km journey made often by residents of Maneybhanjang in West Bengal, India to Sandakphu for their means of living. Towering gradients, rock-strewn pony tracks and treacherous weather are just some of the hazards faced on a daily basis by the residents and their Land Rovers on the journey to the hilltop village, which…

Kumeu, Auckland-based rooftop tent specialist Feldon Shelter has quickly made a name for itself here in New Zealand with its signature Crow’s Nest product – thanks in no small part to a great product, a well-timed arrival on the market and a savvy social media marketing campaign. From the germ of an idea to a major market presence in just three-and-a-bit years is indeed something to celebrate. Yet far from taking a breather the couple behind the marque Joel Hedges and Beth Eastell, have taken the next step already, across the ditch to Australia so that our trans-Tasman cousins can see for themselves what all the fuss is about. Feldon Shelter rooftop tents and accessories will be sold in Australia by Sydney-based Adventure Merchants, experts in everything adventure, either from…

I have to admit that the idea for this hack came from a guy called Aaron who I met on a recent trip up at the Macaulay Hut. Aaron was with his wife and three young kids in their Mitsubishi Pajero. They had travelled extensively through Europe and Australia and were on a South Island trip. We got talking and swapping notes and he showed me his set-up, which was very impressive! They had all the equipment you would expect for extended over-landing; twin battery system, on-board water tanks, heat exchanger, fridge/freezer, under-chassis armour and a fantastic drone. One of the things that he had done was really simple but effective and I’m going to explain it here. If you’re reading this, Aaron, thanks for the idea and could you…

What’s in a name? Plenty when you are long-time V8 Touring Car and now V8 Ute racer Paul Manuell and your business is the Eastern Automotive Performance Centre (EAPC for short). EAPC has been in the high performance service and tuning game for 32 years and the very same people who fit the performance packages or service and repair customer’s vehicles also work alongside Paul Manuell and his race team. Another of the EAPC’s strengths is the brands it works with, like Walkinshaw’s (EAPC is the only approved tuning shop in NZ), PWR Performance Products, Hotchkis Sport Suspension and DiFillippo Exhausts (NZ’s sole distributor). EAPC’s ECU reprogramming (or remapping) process is suited to late model diesel-powered vehicles, like the double cab, turbo-diesel Utes, European and alike that more and more…

Continuing on from last month’s topic about the sand dunes in Northland, where there’s been a bit of a fuss over the fencing of dunes to restrict public access; it has taken a while, but as our population and mobility has grown, those places that often seemed uninhabited and without obvious ownership which could be driven on without a care, are now being reclaimed by owners in many parts of the country. Inevitably it is just sheer numbers that create issues for land managers and in our increasingly risk adverse climate, those managers want to minimise their exposure to risks. Of course, there are people who will point out that a land manager has no responsibility towards trespassers, but if anyone is injured or killed on their land, then you…

A slow but steady off-roader has been at work. As Slim Slee and the Otago club get ready for their round of the championship, a D8 dozer has been terraforming a great track down there at Kurow. A Caterpillar D8? Yeah. Not much of a top speed, but if he gets in front he’s going to win, you just know it. There have been some club days to work on the track, some club days to try it out and some who shall remain nameless have carried out some destruction testing down there. Racing, after all, improves the breed! This month, having not been able to get up to much on-track, I’m tipping my hat to our newly crowned class 8 endurance champion, Justin Leonard of Wellington. He took that…

Mercedes-Benz’s new and much-vaunted flagship X-Class ute, the V6 turbo-diesel X 350d 4Matic will arrive in New Zealand during the month of December 2018. Key to the new model is the M-B V6 engine, seven-speed automatic transmission, and 4Matic permanent four-wheel-drive.   The 3.0-litre 190kW (258 hp)/550Nm V6 diesel engine gives the X-Class a major mumbo boost, allowing it to go from 0 to 100 km/h in 7.5 seconds. Permanent four-wheel drive is also a feature (currently) only offered in utes here by VW with it Amarok and Mitsubishi with the top-of-the-line Triton. The new Merc will also offer a choice of engine and transmission response levels, from comfortable to sporty courtesy the standard Dynamic Select system. The 4Matic permanent all-wheel drive system is fitted with a central differential, which…

Anticipation is the word of the moment, the eighth season of the Central Zone Club Truck Challenge (CTC) is due to start imminently. We finished last season with really close results and battle is due to recommence with many of the same combatants returning for another year. Mark Smith has pulled out all the stops to modify his Jeep Wrangler for better suspension performance but will that be enough? Marty Green has been the king of the modified class for the last three years in the Stone Age Land Cruiser but Hintzy has a very tidy Nissan Patrol with LS1 power that storms hills and bogs with the guidance of his co-driver Grace. Judith Hintz was awarded the McMinn trophy by the NZFWDA at this year’s conference to celebrate her…

Simply placing an NZ4WD mag sticker on the right rear panel of their Open class winch truck has earned Superwinch Mainland Challenge series entrants Adam Wardle (driver) and co-driver Josh Hancock electronic e-subs to NZ4WD magazine. Series correspondent Vicky Newport tells us that Josh worked that hard in a stage at the third round of this year’s series at Staveley in Mid-Canterbury he couldn’t even sign the marshal sheet at the end! The pair then had some bad luck on stage 10 which ended in a DNF. They didn’t give up though, fixing the problem and getting back into it.  If you would like a shot at a free digital sub, take a pic of an NZ4WD mag sticker (available from Vicky if you don’t already have one) on your (or any) truck…

Kiwis love Subarus. We always have. However the rise and rise of the Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) has left importer Subaru New Zealand with something of a quandary. For years the most popular models have been its robust all-wheel-drive station wagons. Never mind that models like the top-selling Outback have been just as capable as most ‘Johnny-come-lately’ ‘SUVs’, the market – and to be fair most of the country’s motor-noters – have considered them more as ‘crossovers.’ In theory they’ve been right, too, because strictly defined an ‘SUV’ has a separate body and chassis (think Toyota Prado) while a ‘crossover’ has a unibody (car) base. What has happened, of course, is that every man and has dog has been building and marketing ‘AWD SUVs’ which the buying public has been…

A late relative of mine, Owen Nichol, would have loved Mercedes-Benz’s new X-Class ute. He was lucky, I guess, to farm through the golden years of the 1960s and 1970s and whenever we visited his first (family) property high in the Waikana hills due east of Tuturau (Eastern Southland), he’d quiz me about ‘my favourite car.’ His was ever changing, my memory list starting with a four-door Chev Impala (its boot big enough to fit two full-size sheep) beofre proceeding through a Rambler Rebel before at least two GM Statesmans then a long line of smaller, sportier French cars (I seem to remember a Renault 21). So, a typical Southland farmer he was not. What he most loved about farming, in fact, was the freedom it gave him to indulge…

For many years, the ute and 4x4 market in New Zealand was concentrated in a small percentage of customers; agricultural and industry workers, tradies, hunters, or those towing a boat or caravan. Recent years have seen the ute and 4x4 market dominate sales becoming a daily driver for a large number of people. These vehicles have gone from being the trusty agricultural work horse, to a hugely popular lifestyle and family vehicle. And why not, after all, the modern ute has come a long way from its early ancestors. The rivalry between 4x4 brands is fierce, and more like the Holden vs Ford V8 contest that we are all familiar with. However, there is now much more in the way of competition with most of the top manufacturers vying to…

Getting out and getting your 4x4 dirty is one of the reasons – the main one arguably – you bought a 4x4 in the first place. There is nothing like the challenge, not to mention the exhilaration, of going somewhere few others have been, or indeed, could realistically get to by vehicle. You are only going to get so far, however, if your truck is not up to scratch. The more you keep a close eye on its condition and keep on top of its service record the better time you will have in it. To help focus your thoughts we asked 4x4 service specialist Andrew Francis (of Francis Mechanical Services in Palmerston North) and Warren Adams (of specialist 4x4 parts website www.4wdbits.co.nz) to come up with some simple, practical…

If like me you reckon there are more and more scams doing the rounds, you are right. I sat down to make a list and came up with the following, prompting to issue an official Geoffzone warning, be careful out there! Current scams • Landlines – free, everyone had one. Now usurped by fibre or cellphones on contracts. • Cellphones – versatile and mobile but have ongoing costs, upgrades and replacements. Scammers and cold calls are driving us away from landlines. • Emails – need devices and software, ongoings as above. Service suppliers can be flaky or vanish. No phone book. • Fuel – ripped off by suppliers. Competition doesn’t work. • LPG – once a viable, clean, vehicle fuel, now deliberately phased out. • Insurances – more than doubled…

Owning New Zealand’s most popular hybrid SUV just got easier, thanks to a revised price point that brings the cost of MMNZ’s top-spec’d 2019 Outlander Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) in line with many of its petrol and diesel SUV competitors At $55,990 (plus ORC), the new Outlander PHEV VRX is available for $8,000 less than the previous top-of-the-range model, making it the most luxurious and affordable PHEV Mitsubishi Motors NZ (MMNZ) has ever released. “Mitsubishi Motors is a pioneer in hybrid EV technology and, as much as possible, we don’t want price to be a barrier to people deciding to join the move towards EV motoring,” said Reece Congdon, MMNZ Head of Marketing and Corporate Affairs. “There are currently almost 1,000 Outlander PHEVs on New Zealand roads – more…

US electric 4WD start-up Bollinger Motors captured the attention of the automotive world after revealing its all-electric Bollinger B1 Sport Utility Truck (SUT) last year. The unveiling was a memorable capstone to company founder Robert Bollinger’s lifelong childhood dream of one day designing and creating a vehicle of his own. As Bollinger Motors ramps up B1 production, the company has released a short movie delving into the design process and technology behind the first all-electric multi-purpose vehicle of its kind. “The B1 really came out of a sudden brainstorm to combine into one truck all the things I needed for use on my farm,” comments Robert Bollinger. “Unfortunately, the light-duty truck hasn’t really evolved much in the last century; I found myself really wanting one all-purpose vehicle that could perform…

Where some other diesel companies compromise your 4WD’s durability by pushing your 4WD too hard to meet the power gains they promised you, Steinbauer can get you those gains without compromising safety. How? Steinbauer uses technology to get results, not just tuning. The company’s Power Modules are engineered in Europe and tested in Australian conditions to deliver up to 20 percent more power and torque, and improve drivability. Rather than increase pressure at the fuel rail like traditional tunes do, Steinbauer’s Power Modules develop power by changing injection duration to only the main injection signal, not pilot or post injection signals. There is no change to the ECU programming and the Power Modules don’t simply jam more pressurised fuel into your fuel system. This means the system isn’t put under…

After meeting up with a few 4WD club members at Levin, the first part of our trip was a short run up Gladstone Rd towards Makahika in the foothills of the Tararuas just out of Levin. As well as seeing where the road went, I was hoping that we would be able to get into some of the apparently ungated roads into the Kohitere Forest. Unfortunately, in reality all the roads were gated, and just past the last gate the road went onto private property, making for a somewhat anticlimactic end to the first part of the trip. However the return trip is often as interesting as the trip in, and the way out we saw a very attractive building that turned out to be the Greek Orthodox Monastery of…

Trust the Mid Canterbury locals to look after us. Before the third round of our Superwinch Mainland Challenge on August 10 and 11 they put on a show and shine of all the trucks and their crew held in the main street of Methven outside the Blue Pub. From there we headed to a small community, Staveley, 20 minutes from Methven, the venue for the winch challenge itself. The 4x4 Events Club from Christchurch were the hosting Club and spectators were a big part of the round because it is a fundraiser for the community with approximately. 250 tickets presold. Once again, despite the time of year the weather was great. As at Alexandra the month before, I was all rugged up in thermals and winter gear at the start…

This year’s event turned out to be a three-way face-off involving UTV (side by side) race teams, the big four-wheel-drive trucks and the traditional race car classes. All three categories have been at loggerheads in championship offroad racing for five years now, with no category clearly dominant. The event result, however, was different, and came down in the end to a battle of transmissions: defending champion Ben Thomasen’s CVT Polaris vs the ‘proper’ gearbox of the Yamaha shared by Bob Uttridge and Carl Ruiterman of Pukekohe. A couple of months before, the same forest was the venue for the Ruff-n-Tuff enduro, Nelson’s round of the championship. On that occasion, over a slightly shorter lap, the pace was made by the big unlimited class one cars of John Morgan and Mike…