Has anyone got a 4x4?

[momof2]

We have just decided to get rid of our faithful Hippo (Nissan Micra) and branch out into the uncertain world of much larger family cars.
I have been looking at a discovery or freelander - please note all old ones not new.
Has anyone any experience of how good/bad they are please? Or any 4x4's they would recommend or MPV's
Many thanks

hmc that company is based in my town

I know the owners

i agree kelly. As I have mentioned many times in the last week, a daft bint pulled out on me because she couldnt see me I swerved and then had to try and avoid hitting concrete bollards whilst she got off completely unscathed I have whiplash!

Well you really must remonstrate with them Enid!

I will

I could mention it at the next chamber of trade meeting

Ooooh go on!

JoolsToo - Some of those US SUVs are massive aren't they. I just hope that the UK don't follow along that trned, having to get bigger and better. I have already seen some of the more ridiculously sized 4X4s on the roads but thankfully they are few and far between.

I expect they are doing good business Enid, how many people do they employ?

I was going to point out that most american 4x4's are much larger than over here. Mine is shorter than a Volvo and Citreon estate and no wider. I did drive a Dawoo Matiz and found nobody noticed me a tended to drive out in front of me, thats all cars not just 4x4s.

Ever tried towing a dingy out of the water at the beach with a Matiz, or towed a trailer across a muddy field. Yeh yeh apparantly latvian farmers all drive about with 6 sheep in the back of a Nova, British farmers have been driving Landrovers before most families even had cars.

Whats wrong with riders waving did I miss something?

The problem that i found when i had a landrover Discovery was cars do pull out in front of you because they think it's a slow vehicle, and tbh I found it was about as quick as a tractor pulling out at roundabouts and junctions and felt unsafe for that reason..lumbering along and taking forever to get up to speed

TDi's are quite nippy.

I get shocked looks when I overtake as they assume it only does 50mph.

mine is pretty impressive zippi but it is a petrol model. I regularly beat a woman in her Focus off the lights in the morning. She is so desperate to get past me she even tried cutting me up at the motorway roundabout . Although dh has tapped into his LR contacts to make it go much better and less "roll-y" than the standard models

Mine is an se plus or whatever, and pretty nippy considering it's size. Def get a few strange looks when in the overtaking lane of a dual carriage way.

Bit like in the Matiz very surprised it did 70mph, surprised myself too.

I don't have one any more but a Subaru forester turbo is shockingly fast and very nice to drive on and off road (but not as high as others)

Wow! Haven't been able to read the whole thread but what a wasp's nest .

It makes me feel rather naive, to be honest; when I was young and living in deepest darkest rural yorkshire, a 4x4 (generally a knackered old Landy) was in no way a status symbol. People got very attached to them - after all, there's nowt you can't do in the back of a Landy but as for being a f**k you car....well, we left that to the BMW/Mercedes/Ford Cosworth drivers.

And no I'm older and thinking it might be nice to have a Landy to get all DH's windsurfing kit and our gardening garbage to and fro and apparently I'm an anti-social tosser and social climber. Which may, of course, be true, but I hadn't realised that the simple possession of a car says everything that it's necessary to say about me. Wow, I must be so one-dimensional.

This thread is making me laugh. Talk about lighting the blue touchpaper. If I wanted to start a flame war, this is EXACTLY the thread I'd post.

I don't have a 4x4 btw. I can't drive.

Yeah, it's a good one, isn't it Wessexgirl. I like the fact that apparently there is nothing that so instantly reveals our innermost soul and essential worthlessness as our choice in cars.

we are very sedate - we don't speed so I don't know if 'we'd av someone off the lights!' .

I just want a bit of comfort in my old age - its like sitting in an armchair (with a bum warmer and lord knows I need a bum warmer!)

....well, obviously that's not your essential worthlessness, Wessexgirl .

Round here the knackered old Landies are mostly driven by knackered old farmers - it's not them the thread is about - it's the huge Porsche/Merc/BMW/Toyota etc beasts!

what does it say if you've had all kinds of cars?

Well as a BMW driver about to make the transition to a 4x4 I'm used to it. There is no hope for me. I'm also a bit low rent apparently

oh Gizmo come and join the social leper group

Dunno about those: can't be a proper 4x4 if you can hear yourself shouting and they've got upholstery