Don't hide the winch drum

One thing I learnt from years of winch ownership was that the drum and cable need to be easily accessible. You can barely see the one on this vehicle, let alone get to it. Access is important to free tangled cable, "undo" birdsnests and to easily achieve neat layering when the day's winching is finished. If you're considering a winch and you only ever learn one thing from this website it is to have the drum easily accessible.

Warning about buying online

The New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) is warning people to be careful when buying cars through auction websites after dealing with increasing numbers of complaints from disgruntled buyers, reports the NZ Herald. The newspaper says, "NZTA access and use manager David Pearks said they were hearing from a growing number of buyers who had found the condition of the vehicle they bought from auction websites was not as advertised. There seems to be an increasing number of people who see a car on the internet for sale, and think the photos displayed are sufficient enough to give an indication of the condition of a car," he said.

The article warned that people needed to be more vigilant and carry out pre-purchase checks before buying a car [or in our case, a 4WD] online. You can read the full report here.

FJ Cruiser's pricebomb

After suggesting that it will retail for north of $80,000, Toyota is expected to announce at the FJ Cruiser's imminent launch a price of around $69,000. So all of a sudden it's looking like a much better proposition, even if the price is only for a base version.

UPDATE: Yup, $69,990 it is. Here's a link to a Toyota NZ page with the specification.

Another five years from the Defender

A well informed Land Rover exec told me at the Range Rover 4.4 TDV8 launch in Australia (item below) that the company believes it can keep the current Defender in production until 2015. The Defender's demise has been predicted many times, including by 4wdNewz, but it just seems to be able to soldier on. He said inability to re-engineer the vehicle for airbags will cause its demise. Whenever the "old" Defender goes, it's likely to be replaced by a new one on a version of the Discovery chassis. Or not. The old truck has an uncanny ability to defy predictions!

Here's more on the topic.

Dream on: the latest Range Rover TDV8

Sigh, wonderful stuff if you can afford it: latest 4.4 litre TDV8 turbodiesel in the Range Rover Vogue offers 230kW, an increase of 15.1 per cent and 700Nm of torque, a boost of 9.4 per cent. CO2 emissions are down 14 per cent to 253g/km and fuel drops by 18.5 per cent to a remarkable 9.4 litres/100km overall. It runs 0-100km/h in 7.8 seconds and the 80-120km/h overtaking run drops from 6.3 seconds to 5.1 seconds. "For you, Sir, $194,990 and I'll see what I can do about the on-road costs."

Gotta say they look pretty good in the southern NSW drizzle, where the Australia-NZ launch was held. The off-roading bit wasn't exactly onerous and almost an insult to the Range Rover Vogue's abilities.

New ZF eight speed automatic transmission brings with it a control knob and steering wheel paddles. The terrain response knob has been replaced by a set of switches (foreground).

And here are the instruments. Ooops, no, the sunset picture is what you get on the  nifty new TFT screen when the engine's off. Then, remarkably authentic-looking "virtual" instruments appear. Very cool.

 Here's a video of the TFT panel doing its stuff.