Contact your dealer. They are charged with putting togetherfour "wheels events" per year. There is one person selected in every dealer with the job of making that happen. Find out who that is in your local dealer and ask them to include you on their next outing. Do your best to make it to their next one. You will have an increadible time!!!

About the tire, if you are DEAD SET on keeping the 19" wheels, then by switching to a good thread pattern on a good "all terrain" tire will go a long ways towards providing MUCH better traction off road. Butlet metell you what will happen so it doesn't come as a surprise [sm=lildevil.gif]. You will go to your first "wheels event" with your local dealer and there you will get exposed to having your vehicle do things you would never have thought it could do. And not only will it do them, but it will do them easily, leaving you wondering just how much more is this vehicle capable of handeling. Then as you ponder on this, somewhere through the day of off roading with your new toy, it happens. You find yourself bitten by the off road bug. The all too familiar smile is pasted permanently on your face as youconquer yet another seemingly impossible obstacle on your first real off-roadevent and you are done!!! The 19" wheels come off and 18" take their place with good AT tires and that is only the first of many mods to come [sm=guilty.gif]. Nurf bars, rock sliders, air compressor, maybe even a winch. I have only commited to the first level of mods with tires and wheels so far. But I have to be honest... I am seriously looking already at what else I want next!!!!

The thing is, 19" tires, even with the best thread patternwere never intended to be true off road tires. They are low profile tires. You will notice a big improvement in off road traction by switching to the 19" All terrain tires you asked about, but only because the original HP's just plain suck so bad. But if you want to see the full extent of what that LR3 of yours is REALLY capable of doing, you need to go 18, my friend! [sm=trust_me.gif]

 

Jantiz, I second you comments about 18's vs 19's. I still have my 19's sitting in storage with Michelin Synchrones. They actually perform pretty well on rock, however the tradeoff is the smaller contact patch on anything else. My 18's with the Cooper Zeon LTZ's are a huge difference, and my wife actually thinks the LR3 rides better with them than the Synchrones. Also, took the Coopers to the snow last week and they were great, and I noticed a difference from when I took the Synchrones up last year.

I thought I would switch back occasionally, but haven't done that since the switch. I miss the chrome rims, though...

 

Thought id bring this up front due to inclimate weather comming up. New Lr3 owners will be asking alot of the same ?s we incountered last year.
I trned off dsc while on the trail I noticed a sig. difference on the hill climb.

 

Yup. Wether to turn off DSC or not and choosing an apropiate line of aproach for any given obstacle is about the only driver input that can still affect off road performance on the LR3. Everything else has been automated for the most part. Off road purists call that cheating. I have guys in my club that have center Diff lockers on their Discos, and will still try to clear obstacles without it first everytime. They refer to using it as cheating. I guess slightly different definitions on what we consider off roading I want to have as easy a time as possible going over obstacles. I want to make it look too easy. Whenever I can do that I consider it a succesful obstacle. Some people like to see dirt flying evrywhere and a lot of sliding and slipping. To each his own, I guess

 

Your right about a better response when DSC is turned off. Actually...it is never completely turned off though. DSC is meant to be more on road biased and to help the driver stay out of trouble. In an offroad situation....especially like the situation you mentioned...a hill climb.....turning DSC off can help you quite a bit. With DSC on....depending on what is happening with the vehicle, the vehiclesystems can occasionally determine that the driver is loosing control of the vehicle dueto the systems sensing a drastic changein thevehicles intended path. When this happens with DSC on, the throttle will be killed to keep the driver fromfeeding throttle in a panic situation. When DSC is off, there will be a much higher threshold before the throttle is killed.

 

Wow, as a new LR3 owner this thread is amazing. About to order my GOOD YEAR Silent Armor's 265/60r18's online now! Thanks again!

 

Ive read a few explanations for the Terrain Response.

I have not seen many people actually do a test comparing normal mode to say ice mode and then explaining why one worked better in actual conditions.

In regular 50 50 mode I can go most places. Ive put it into snow mode and really did not feel much difference. I've not been stuck due to being in the wrong mode. I am not saying it can't happen just have not tested all.

The center differential lock. Would it not have to be locked to offer 50 50 in regular mode? I've seen it lock before on the graphic in low mode not sure what is locking.

A true lock would cause binding on cement. If I lock my old explorer you really could not drive far on pavement before it would bind up from the front tires spining at different rate that rears.

How does the LR3 center differential lock work? Is it auto in all modes?

 

Thanks for posting this thread!