What we learnt

Eighteen cars over eight days of testing throughout three states taught us a few things about the new four-wheel drive landscape in 2022.

NEW car buyers are spoilt for choice in 2022. We know a lot of them you can’t get due to stock shortages, and even if you order them now you’re looking at a six to 12 months (or longer) waiting list. It’s a pretty crook situation if you are wanting to get in to a new 4x4 right now, but if you are prepared to wait for what you want the choices are mind boggling.

There’s a new 4x4 on the market for just about anyone. The mid-size 4x4 ute field is ever expanding, with new brands and models arriving every month and more waiting in the wings to get in, while wagon buyers are faced with a showroom that includes everything from ute-based budget beaters to luxury wagons like the Gelandewagen, Range Rover or even Bentley and Rolls-royce SUVS. It’s only limited by your budget.

Some might still say you get what you pay for, but there are plenty of new vehicles on the market now that appear on paper to be great value for money but don’t always work so well. Some of the newer brands on the market offer extensive features lists that read like the car is great value, but it appears the features are only there to tick them off on a list and they don’t work as they should.

Electronic traction control systems that are so slow as to be useless in rough terrain; electrically-assisted power steering that feels completely removed from the front tyres; and huge touchscreens that look impressive on the dash but you almost need to poke your finger through them to get them to work. These are just some of the things we found through our testing in the lead-up to 4X4OTY.

The 18 vehicles we brought on the test were the best of the

bunch, even if some of them weren’t the specification we’d asked for. Still, some of them failed at the first hurdle.

The Chevy Silverado LTZ was an early disappointment. We’d asked for the Trail Boss model as it would have been more suitable to our needs and represents better value for money, but GM couldn’t supply one. While the big pickup is a beautiful beast on the open road and should make a great tourer, the way it shook and rattled on the corrugated Second Grade Road was horrendous and you wouldn’t want to take it on any outback track. I wonder how the Trail Boss would have gone on its better tyres and suspension?

The rutted hill climb at the Australian Automotive Research Centre looked challenging but we considered it to be fairly standard fare for any capable 4x4 vehicle. Yet some of those lower-priced ute-based wagons failed to proceed past the first hump in it, while others got to the biggest part of the rut and the ETC gave up as soon as a front wheel lifted off the ground.

Riding on the same T6 platform as the Ranger and with a shorter wheelbase – which in theory could make it a better offroader – we expected more of the Ford Everest, but it stopped at the rut with wheels spinning. We put that down to a couple of things: the low-profile tyres it wore on 20-inch wheels, the wheelbase placing the tyres in the ruts, and the on-demand 4WD system that can’t be manually locked at the centre diff.

Likewise, the Navara PRO-4X Warrior which behaved superbly on the rough Second Grade Road and eventually made it up the hill climb, but it sure made hard work of it and struggled furiously all the way.

Even the triple-locked and mud tyre-equipped Gladiator Rubicon had its issues here. It made it up without fighting for traction but it was scraping its undercarriage most of the way, and then it almost got hung up cresting the rise where none of the other cars touched down.

We didn’t even try to drive the Silverado up here as it is way too low and would have only resulted in damage.

We didn’t want to take the G400d up the hill because it, too, is relatively low and, with its price tag, we sure didn’t want to scratch it. But as many of the other vehicles drove up, we thought it unfair on them not to try it on the hill. To the amazement of all watching, the G-wagen drove up easier than any other car, barely spinning a tyre with its diffs locked and pointed straight up. It’s an amazing vehicle, but the price discounted it from our list of finalists.

The same for any car that didn’t make it up the hill. If it couldn’t drive up that hill, it could never be 4X4OTY, and that’s what sorted our dirty half-dozen.

A GOLDEN AGE OF ENGINES

JUST as buyers are spoilt for choice in new cars, we are spoilt by the engines that are available in them right now. In this time of EVS being shoved on to the market, it truly is a golden age of the internal combustion engine. From the simple two-valveper-cylinder pushrod V8 of the Silverado, the high-tech direct injection V8 in the Patrol, to the sublime performance of the in-line six cylinder engines in both Land Rovers and the G-wagen – these mills sure put a smile on our dials. And they should do the same for any driving enthusiast.

The supercharged and turbocharged petrol engine in the Land Rover Discovery P360 is a driver’s delight, delivering the bottom-end torque of a diesel engine and the top-end charge of a highly-tuned petrol, all with the wail of a performance car and diesel-like fuel economy.

The new V6 diesel engine in the Landcruiser might not have the sound of the old V8, but it out-accelerates, has a broader spread of torque and uses less fuel than the engine it replaces. It is part of the package that makes the 300 more of a driver’s car than the 200 Series and more rewarding to drive. It’s early days for the F33A-FTV and time will tell how it performs long-term, but remember the problems that the 1VD-FTE V8 had when it first arrived?

Nissan’s VK56 engine could be the last of the great naturally aspirated V8s as it is truly rewarding to drive and it works so well with the Patrol’s relatively dynamic chassis, while the 700Nm of roaring grunt that comes from the Mercedes-benz in-line six has to be felt to be appreciated. Even VW’S ageing V6 diesel in the Amarok is a joy to put the pedal down.

While we can’t say that about any of the four-cylinder diesel engines that come in most new 4x4s – they are all noisy and uninspiring – as long as the range of EVS is limited by the lack of infrastructure in this country, the internal combustion engine will remain the only choice for four-wheel drivers and others who like to venture beyond the daily commute. Enjoy them while we can, people!

IF IT COULDN’T DRIVE UP THAT HILL, IT COULD NEVER BE 4X4 OF THE YEAR, AND THAT’S WHAT SORTED OUR DIRTY HALF-DOZEN