ml u/s off road

[rich599]

i have recently bought a 2001 270 ml to tow a horse box but when it was taken into the field it got stuck,so had to get my freelander td4 to tow it out
the field is flat not too muddy just soggy with all the recent rain,can anyone advise? what i am doing wrong or what might be wrong

 

[rf065]

i have recently bought a 2001 270 ml to tow a horse box but when it was taken into the field it got stuck,so had to get my freelander td4 to tow it out
the field is flat not too muddy just soggy with all the recent rain,can anyone advise? what i am doing wrong or what might be wrong

Just a thought, do you have big wide high performance tyres? Useless in mud?

Russ

 

[rich599]

tyres are 275/55/17 mud+snow

 

[A210AMG]

Hello,


Funny as a few cars ago I had a TD4 sport, nice car. I have a ML and pull our van off wet fields and seems to do just fine? Only tried Low range the other day for first time ever so havn't even needed that yet.

Mine has 17" wheels with 275 tyres. If you have put some 22" alloys on it then it will be worse. Have you checked your tyre preasure?

Either way it should be as capable of pulling the horse box off a wet field.

 

[A210AMG]

Just read you have the same tyres..

Whats the tread like?

 

[rich599]

they are new tyres,and i didnt have the horse box attatched,i was wondering if there might be something wrong with the 4wd

 

[rf065]

tyres are 275/55/17 mud+snow

They are certainly wide but if M+S rated should have been OK in a flat field.
I don't know too much about ML's other than they are not "a proper off roader" like a Land Rover etc. I'm sure if you can lock the diffs or anything etc someone will come along and advise.

Russ

 

[drivinggod09]

sounds odd never driven an ml but do off roading all the time in trucks and l/rovers try lowering tyre pressures , or rocking the vehicle from front to back would also be advisable to carry a few empty sandbags and a spade next time i would seriously look at the tyres as they might not be what they say on the tin

 

[JEZ.S320L]

i have recently bought a 2001 270 ml to tow a horse box but when it was taken into the field it got stuck,so had to get my freelander td4 to tow it out
the field is flat not too muddy just soggy with all the recent rain,can anyone advise? what i am doing wrong or what might be wrong

Had EXACTLY the same problem with the R/R's - flat, wet meadows - useless...!! The trick was to get some decent tyres (more knobbly ones). But you pay a penalty if used mainly on normal roads. The standard tyres are only meant for road work (and the treacherous wet tarmac of the supermarket car park.!)

 

[brandwooddixon]

Biggest problem with most off roaders and lack of performance off road is unsuitable tyre choice. Wet grass is surprisingly slipepry at the best of times and ideally you'll need an open tread pattern and relatively low tyre pressure (dropping standard pressure a few psi can help wonders).

 

[MotardMan]

Wet grass is a nightmare. You'll need All Terrain pattern at the least to be able to get sufficient purchase on the mud/soil, under the grass. M+S tyres tend to fill the tread voids with the grass and turn into a slick. Below are two attempts by me to get up a very slippery side slope in my old Range Rover. No traction control or locking diffs! The second attempt succeeded because I dropped to 12 PSI in the tyres. Don't do that unless you have a compressor on board that will reinflate the tyres though!

Failed climb:


Dropped the pressures:


And that that was with a set of full on Mud terrains like this:

Best of luck,

Jim

 

[panason1c]

I did read somewhere that with the ML if you get stuck you need to give it a 'bit of welly' to make proper use of the electronic traction control.....this works by detecting any wheel(s) that are spinning and applying the brake to that wheel(s) thus applying more torque to the stationary wheel(s).

During operation the yellow triangle on the dash will be flashing.

http://www.whnet.com/4x4/4etsplus.html

 

[rich599]

thank you for the replies and the great link, i shall check the tyre presure's and go and give it another try, fingers crossed i get out

 

[MotardMan]

Anyone played the photobucket movies up above? Does the ML sound that good when caned??? ;o)

 

[rich599]

thats got to be the rover v8 engine

 

[MotardMan]

Yeah, it had a 4.2 LSE V8 in it with a Weber 4 barrel, Offenhauser inlet, Janspeed full system, 3 sp Chrysler 727 auto, 24 spline diffs. 6 MPG when used in anger!

Nice noise though, just the noise justified the expense.