Land Rover’s ride quality secret September 25, 2009
Posted by richard in : Minutiae of cars , trackbackLAND Rovers all have a characteristic to their ride quality that has to be imparted on all its vehicles, chassis man Murray Dietsch told me.
The secret, he says, is to keep the car level. Not side to side, particularly, but fore-to-aft.
This is pitch. ‘Land Rovers shouldn’t pitch too much – we have a pre-determined rate, that we can get to quite quickly during CAE suspension layouts.’ The trick is to carry this through to real-life machines.
Not easy when you’re dealing with 2.7-tonnes of heavy off-roader, he adds. That’s where the vehicles’ air suspension comes in so handy; now masterminded, he adds, by a tech set-up based on Jaguar’s innovative CATS system.
In practice, this means all Land Rovers have a signature body motion over flowing, undulating roads. The front and rear ends rise and fall at similar rates, to give an almost undetected but exceedingly pleasant sense of satisfaction.
This is something felt all the time – whenever the car is moving, the suspension is working and the pitch rates are being manipulated. But it’s on serious undulations that you can best see it.
Try analysing it, next time you’re out in your car. And, to see what I’m talking about, check out (and feel the Disco lush of) the first half of this video:
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