Nissan Patrol 4x4 (Africa)

Jorrie wrote: Welcome with us Clem. As Thinus said, put foot and put fuel.

Many thanks Jorrie. If I can afford to "put foot"… :-)

Herrie wrote:Welcome Clem! At least you only have to check the fuel gauge for 500 000 to 600 000 kilometers

From your lips to God's ears… I hope it will prove to be that reliable. Has to be better than my old Land Rover though… :-)

Bruin Beer wrote:Clem,
Very welcome.
I would like to point out that the ride in the Patrol might feel a bit more sports car that the landrover. There are very little that beat the ride comfort. Not to say the Patrol is uncomfortable but you do get allot more feedback.
Just remember you have to select 4H at least to get the locker to select.
I normally just pull the short leg a little till the light comes on and then fiddle the diff lock.

As Peter stated the diff lock does not impose allot of confidamce by me. Be very sure to allow the diff lock time to 110% ingauge before smakking the horses.

Sure you would enjoy this monster.
Bruin Beer

Thank you very much Bruin Beer. My old Land Rover has extra heavy duty Old Man Emu suspension all around and it is so stiff that on a corrugated concrete freeway the backend will "skitter" unless there is a load in the vehicle. Or as a friend of mine puts it, if you drive over a coin you can tell whether it is heads up or tails up! So I think I will manage fine with the Patrol suspension. I am delighted by the fact that the thing has a standard 750 kg payload and I am hoping that I will not need to fiddle do much with the suspension in the future.

Many thanks for the welcome.

Welcome to your new Patrol home !!!

That 4.8 is a beast..... thirsty, but a beast none the less. The only upgrade or change that could make overlanding a little more pleasant is a suspension lift...... but.... there is also a negative to this. Depending on the type of duty spring you put in will determine the ride comfort. In mine, when empty with heavy duty coils front and back, is a little bumpy on the rear. The front, with my winch, bullbar, bigger radiator, dual battery, turbo, oil cooler, intercooler, bashplate and C-Tek charger all adding a bit of extra weight is very good though, but let me load my fridge and the 10tons of wifes clothes in the back and the ride is as comfy as can get. On the standard suspension, once you add a roofrack and a few jerrycans ( .....ok a lot of jerry cans.... ) and gas bottle that 750kg load capacity is very quickly reached once the rest of the stuff is loaded into the back. If you tow, even a light trailer for your wifes vanity case ( just kidding) the back of the Patrol will settle to a bit of a nose up position. This limits the amount of flex in your suspension if overlanding on "rough terrain" ( nothing is actually "rough" in a Patrol).

But like many here have said.... you now have a reliable vehicle ( they don't leak oil.... ), and 500 000 - 600 000 Km is not un-achievable. Many happy Km with your Patrol brother!!

Hi Clem,

Welcome to the forum and congrats on your purchase... I went the same route 2 years back... from Disco to Patrol 4.8 GRX.

Peter C has pretty much covered it all so I can't add much - my 4.8 GRX has only done 30000km and I have had zero issues with it. Advise on tiptronic 4th gear selection is a good one and makes a difference when I tow my ski-boat.. other than they do tend too "smoke" a bit on start up... essentially rich fuel and less than effecient old straight 6 technology that's behind it.

I have added pretty much all extra's to my Patrol now and it's fully rigged for overlanding... fuel consumption is on par with Landy v8's so it requires some basic planning to address route to ensure fuel ups.

Regards,

Peter V

Hi Clem,

Welcome to the forum Same as Peter V, had a Disco 3 and now a 4.8, only slight differance, I changed my previous 4.8 for the Disco 3, realised my mistake and had to live with it for 3 years. Now a happy Patrol owner for the 4th time. Only issue is fuel consumption. I did some work on my Patrol and on a recent trip with Explorer caravan to Bots and Nam got between 3.8km/l to about 4.8km/l when towing. The Patrol is very forgiving and wont charge you any thing else than fuel money, repairs fairly cheap, will not break (compared to the other makes....) and vast knowledge on these beasts on the forum. I towed in 4th and 5th gear and both worked but prefer 4th. Enjoy your Patrol and NEVER give it to the wife....then it is gone, you will not get it back

Many thanks for the warm welcome guys.

I just picked up the vehicle a bit less than an hour ago. So here are some immediate impressions from somebody who has never driven a Patrol before and has just taken his first drive in one:

• I thought that the upholstery looked a little bit cheaply done at first but it is in keeping with the rest of the vehicle (see below).
• I was really surprised at how smooth and quiet the vehicle is inside when you drive it.
• It was immediately apparent to me that the springs are capable of carrying a lot of weight (relatively speaking and compared to things like the Discovery 4).
• I realised immediately as well that this is a vehicle where you need to take some degree of care with the handling. I imagine that if you behave stupidly at speed you could roll it without too much difficulty. That is a problem common to most SUVs that stand fairly high, and more so those that do not have a "highway body lowering function". It certainly is no worse than my old Discovery – probably better.
• I really like the seating position.
• I found the roofline when sitting inside to be a little bit low compared to what I am used to, but certainly fine for a guy of my size (I am pretty much in the middle as far as that is concerned).
• I really like the relatively simple and functional interior (I dislike interiors that look like the inside of a teenager's bedroom).
• The machine very much shouts "workhorse with a nod to a degree of refinement". As such, it suits my requirements absolutely perfectly.
• From the foregoing I gather that the money has gone into the transmission, engine and other working bits as opposed to bells and whistles. Exactly the correct way of thinking for a workforce that is required to be very durable and to last a very long time.
• I realised that you do not park this machine so much as berth it, very carefully.

The dealership confessed that they made a sum of exactly R 1268.00 on the vehicle. So why did they need to sell it in such a hurry? Well, I got the answer to that too. It turns out that it is their financial year end at the end of June and after that all the stock on the floor gets revalued by the group of which they are part and then they would have to sell the machine potentially at a loss on their books and where they are located this is a very specialised machine that is quite difficult to sell. So they decided to move it while they could. Good for me is that a significant price hike is expected in July.

DawidT wrote:Hi Clem,

Welcome to the forum Same as Peter V, had a Disco 3 and now a 4.8, only slight differance, I changed my previous 4.8 for the Disco 3, realised my mistake and had to live with it for 3 years. Now a happy Patrol owner for the 4th time. Only issue is fuel consumption. I did some work on my Patrol and on a recent trip with Explorer caravan to Bots and Nam got between 3.8km/l to about 4.8km/l when towing. The Patrol is very forgiving and wont charge you any thing else than fuel money, repairs fairly cheap, will not break (compared to the other makes....) and vast knowledge on these beasts on the forum. I towed in 4th and 5th gear and both worked but prefer 4th. Enjoy your Patrol and NEVER give it to the wife....then it is gone, you will not get it back

That consumption is actually pretty good given that you were towing a caravan.

As DawidT said: Never give it to SWAMBO!! You will end up driving the platkar.

Congrats Clem

I think you will find that it is actually surprisingly forgiving at speed. No doubt it is possible to roll it, but the relatively compliant suspension probably makes it feel worse than it is. The Patrol has pretty much best-in-class side-slope ability, which is an indication of how heavy the running gear and chassis is.

I have had to do some pretty violent evasive manoeuvring from time to time on the freeway, and that with a fairly heavily loaded roof rack more often than not, and it has yet to let me down.