Off Topic Panda 4x4 offroad toughness

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Off Topic Panda 4x4 offroad toughness

A Panda is probably perfectly capable for Greenlaning, that said if its following a load of Landrovers or other bigger 4x4's it could ground out in the ruts left by bigger vehicles.

I do not think you can fit raised breathers to a panda, I've never heard of any sort of kit to so this, and its worth noting they are a conventional FWD gearbox with a internally fitted transfer gear that sticks out the back of the gearbox diff. This then goes off to the back wheels but the video above explains this is not the beefy sort of transfer box you'll get on a Landrover and for anything where you'll be throwing a lot of abuse at it, the Panda probably wouldn't cope for long.

I suppose the question is how much do you intend to abuse it? If your landrover is always breaking because of the roads you're driving I suspect the Panda wouldn't fare very well.

That video and most videos where they pitch a panda 4x4 against some bigger offroader are never very fair, like in that video they are essentially drivng on a Quarry road and the panda only gets stuck because they don't want to upset landrover and risk not getting cars later for review. There was a perfectly clear route behind the panda at the point it got stuck.

The Panda is pretty capable but its a car not an off roader and there is no low range, you won't be fitting diff lockers. you could fit a snorkel but that would not get you around issues with breathers taking in water.

The electronics can be pretty fragile to water ingress as well if you plan to submerge the car.

The Suzuki suggestion above isn't a bad one but those still on the roads these days tend to be owned by enthusiasts or have dissolved and are mostly held together with paint.
 
The original poster keep braking a Discovery 1 and wants to modify a panda

I have visions of this not roads and tracks

 
I’m an oap now, so the Panda is a light budget 4x4. Have owned the old three door Range, Defender 200tdi (loved it), Discovery 4.2 and several Subaru’s.
The Panda is a fairly new arrival and I will keep you posted.
 
Good to see them used to their full potential
Tough little bastards!
Exactly…much more capable than folk reckon. No, it doesn’t have hi-lo but it manages. There are some mods you can do to them to make them more capable but then, the only landy’s you see doing that stuff are also ‘tricked-up’. The reason I stopped getting LR (3) and RR (1) was that there was ALWAYS something wrong with them, crap electrics (not just electrical items breaking but the way looms swan-necked and dog-legged through panels which is a sure fire way of getting shorts), rust, joints/bearings and they are just not comfortable on the road. We initially went for Japanese pickups and then the Cherokee (mine) and Renagade (the missus) and that was purely for towing weight capability that the pandas don’t have
 
Not too bothered about keeping the interior tidy etc.

I was planning on a slight lift and obviously a very substantial sump and diff guards/bash plates

Hi

I did the 2 wheel version of all this stuff when younger..

The Ability of the Vehicle is only half the battle...

Are you looking at something that you can Drive to work on Monday.. or actually prep and trailer it


As others have said.. pretty competent in flowing lanes..and MUD

But Rockcrawlers need not apply
 
Good to see them used to their full potential
Yes I agree. I know its just a car with 4x4 capacity and I feel mine is largely wasted. I have to ride up kerbs when visiting my daughter in Manchester and I find in 4WD its a doddle as the car both pulls and pushes rathr than just straining. We had a moment in our newest car when gettingb our first covid vaccination at a sugery in the sticks. A lot of snow had started to melt and we came round a corner to be greeted by a flood with ice bergs floating in it. It just looked like a big puddle albeit 50 yards long. Mrs didnt even slow down at first until realising we were in 18 inches of water lying over very rutted ice underneath when she made like stopping. She didnt like my loud insistence that she just keep it rolling and though it would flood aand or get stuck. Had she stopped we would have been in bother as the exhaust would have flooded. Needless to say we were soon through and only the wheelbarrow of ice that was wedged under the bonnet behind the bumper gave the game away. I was rather glad I had done the extra door seals and not a drop came into the car. Its pretty clear that unless you intend to do extreme off roading the Panda will do anything thats likely to be asked of it. I rescued our caravan and towed it 30 miles to dryer ground in 2019 and its abilty to extract the caravan up a 25% slope and tow 3 times its supposed limit with ease gives reassurance it will do more than I am going to ask of it. In snow its peerless. Where I live its main use is clambering up verges on narrow back roads to let big 4x4 driver pass without getting either wet or dirty. Something most Land and Range Rover drivers seem to expect round here. I have found a few green lanes near me which facilitate a substantial short cut when detouring local congestion. Being small it squeezes down these often overgorwn tracks with ease too.
 
Yes I agree. I know its just a car with 4x4 capacity and I feel mine is largely wasted. I have to ride up kerbs when visiting my daughter in Manchester and I find in 4WD its a doddle as the car both pulls and pushes rathr than just straining. We had a moment in our newest car when gettingb our first covid vaccination at a sugery in the sticks. A lot of snow had started to melt and we came round a corner to be greeted by a flood with ice bergs floating in it. It just looked like a big puddle albeit 50 yards long. Mrs didnt even slow down at first until realising we were in 18 inches of water lying over very rutted ice underneath when she made like stopping. She didnt like my loud insistence that she just keep it rolling and though it would flood aand or get stuck. Had she stopped we would have been in bother as the exhaust would have flooded. Needless to say we were soon through and only the wheelbarrow of ice that was wedged under the bonnet behind the bumper gave the game away. I was rather glad I had done the extra door seals and not a drop came into the car. Its pretty clear that unless you intend to do extreme off roading the Panda will do anything thats likely to be asked of it. I rescued our caravan and towed it 30 miles to dryer ground in 2019 and its abilty to extract the caravan up a 25% slope and tow 3 times its supposed limit with ease gives reassurance it will do more than I am going to ask of it. In snow its peerless. Where I live its main use is clambering up verges on narrow back roads to let big 4x4 driver pass without getting either wet or dirsty. Something most Land and Range Rover drivers seem to expect round here.
They don’t like it if you just keep going as, although they never pull into the hedge as they don’t want to scratch their immaculate paintwork, they often have no bloody idea how wide their motor is, or how small the panda is…until it darts past them
 
I'm thinking of a Panda 4x4 for Wiltshire BOATs but deep ruts give me pause for thought.

This lot seek to be keen on off-roading with Pandas old n new...

(For some reason the link dialog box disappears after a second when I try to use it)
 
I’ve used all my panda 4x4s off-road with few issues, the panda can usually straddle deep ruts and, if your first, you can make your own. Never been stuck on the farm with any of them (except wehn I deliberately ran into a four foot drift, and even then, tooing n froing, I got through) which is more than I can say of our three land rovers, the Range Rover, with its wide wheels/tyres which was useless, or the Navara and L200 pickups we’ve had. The Niva we had was also excellent
 
Okay - I'm back after a long time away, and the land rover is still broken.
It seems that the Panda is a very capable CAR, but what I had in mind was firmly in the TRUCK catagorisation of vehicles, although a modified subaru with low range would probably do it, the Panda's lack of low range would mean that the abuse it would sustain would probably kill it.
On more thing - does anyone know the maximum torque that the 4x4 system can cope with before it breaks? Thanks
 
Thats off the back of the gearbox, I presume, not the engine....
I am not sure how its calculate, I would guess the output of the rear differential as that's were the electronic gubbins are housed the actual engine is less than 150 nm, but it will depend on what the gear ratios are
Are all UK diesels post-2008?
No

Climbing 1.2 4x4 was available at least till 2011

Cross was introduced in 2008 with the multijet engine and different 4x4 system

I don't know if Fiat stuck rigidly to the naming convention
 
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