Hils Everitt – Editor

My beloved Jimny nears the end of its time with us at 4×4 Magazine just as the rugby season ends, and it has proved an excellent manager’s kit lugger over the course of the season.

I have extolled the virtues of its surprisingly good carrying capacity despite being a diminutive 4×4 in previous reports. You have to put the rear seats down to make the best use of the space – that is obvious – and the seats don’t actually fold down flat, but there is still a good area for stowing an enormous shirt bag, two sets of water carriers and bottles, a large water carrier for fill-ups, a bag of balls, and various other bags full of kit that 18, hefty muscle-bound rugby players need to get them out on the pitch every Saturday.

Due to the poor weather we have had during the season I have had to protect the Suzuki’s rear with some plastic sheeting to make sure that the excessively muddy kit has not soiled the leather upholstery or the carpet-backed rear seats.

Nigel Fryatt – contributor

Our RAV4 is knocking closer to the 100,000-mile mark and 10,000 of those miles have been done in the eight months since we bought the vehicle. In that time, while we’ve been checking, it has needed very little oil, and it’s not too thirsty, either; we have been averaging around the 35mpg mark.

Perhaps it would be better with new windscreen wipers, and we are very pleased with the Continental winter tyres fitted, but apart from that, costs have been very low, and it has been eight almost problem-free months. Still doesn’t make you that confident when you take your 4×4 for the MoT and an annual service does it?

Ann Lockley – contributor

Kelsey rides like a new rig after the installation of 90 per cent of her new Terrafirma parts! Getting the parts installed, however, proved to be a bit of a challenge. My long-time friend, and the person responsible for introducing me to Land Rovers some 20 years ago, Jason Coakley, manages Simoes Automotive, the shop that installed the new transmission in the summer. The trans swap was worse than a nightmare and the owner, Norbert Simoes, had actually banned ‘Kels’ from ever stepping ‘tyre’ in the parking lot ever again. Thankfully, he was enjoying a week’s vacation in the Bahamas – perfect timing. Glen van Drecht, the newest mechanic, offered to do the work. He did a great job, for his first Range Rover; even went so far as putting on new brake pads free of charge, and was still talking to me at the end of it…

Ian Shaw – contributor

Having spent most of my career as a magazine road tester, I am constantly questioning what separates a great vehicle from a merely good one; a vehicle you can respect from one you love. When it comes to the vehicle you own, the question has amplified validity – after all, it’s one’s own money at stake. Do you buy with heart or head – or a combination of the two?

If truth be known, I bought my Defender 110 Utility Wagon with a combination of the two. I don’t consider myself a dyed-in-the-wool Land Rover fanatic, I didn’t grow up on a farm or learn to drive in a Series III, and, other than tinkering with an ancient Series IIA a mate owned in our late teens, my first real experience of Land Rovers was as test editor on the old Off Road & 4Wheel Drive magazine when a 110 Hi-Capacity Pick-up arrived for test in 1989.

Bob Cooke – contributor

Derek was thinking: ‘I didn’t mean to get into this position, but there’s no point in stopping now – pedal to the metal and hope it all comes right!’ It was the moment I thought he was going to put Eugene’s rollover bar to the test for real, the moment I realised I was actually watching the underside of the Hotchkiss as it scrambled by, showering mud from its whirling bargrips.

I guess it was Gary’s fault. He had seen the Hotchkiss and expressed an interest in doing a little off-roading. Naturally, I’d invited him to join us at Boxgrove to have a little drive round in Eugene. Gary did take it very carefully for the first few minutes, so much so that he was making hard work of some of the obstacles. Hence I suggested that he could try going a little faster. Oh dear.

Garry Stuart – contributor

A drive up to Scotland to photograph the Scotia Extreme Winch Challenge was the last straw for me this winter. As I have mentioned previously, I have gone through this winter without a heater in the Nissan, due to a leaking heater matrix. After a long day on a freezing muddy Scottish hillside, I was faced with an equally freezing, four-hour-drive home. Not nice!

The next day I phoned Mark, who runs the local Kirkdale Garage in St Annes, Lancashire, and asked him to order a new matrix pronto. His suppliers seemed to have difficulty in getting one so I got onto the internet and in 15 minutes had bought one from an eBay store (www.demisterman.co.uk) which arrived by courier two days later. The Terrano was then booked into Kirkdale Garage for some major surgery. This will be the subject of a future 4×4 workshop feature, so I’ll say no more about it other than it was a traumatic experience.