Oh no, another pick up thread

Mounty

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
Was invited along as a judge this week to test drive all 9 pick ups available on the UK market. Good to drive them all back to back, on and off road. (Except the Navara)
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Mounty

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Suffolk
Ok, working left to right in the picture.

Fiat Fullback - Nice truck, drove well and decent level of finish. Bit jittery at the back on uneven surface but good on motorway. 5 speed auto is a let down though, needs 6. It really is a carbon copy of L200 on the inside as well.

Ssangyong Musso - Kept my breakfast down walking around the exterior. Boy its ugly. Buck is weird looking, short and high but this is because its a cut down SUV so not a proper buck. No leaf springs so not sure on load capacity but rumoured to be a LWB version on the horizon. Surprisingly good level of finish and quality inside. Pulled well and got away quicker than others. Think this one even had heated rear seats. Huge bargains to be had on pre registered.

Mercedes X Class V6 - Lovely place to be, goes well and sounds great. Very comfy seats. However, at the premium price, felt the interior and level of finish lets it down. Would lose a sale to me on the interior finish.

Toyota Hilux - Better than the last one I drove about 3 years ago. Seating position was higher which I prefer to the low seat of older models. Interior and dash not my cup of tea. Felt a little under powered to me. On the whole quite impressed though.

Isuzu 1.9 - This was the only manual pick up of the line up. Noisy engine and while power was acceptable I don't think I'd want 2 tonnes behind it. Steering was a lot more turns of the wheel lock to lock than other models I drove. Interior bland, ride ok.

VW Amarok V6 258 - My favourite of the day, sounds good, goes extremely well, very comfortable with my favourite seating position. 8 speed box very smooth, rides better than the others I would say. However, when we were asked to use '4 low' this is not an option on this Amarok. Felt it was lacking a few tricks when you might need them.

Ford Ranger 3.2 Wildtrack X - Liked this more than I thought I would. Good seating position, very comfortable and well kitted out inside. 5 pot sounds nice but quite a lot of engine noise under harsh acceleration and didn't feel as swift as 200hp should be. Seemed a bit thirsty?

Nissan Navara - Sorry, didn't get to drive at all. It will be in the final results though.

Mitsu L200 - See whats written about the Fiat, virtually identical. Again, 5 speed auto a let down.

All bar one pick up was on road tyres. They all performed well off road and TBH you couldn't tell them apart in the conditions we were in. Fair to say that all of these pick ups have upped their game in recent times and if you'd have been blindfolded, you'd have had a job to tell which of the 4 cylinder models you were driving.
 
My V6 Amarok has had to have a new DPF system and cross shaft this week! Not what you expect after 6800 miles. Warranty job obviously but never less! The one it replaced never missed a beat over 3 yrs.

@Mounty i did a similar thing a few weeks ago but it was more track orientated. None of them are as good as the VW. It’s head and shoulders above the rest.
I like the Merc but it’s to nissany. They need to go back to the design board in my view because marrying it to the Merc 3.5 V6 engine could be good because in a GLE it’s a beast.
 

Fendtbro

Member
Can anybody on the other side of the world comment on the v8 70 series landcruiser? For me, a big displacement engine working well understressed sounds far better. Auto's towing seem to suck up diesel, manuals with these small diesels just seem to stall when trying to take off with a load on. The 80 series landcruisers we run have seen off all the pickups but they are getting rusty now. Need a modern replacement..
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 80 42.3%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 66 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.9%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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