LR & Jag to reduce platforms to 2

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MarkP

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Well 'platforms' are expensive to develop while platform sharing (includes components) can reduce manufacturing cost. Maybe JLR is taking a realistic view of the automotive landscape and realizing that volumes may never return to the late 90's/early 00's. That is true for many manufacturers. At lower volumes development cost reductions must be implemented or you die.

Positioning a bigger Freelander as the Discovery sure feels like an impending disaster. Can't imagine a Discovery as a CUV. But when all you have is two platforms for two marques and one is Jaguar your options are limited. A JLR death spiral? Or maybe creating space for Tata's truck line?
 
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baddmojoii

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Of course the real benefit to going with the XJ platform is constructing the body out of aluminum. A light weight Range Rover with the new power plant should be an awesome vehicle... especially a 510hp model.

What strikes me as funny is all the complaining about the current product line, while in reality, an LR3 or RRS (with some better rubber) is a very capable off-road vehicle. YES....we all get it... it's not a defender and we all wish that it was being brought back. It also doesn't leak fluids everywhere or have headgaskets replaced annually.
 
knewsom

knewsom

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baddmojoii said:
What strikes me as funny is all the complaining about the current product line, while in reality, an LR3 or RRS (with some better rubber) is a very capable off-road vehicle. YES....we all get it... it's not a defender and we all wish that it was being brought back. It also doesn't leak fluids everywhere or have headgaskets replaced annually.
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It's true, the current lineup is more capable than ever offroad, stock... the trouble with aluminum unibody construction for offroad use is that the durability and reparability drops dramatically.

Maybe Tata will do something about the problematic pneumatic suspension... maybe using hydraulics and coils instead. I dunno. It'd be nice to see some more reliable suspension in stock rovers.
 
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MarkP

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If Land Rover adopts Jaguar's aluminum body/frame construction I doubt these vehicles would be long-term off-road worthy.

Why? Because the frame/body is created with "alloys, pretreatment, lubricant and adhesive". Literally it is glued together. Watch this video for Al technology. The first part of the video shows space frame technology. Jaguar is not using space frame technology, they are using rivets and adhesives. At the end of the video a Tesla battery box is shown that uses technology similar to Jaguar.
 
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baddmojoii

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If Land Rover adopts Jaguar's aluminum body/frame construction I doubt these vehicles would be long-term off-road worthy.

Why? Because the frame/body is created with "alloys, pretreatment, lubricant and adhesive". Literally it is glued together. Watch this video for Al technology. The first part of the video shows space frame technology. Jaguar is not using space frame technology, they are using rivets and adhesives. At the end of the video a Tesla battery box is shown that uses technology similar to Jaguar.
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I can't say that I agree with you. The bonding process is actually stronger than a weld. If you were to bond two pieces and then try to bend/brake that joint, you'd only succeed in tearing up everything but that joint. Jaguar has been working with aluminum structures for some time and their XK is a very rigid/strong platform.
 
knewsom

knewsom

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But there's very little repariability. What happens if you lose traction rapidly and end up high-centered on the body/frame, and warp it? Or DENT it badly? God forbid cracking it... I mean, I know Aluminum is weldable, but once it's been bent or broken, isn't its strength severely compromised, like permanently?
 
kennith

kennith

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Apr 22, 2004
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baddmojoii said:
I can't say that I agree with you. The bonding process is actually stronger than a weld. If you were to bond two pieces and then try to bend/brake that joint, you'd only succeed in tearing up everything but that joint. Jaguar has been working with aluminum structures for some time and their XK is a very rigid/strong platform.
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What you say is true. Riveted and bonded joints are incredibly strong.

In the end, though, they have severe issues when used in this manner. The forces acting on a fast car are quite different from those acting on a vehicle like a Land Rover. If this were not the case, pickup trucks would be built quite differently than they are today. Vehicles designed for repeated heavier duty work are almost always constructed along the same principals. Things are this way for very, very good reasons; reasons that I'm not going to take two pages to explain, fortunately.

Adhesives can be incredibly strong, but they are entirely unforgiving once pushed to their limit. That limit can be achieved in a great number of ways over time. An off pavement vehicle can achieve most of that number in a very short period of time.

For a century now, working vehicles have changed very little, even as everything else has changed around them. This isn't because nobody thought to try it. This is because sometimes what you see on paper doesn't work in reality. This is because the old way is just plain better, in this case.

Cheers,

Kennith
 
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MarkP

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Know enough to be dangerous ..... :D

Jaguar's aluminum technology is a hybrid of rivets and adhesives. Adhesives have good sheer strength but very poor peel strength. Solution? Rivets + Adhesives in which the adhesive is the primary weld while the rivet is there for shock loads that cause peel failures. The rivets, at least in automotive applications, is not intended for continuous work.

A New Look at an Old Technology
by Austin Weber
June 1, 2004

I would think a off-road frame/body would need to withstand repeated sheer and peel work loads as the terrain is traversed. For those joints that experience sheer loads the hybrid technology would be ok but for those loads that experience peel loads the hybrid technology would eventually fail as rivets and not intended for that work.

Then again technology is always advancing so ..... not saying they can't do it, just that today's technology is a hybrid for a reason.
 
kennith

kennith

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Apr 22, 2004
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As for the fate of Land Rover...

This will not work. They are doomed to fail if they throw away the only thing they know how to do properly.

If someone gave me the marketing and advertising budget of Hyundai, and enough juice within the company to affect some changes, I could save Land Rover relatively quickly. I could turn them around completely and they would make money for a change.

They are an easy company to fix. The problem is, nobody within the company knows how to run it properly, and they know shit-all about marketing. Marketing has slowly bled them to death over the years. Copying GM's badge-engineering practices of the '90s is only going to put that final nail in the coffin.

With a product line consisting of vehicles we like, that they already know how to build, plus the new Range Rover and a Freelander shared-platform venture; I am certain that I could not only market the vehicles, I could as well market the brand.

As well, with no major changes to the above vehicles, I could make most of America perceive Land Rover as a "green" company. Hell, I could make them appear to be heroically green, and bring back that jungle-slogging image that we all remember.

I'd only need that budget. I don't mean a budget based on what we sold, either. I mean cash-money; in hand. Let's throw what we have in and try to save our asses. A lot of money has been dumped into Land Rover like this over the years, and it has all been wasted. None of it has been used to fix the real problem.

They have received a helping hand many times over the years, and never once did they use that help to buy someone who can fix their real problem. It doesn't matter what they build. If Land Rover built Honda Civics, they still wouldn't be able to make money on the darned things.

They don't know how to run a business, and they don't know how to use marketing... to any degree whatsoever. Actually, they go far beyond sucking at it. It is my belief that Land Rover is in possession of all the anti-marketing required to balance the marketing forces in the universe.

I've never seen another company so foolishly ignorant of how these things work. It really annoys the hell out of me.

Cheers,

Kennith
 
kennith

kennith

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Apr 22, 2004
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MarkP said:
Know enough to be dangerous ..... :D

Jaguar's aluminum technology is a hybrid of rivets and adhesives. Adhesives have good sheer strength but very poor peel strength. Solution? Rivets + Adhesives in which the adhesive is the primary weld while the rivet is there for shock loads that cause peel failures. The rivets, at least in automotive applications, is not intended for continuous work.

A New Look at an Old Technology
by Austin Weber
June 1, 2004

I would think a off-road frame/body would need to withstand repeated sheer and peel work loads as the terrain is traversed. For those joints that experience sheer loads the hybrid technology would be ok but for those loads that experience peel loads the hybrid technology would eventually fail as rivets and not intended for that work.

Then again technology is always advancing so ..... not saying they can't do it, just that today's technology is a hybrid for a reason.
Click to expand...

That's a little bit of what I wasn't going to bother explaining.:rofl: Less work for me, if anyone calls me on it.

Cheers,

Kennith
 
M

MarkP

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Apr 23, 2004
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Don't underestimate the impact of regulation on today's automotive market.

Yesterday's technology will not meet tomorrow's regulations. Period.
 
kennith

kennith

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Apr 22, 2004
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MarkP said:
Don't underestimate the impact of regulation on today's automotive market.

Yesterday's technology will not meet tomorrow's regulations. Period.
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That's true, but it doesn't have to be a deal-killer. As long as you can build a pickup, you can build a Land Rover.

Cheers,

Kennith
 
jhmover

jhmover

Well-known member
Apr 23, 2004
5,571
3
California
p m said:
Don't bet on it.
The last full size jeep left the assembly line in 1993. Yet, the BBS (analog of DW for this particular brand of nutjobs) is alive and kicking.
I am pretty sure there's one for Binders, that haven't seen new offspring since 1980.
Click to expand...


There's Binder stuff out there, I have a 77.
 
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