Lander Ahoy!
One of Renault’s recently revamped construction industry specials, the Premium Lander V2 heads forth on our initial impressions road run. John Henderson discovers it’s a truck that the French manufacturer should be shouting from the rooftops about. Construction site deliveries play an important part in everyday transport. For this you need a flexible truck that’s got just enough protection to go off road and still have the payload capacity to keep the earnings high on the black stuff. Enter the Renault Lander range, one of the company’s perhaps lesser-known models, since its inception three years ago and it’s as good a time as any to bring this truck centre stage with the launch of the revamped V2 series. The French manufacturer seems to put the fine detail in everything it does and constructs, so if you’re looking at demanding off road, heavyweight, all terrain work their Kerax range is the motor to have, whilst its stable mate, the Lander, will supply the materials from the more conventional roads network and still have the ability to get off the tarmac to deliver the goods! The only absentee from Transport News’ Lyon track test last month was the Premium Lander 450.26 6x4 tractor unit, so to complete our evaluations, I recently ran it around our central Scotland ‘initial impressions’ test circuit to get the measure of this much anticipated newcomer. Walking around this tractor unit at our Abington start, ‘extremely sturdy’ were the first two words that came to my mind. At 7,920mm from bumper to tail this big Lander looks very much the specialised prime mover and with a Stallion wet and dry kit fitted, the various tank and light guards, supplemented by chequer plate infills furthered the chassis already tough appearance. With a fully loaded step frame, bathtub tipper trailer coupled a fair distance from the high cab’s rear wall, this test was never really going to be about returning a record breaking fuel consumption figure, as I really wanted to look at the complete Lander package. I’ve tested Renault’s raised roof sleeper 2.2m cab before around our full Scottish route and it was a pleasure to get reacquainted with what essentially is a great place to work. The driving controls and switchgear are laid out in a compact, but user friendly fashion and the cab’s narrow windscreen A pillars offer good visibility forwards and around the rear view mirrors. The almost straight front axle raises the cab slightly, but this affords no problems with the Premium’s excellent trio of graduated footholds. With its revamped ‘smiley’ grille design, this truck looks the modern 2008 product and practical touches like the three piece bumper just further reinforced my opinion about Renault’s attention to design detail. Setting off on the first half of our run, with the manufacturer’s test specialist Neill Attwaters riding shot, we put motorway performance under the microscope with a 90min sector using the M74 north, then turning east along the M8 to Edinburgh. Tipping the scales at 44 tonnes, the 6 cylinder 450hp engine pulled purposefully with great traction from the pair of drive axles, one of the first apparent sensations noticed. Our DXi 11 litre Euro 4 unit produced 2,140nm of torque between 1,100 and 1,300 revs and felt up to the job at all times, revving feely and giving a punchy feedback. One interesting feature is the automatic fast idle, which usual kicks in after an overnight stop. This works well quickly boosting the air reservoir pressure and cuts out immediately as you select a gear and pull away. As I’ve previously extolled the virtues of Renault’s Optidriver 2 automated gearshift system, it was a pleasant change to try out the manual ZF 16-speed gearbox. This cable operated set up works well assisted by the Servoshift unit and the usual range change/splitter buttons were well placed, being easy to reach whilst moving through the familiar double H grid layout. The Lander has an advisory ‘change now’ beep, which can if desired be switched off. I elected to keep it on for the run and as per my minder’s predictions, it does indeed help your gear change anticipation as you naturally want to beat it! Once on the move, with the aforementioned noises coming fewer and farther between, I was surprised at the lack of shifts required, such is the flexibility of the engine’s torque band. Often as not the 450 motor would dig in on a climb and it was simply a case of keeping an eye on the rev counter and monitoring the needle’s progress in the lower part of the green band. The Lander’s steel suspension sticks to the quality rather than quantity ethos with all round parabolic springs and the front and rear axles rated at 7,100kg and 26,000kgs respectively. Another well thought out fixture is the front telescopic dampers that are fixed forward of the axle, making any repairs much easier. With a set up designed for regular off road excursions, it was no great surprise that staying on the tarmac for our evaluation, the Renault seemed completely untroubled by any type of situation encountered. The 8mm thick chassis is well constructed and there was never a sound or any unexpected sudden movements during cornering or over some rough sections of road. After a lunch stop at the highly recommended Chequers Café in Loanhead’s Bilston Industrial Estate, we set off through Penicuik to rejoin the A702 back to our usual start point. This road features prominently in our Scottish test route and in parts becomes very narrow, particularly with oncoming HGVs. On one of these sections just before Biggar after exiting a bend, I was faced with a convoy of approaching tippers the first of which was running just over the centre white line. Touching the nearside verge is never recommended, but in this case there was no option and if it wasn’t for the Lander’s superb double drive traction, I don’t know if I would have got away with it. With heart rate quickly returning to normal, my focus returned to braking and deceleration for the string of villages and towns encountered and their various speed limits. The all round discs and their air/electric applying system are truly superb, with pedal travel and response undoubtedly amongst the best I’ve tested. On one approach to a roundabout I had to apply the anchors ‘in anger’ due to an errant motorist and the combination pulled up straight and much quicker than I initially anticipated. The steering column lever activated engine retarder, OptibrakePlus worked away well and certainly kept the heat off the service units in the vast percentage of normal stoppages. It’s always a mark of an enjoyable drive when the time seems to fly by and after just a couple of hours behind the wheel and 109 miles on the odometer, we pulled back into a crowded lunchtime Abington services and I felt as fresh as if I’d just been on a run around the block. The dashboard trip meter showed my overall fuel consumption figure sitting just a shade below 7mpg, a reasonable return indeed considering our route and situations encountered. Looking closely at the Premium Lander, there’s honestly nothing to fault with this great all rounder. Renault’s existing good reputation with off road and construction supply trucks will be further enhanced by this revamped range, which quite simply does what it says on the tin, or more appropriately, in the brochure! This no-nonsense Lander range may have in the past been a bit of a well kept secret, but on the strength of performance by this new 6x4 unit, it could become the first name on many operator’s lips and shopping lists when a lot of onroad running contracts are being quoted.