Adventurous Jaguar F-PACE Owner Finds Out He Didn't Buy an SUV the Hard Way

Land Rover has been making go-anywhere vehicles for years and is regarded as one of the best in the industry, even though it does suffer on the reliability front. Still, when it comes to four-wheel-drive systems and the all-important traction control governing its actions, it's really difficult to find anything better than the stuff they make in Coventry.

However, the F-PACE wasn't going to be your typical SUV. In fact, you'd be better off calling something like a "crossover" or "SAV," if BMW would allow it. The aspect of the Jaguar high-rider doesn't exactly inspire off-road-iness and people would be well off if they heeded this impression.

Some owners, though, still think they bought an SUV, which means they can't back off from a somewhat difficult situation that an SUV should be able to handle. A dip in the road that good flooded presumably after heavy rains would qualify as such, so this man decided to put the money he spent on his vehicle to good use and cross that temporary body of water.

The funny thing is the F-PACE would have had no problem getting through if the driver showed a little more sense and a little less ill-placed confidence in his vehicle. Instead of driving slowly, in a controlled manner, the guy decided that "powaaaahh" was the right way to get across.

We're not even going to mention how little consideration he showed toward the poor ducks who had made the impromptu pond their home, though it does appear as though after the initial splash, they seemed to enjoy surfing the waves.

Apart from his dignity, the man nearly lost his front number plate as well, but it could (and might still be) a lot worse. Plunging like that into deep water, especially while also revving the engine, thus sucking lots of air in, is a sure way to get water into your cylinders.

A little quantity won't be a huge problem - it'll get evaporated, and your car will look like a steam engine for a short time. Get too much, though, and you get what's called cylinder "hydro-lock." That's what happens when the volume of water inside the cylinder is greater than the volume of air left in the cylinder when the piston is extended in its highest position.

In that situation, the piston is essentially trying to compress water. The water doesn't like it, so it'll say "no." The piston will then say "OK, I'll go and compress something else," and the only other things it's connected to are the piston rod and the drive shaft. One or both will either bend or break, and you don't want that.

By the looks of it, the Jaguar F-PACE driver got off easy, but he should still pay a visit to his local service center. And while he gets there, he should come up with a good lie about what happened because, had there been no camera, the truth should have remained between him and the ducks.