Landrover defender owners input...
- Thread starter SimpleSimon
- Start date
I lived in a 86" series 1 for around 9 months including one winter in 1974/5...snug as a bug in rug. I would poke my arm out of bed and light the gas ring and in seconds the windows had unfrozen!
Needing something to tow the little digger and trailer...out of nostalgia I bought a naturally aspirated diesel 90 defender a few years ago...but found I had passed my "bend by" date and was too unbendable to be able to drive it comfortably.
In March 2017 I purchased a 1997 Discovery 1 300tdi for all of £700 with 6 months MOT. So far with a £236 set of Insa Turbo Dakars from Paddock spares, £100 worth of welding, a drivers door lock and a couple of eBay headlight adjusters, it has gone through the last 4 tests. Just failed the 5th test on Friday last, needing another £100 worth of welding and a track rod end.
Inexpensive motoring and I love it to bits.
Alan
Needing something to tow the little digger and trailer...out of nostalgia I bought a naturally aspirated diesel 90 defender a few years ago...but found I had passed my "bend by" date and was too unbendable to be able to drive it comfortably.
In March 2017 I purchased a 1997 Discovery 1 300tdi for all of £700 with 6 months MOT. So far with a £236 set of Insa Turbo Dakars from Paddock spares, £100 worth of welding, a drivers door lock and a couple of eBay headlight adjusters, it has gone through the last 4 tests. Just failed the 5th test on Friday last, needing another £100 worth of welding and a track rod end.
Inexpensive motoring and I love it to bits.
Alan
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bobthedug
Well-Known Member
And there is always the simple, routine maintenance.
Attachments
Ouch...Too close to reality....yesterday I had a flood of hydraulic oil in the cab of the little Telehandler trying to refurbish the distribution block but avoiding draining the system...
Alan
I’ve decided that now I no longer have a mortgage I’m gonna sell the wife’s car, keep the LR and purchase one of these for her:
And yes I’m fully prepared for all the SD haters who’ve no doubt owned one and found the 5ltrs and 8 cylinders wanting!
K
And yes I’m fully prepared for all the SD haters who’ve no doubt owned one and found the 5ltrs and 8 cylinders wanting!
K
I wish there were threads like this for hilux etc....
having not looked for a vehicle for 6+ years and blissfully happy in defender until recently (me not it...) what is a reasonable price for a double cab pickup?
the links to hilux above is 10k plus vat for a vehicle from 2003. I would have thought it was only nutter landy enthusiasts who would pay that sort of money....
I also presume theres a hilux premium over L200/ranger/amarok/etc. Having only driven them in very sandy, shitty places, they were reliable but rust was never going to be much of an issue.
pretty much decided to get rid of 90 now.
having not looked for a vehicle for 6+ years and blissfully happy in defender until recently (me not it...) what is a reasonable price for a double cab pickup?
the links to hilux above is 10k plus vat for a vehicle from 2003. I would have thought it was only nutter landy enthusiasts who would pay that sort of money....
I also presume theres a hilux premium over L200/ranger/amarok/etc. Having only driven them in very sandy, shitty places, they were reliable but rust was never going to be much of an issue.
pretty much decided to get rid of 90 now.
My back wont be!You’ll be sorry
WB
Depends what you want and what your budget is for a pick up. Top gear ruined the hilux price wise. Yeah you can set it on fire and it’ll still start but it’ll hardly get through an MOT like that. Rusted chassis on MK5’s are a major issue nowadays and it’s not like you can just buy a new chassis like you can for a Landy.
One bonus though, is that whatever over inflated price a pick up is will be offset by the equally over inflated price that your landy will be worth.
Depends what you want and what your budget is for a pick up. Top gear ruined the hilux price wise. Yeah you can set it on fire and it’ll still start but it’ll hardly get through an MOT like that. Rusted chassis on MK5’s are a major issue nowadays and it’s not like you can just buy a new chassis like you can for a Landy.
Replacement engine bought in november was £600, have seen one with 50k more miles for £1500!
Nuts.
precisely!! Was thinking that. I bought it for 4, and have put in abt 6/7k of stuff, replacements, labour. Reckon abt 10k as its solid but needs a new rear door and frankly a paint job. I wouldnt have thought what prices defenders now go for would ever happen.
Replacement engine bought in november was £600, have seen one with 50k more miles for £1500!
Nuts.
not good on bends. I would for the same money get a 360 if you can or a 355. Manual
Skogsmannen
Well-Known Member
One of the issues with reliability on any of the older LR was people thinking they were saving money by buying poor quality cheap spares.
Over the years I've had three tdi defenders and an assortment of D1's, other than the 130, all of them were sub £1500 and none of them were particularly unreliable. If anything we had more mechanical issues with our 'normal' cars at the time and in all of those can only remember having to be recovered once.
When I sold the last one (the 90) a few years ago, it had a genuine 325000 miles on it (original engine/boxes/diffs etc) including one trip where we knocked 6500 miles out in a fortnight, incident free.
Yes, they are agricultural, but they will handle rough use much better than a japanese pickup (Land cruiser excepted!)
Over the years I've had three tdi defenders and an assortment of D1's, other than the 130, all of them were sub £1500 and none of them were particularly unreliable. If anything we had more mechanical issues with our 'normal' cars at the time and in all of those can only remember having to be recovered once.
When I sold the last one (the 90) a few years ago, it had a genuine 325000 miles on it (original engine/boxes/diffs etc) including one trip where we knocked 6500 miles out in a fortnight, incident free.
Yes, they are agricultural, but they will handle rough use much better than a japanese pickup (Land cruiser excepted!)
Crowstalker
Well-Known Member
Truthfully you would be a fool to swap your pickup for a Land rover. They are boaty cramped and sloppy.
A fantastically hilarious sentence of purest BS! Gold!
You really do need to watch the video series above, it's brilliant and actually quite shocking.
I was angry with them for the method they chose to finally try and destroy the Hilux.
Skogsmannen
Well-Known Member
I can only speak from my own experience. 20 years of working in the woods, running vehicles from many different manufacturers (including hilux, landcruiser, patrol, sj, jimny as well as subarus) if i needed a vehicle that I could get the toolbox to a broken down forwarder in the depths of the woods then it would be anl old landrover. If I needed a vehicle to blast down the motorway and thensome light 4x4 work then maybe a jap pickup.
I've yet to see a landrover snap in half, but theres a whole yard full of navaras snapped in the middle near me.
I'm well aware of the video and similar ones.
You can go online and pick any vehicle, rifle, telescope sight etc and you will find videos that praise or deride that product.
look at what happens on this site when someone asks how good or bad are Blasers.
a Ferrari driver will tell you that Porshes are rubbish, I have had no bad experiences with Land Rovers but others have but I have seen a three year old Hilux loose it's rear crossmember when towing a trailer !
look at what happens on this site when someone asks how good or bad are Blasers.
a Ferrari driver will tell you that Porshes are rubbish, I have had no bad experiences with Land Rovers but others have but I have seen a three year old Hilux loose it's rear crossmember when towing a trailer !
You’ve never seen a Land Rover with a rotten chassis?
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