4x4's - what are the options ?

[monkey_pork]

Hmm, in a couple of months my 405 estate will fail it's MOT.
Depending on how just badly it fails depends on what happens next. It's a '92 turbo diesel with 212k on it, and it's been fantastically reliable, costs almost nothing to run, carries loads of stuff, is big enough to sleep in, and annoys most of my friends because it's old, high mileage, very muddy and I keep it going almost entirely out of devilment ... but it sucks once the surface gets a bit sketchy - (ok, I know new shock's would help no end), but I rather fear that this years MOT failure may stretch the entertainment value just that bit too far this time - so I'm wondering what to replace it with.

I only poke about locally'ish (maybe 20 - 60 miles a day), I only occasionally do longer trips, say 200 miles (and I'll hire a car if I need to go further) and some of that will be start-stop town stuff tho - especially in the summer when the traffic builds up. I need something big enough to be a basecamp (including sleeping in sometimes), carry different things (bicycles, canoes, surfboards, timber, logging tools, fencing panels etc), I'm not too bothered about rear passengers, usually it's only me +1, with occasionally a couple more people, so it'll probably spend 95% of it's time with no rear seating of any kind.

Two things discourage me from a 405/406 sized vehicle - one is that I need more room, and the other ... is that I'd like something that could reliably handle green lanes, floods, and wet or soft ground. Nice, (big even) sizewise, (but not so good offraod) would be a panel van, like a Transit, or a Transporter, but being desirous of some offroad ability, it's looking increasingly like a LR110 on a 200 engine is the way to go, but whilst I'm still looking - are there any other suggested diesel alternatives of that kinda size (upto about £4K) ?

Thanks !

 

[running bare]

do you know that transits come in 4 x 4? also vw did 4 x 4 panel vans called syncro's? just a thought if you want to keep your options open.

tom

 

[bilko]

Hi Monkey Pork
What about a suburu Forester?
Have a look on autorader.co.uk, there are some with Fsh for under 4k and they go off road.

 

[Spacemonkey]

Dude, what about the Jap Import 4x4 mpv's that are based on small vans such as the Toyota Space Cruiser or Mitsubishi Delica?
The ones form late 80's/early 90's can be had for £1-1500 and come very well equipped with leccy everything, aircon, and removable seats in the rear so you can use it as a van, or on most the seats fold flat to make a bed. And some have 4 wheel drive.

Send a pm to Pumbaa as I believe he had an H reg Mitsy Delica 4wd up for grabs quite cheap, which is based on the Mitsy L300 van dumped on the Shogun chassis. Not bad... and he's only over the hills in Dorset...

 

[running bare]

Hi Monkey Pork
What about a suburu Forester?
Have a look on autorader.co.uk, there are some with Fsh for under 4k and they go off road.

i would be dubious of vehicles like the forester as they have a very limited ground clearance for serious off roading.

tom

 

[Ogri the trog]

I just love my Isuzu Trooper,
2H, 4H & 4L manual box, 3.1 turbo diesel engine that has done 185K and still sounds sweet, 7 seats if needed or room for 3 people and 2 goats or 5 people and 6 bails of hay.
It'll go anywhere, starts every time and suits me to my roots.

Ogri the trog

 

[bushman (Instructor)]

Hmm, in a couple of months my 405 estate will fail it's MOT.
Depending on how just badly it fails depends on what happens next. It's a '92 turbo diesel with 212k on it, and it's been fantastically reliable, costs almost nothing to run, carries loads of stuff, is big enough to sleep in, and annoys most of my friends because it's old, high mileage, very muddy and I keep it going almost entirely out of devilment ... but it sucks once the surface gets a bit sketchy - (ok, I know new shock's would help no end), but I rather fear that this years MOT failure may stretch the entertainment value just that bit too far this time - so I'm wondering what to replace it with.

I only poke about locally'ish (maybe 20 - 60 miles a day), I only occasionally do longer trips, say 200 miles (and I'll hire a car if I need to go further) and some of that will be start-stop town stuff tho - especially in the summer when the traffic builds up. I need something big enough to be a basecamp (including sleeping in sometimes), carry different things (bicycles, canoes, surfboards, timber, logging tools, fencing panels etc), I'm not too bothered about rear passengers, usually it's only me +1, with occasionally a couple more people, so it'll probably spend 95% of it's time with no rear seating of any kind.

Two things discourage me from a 405/406 sized vehicle - one is that I need more room, and the other ... is that I'd like something that could reliably handle green lanes, floods, and wet or soft ground. Nice, (big even) sizewise, (but not so good offraod) would be a panel van, like a Transit, or a Transporter, but being desirous of some offroad ability, it's looking increasingly like a LR110 on a 200 engine is the way to go, but whilst I'm still looking - are there any other suggested diesel alternatives of that kinda size (upto about £4K) ?

Thanks !

I have a disco which i took all the rear seats out. You can pick one up for about £1500 in a 200 tdi which will run on just about any type of waist treated chip oil
also you get more mph. be warned do not use perfectly ok new vegie oil as it does not carry VAT duty that is why it only cost 37p a liter as it would be illegal

 

[running bare]

I have a disco which i took all the rear seats out. You can pick one up for about £1500 in a 200 tdi which will run on just about any type of waist treated chip oil
also you get more mph. be warned do not use perfectly ok new vegie oil as it does not carry VAT duty that is why it only cost 37p a liter as it would be illegal

for information purposes only. do you not have to put additives in or do you mix it with diesel in a particular ratio?

 

[havingagiraffe]

for information purposes only. do you not have to put additives in or do you mix it with diesel in a particular ratio?

You're absolutely right, running a vehicle on untaxed veg oil is illegal. However, the fuel is legal for road use if you declare your use of veg oil to the customs and excise people who will tax you accordingly. Veg oil is much easier to spot than gas oil (red diesel) because your car's exhaust fumes will smell like a chip pan if used neat, or like meat burning if diluted with diesel. From an environmental point of view, this is probably still better than the fumes emmitted by a car running on fossil fuel.

Some engines are fussier than others. Vegetable oil is a lot thicker than diesel oil, and can cause problems when forced through pump and injectors designed for a less viscous fluid. We used to sell a lot of injecton pumps to people who experimented with neat unthinned veg oil when the idea first became popular . Most diesel engines will run happily on a fifty fifty mix in warm weather and a eighty-twenty mix of diesel to veg oil in the winter. Other dilutants include parraffin, white spirits, or even petrol . Some will run on neat veg oil all year round. German cars with Bosch pumps seem to cope better than British cars with Lucas CAV pumps. Modern diesels like the Land Rover Td5 and Ford TDCi don't like veg oil at all.

It's possible to reduce the veg oil's viscosity by heating it before it hits the pump - this can be as simple as wrapping a hose from the car's cooling system around the fuel line. A neater solution would be to buy a heated filter as fitted to some Peugeots. However, there's still a risk that the oil could cool in the injectors and pump when the car's parked and make restarting difficult. Some people fit twin tanks and a changeover tap in the fuel lines so they can flush the veg oil from the system by running on diesel for a few minutes before turning the engine off. Even if the oil's viscosity is reduced to that of diesel it will still cause deposits to build up on the injectors in the long term as it doesn't burn as cleanly as modern highly refined diesel with all of its detergents. This would take us back to the days of a de-coke top end rebuild every few years.

On balance, I think veg oil's a great idea for a banger which has 20-30,000 miles left before it's going to the scrapyard anyway, but not such a good idea in an expensive diesel which you plan on keeping long term.

Apart from the legal issue, I wouldn't chance it in my old 200 Tdi Landy because I don't want to compromise the engine's longevity. But I'd love to hear from other BCUKers who've used veg oil long term ( ie exclusively for 100,000 miles plus) who could convince me otherwise.

Anyone know anything about bio-diesel? That's another kettle of fish altogether.

 

[EdS]

I run my 2.5 td 90 on biodiesel from recycled veg oil. There is a difference between biodiesel and straight veg oil (SVO)

However with a 200Tdi it would be fine on both. Only thing is on SVO you would have to fit a prehater to the fuel line to thin it and a put it in a seperate tank so you can run on diese lto warm up.

In the long run SVO is not as economic if you stay legal as Customs and Excise have changed the rules. SVO is now deemed to be a fuel replacement rather than a biofuel. As a result it carries 47pence/litre tax little normal diesel as oppossed to 27pence for biofuel (duty on the these is cheap as cost more to make). There a several cases being started at the moment re: this change.

 

[EdS]

forgot. Check out:

http://forum.difflock.com/cgi-bin/discus/discus.cgi

type in biodiesel in the search bit - loads of articles

 

[havingagiraffe]

I run my 2.5 td 90 on biodiesel from recycled veg oil. There is a difference between biodiesel and straight veg oil (SVO)

However with a 200Tdi it would be fine on both. Only thing is on SVO you would have to fit a prehater to the fuel line to thin it and a put it in a seperate tank so you can run on diese lto warm up.

In the long run SVO is not as economic if you stay legal as Customs and Excise have changed the rules. SVO is now deemed to be a fuel replacement rather than a biofuel. As a result it carries 47pence/litre tax little normal diesel as oppossed to 27pence for biofuel (duty on the these is cheap as cost more to make). There a several cases being started at the moment re: this change.

Good information. :You_Rock_

 

[Beer Monster]

Anyone had any experience with LPG conversions ? A mate of mine is having his Landie converted at the mo.

You could buy a LR 101FC and convert it to a 4x4 campervan . Get the right year and you won't have to pay road tax, get it converted to LPG and it'll be cheap to run! ....... oh and get power steering fitted ......... not sure what parking in town would be like !

See here.

 

[havingagiraffe]

Anyone had any experience with LPG conversions ? A mate of mine is having his Landie converted at the mo.

You could buy a LR 101FC and convert it to a 4x4 campervan . Get the right year and you won't have to pay road tax, get it converted to LPG and it'll be cheap to run! ....... oh and get power steering fitted ......... not sure what parking in town would be like !

See here.

My mate had his Discovery converted to LPG and it was rubbish. It was a proper insurance approved conversion. Power and economy were down, and it used to backfire under acceleration if it had been left ticking over for more than a few minutes. He took it back under warranty but they couldn't get it to work properly. Despite this experience with LPG, he replaced it with a BMW, then a Volvo, both with LPG conversions already fitted. These were much better - power and economy were slightly down when running on gas but the cheaper running costs made it worthwhile. The moral of the story is to check whoever's doing the conversion has actually worked on your model before - I think my mate's Disco served as their R&D mule.

A 101" on LPG would be very tasty. On half price fuel 12mpg would become 24mpg - not far short of the 28-30mpg my Defender Tdi manages.

 

[Goose]

I had a look at a landrover a couple of years ago,think it was a discovery, good price looked ideal for us the salesman told us it was lpg converted, even better I thought!
Then I looked properly the LPG tank was in the boot and left no room whatsoever, couldnt even fold down the little side seats or put the dog in the back!
Like the 101 camper idea, always wondered if you could make a stalwart camper,that would be a machine!

 

[monkey_pork]

Hmm, thanks for all of the replies here - lots to read up on yet I feel.

I had completely forgotten about those mutant 4wd transits ...

Interesting comments on the LPG conversions too - I had kinda thought about an ex-MOD V8 on LPG, but don't really know what the fuel availability is like yet - something else to read up on.

Cheers,

Mark

 

[Beer Monster]

Interesting comments on the LPG conversions too - I had kinda thought about an ex-MOD V8 on LPG, but don't really know what the fuel availability is like yet - something else to read up on.

LPG is widely available on the continent and is increasing in frequency across here. Here is a list of filling stations that have LPG (sorted by county). There are 29 in Devon ....... I must admit I didn't realise all the BP stations had it available!