Which Landie?

[morch]

I'm giving serious thought to gettin rid of my Jeep Grand Cherokee and gettin a 2nd hand Landie . I'll probably go up to about £5k, and would be very grateful for advice on which model, year etc. I'd be lookin at diesel, and it must be able to carry 5 and 2 dogs, although hardly ever at the same time. Fuel consumption for a diesel would be? Wouldn't be interested in a disco, so does that only leave a 90 or a defender? Any comments / suggestions would be great.

Cheers in advance.

Dave

 

[flibb]

If you are going to be doing a lot of mileage on road dont bother with a defender (90 or 110), especially if you are going to be carrying 5 people over long distances. They are designed primarily as a farm vehicle wih seats shoved in as an after thought. They are great as work vehicles and the odd familly outing, incredible off road carrying equipment but not great as a car. If you are mainly doing on road stuff, with the odd bit around farms, discovery or classic range rover would be better. We use a variety of land rovers including series 2a's, 3s, a 110csw and a classic range rover (untill recently). The driving experence is the defenders is great for thos up front, but pretty bad for those in the back over long distances. The classic rangy on the other hand is incredible off road, has loads of space for kit and dogs, plus 5 people. You can get diesel ones, but its worth checking out LPG conversions as you get good miles per £, plus the joy of a V8.

 

[flibb]

There is another option just about in your budget, and my personal favourite

Land Rover 101 forward control

 

[bushwacker bob]

Range Rover.
Although I have just got a disco to replace mine.
RR or Disco's can do pretty much every thing that a series or defender can do with the addition of COMFORT.
And here here to what Flibb said.

 

[Jjv110]

Hi Dave,

I cannot agree with Flibb about what he says about 90s or 110s for long distance.
True, the 90 does bounce around a little when on the road, but it is still comfortable, and excellent off road. It would be difficult to beat it. The 110, however does not bounce around due to the extra weight and I think it is brilliant for long distances. I have travelled extensively through Europe many times and I don't find any discomfort. Obviously a later model Range Rover would be more comfortable, but for £5000, I'm not sure what you'll get.
I do agree about the 101, however. These are amazing vehicles, but very expensive to run. A V8 diesel transplant would be nice.

I think the most practical option would be a 110. The engine should be either 200 or 300 Tdi. These are both reliable engines and when cruising will give you 30 mpg. There are some 300 Tdis that had problems with their timing belts and had to be modified, so be careful. With either of the engines, you must make sure you find out when the last cam belt change was. If you're not sure, change it. They say every 72,000 for the 200 and every 60,000 for the 300, but I do mine every 35,000 miles.
Some of them have covered many miles and might put you off, but most of them will have done close to 100,000. Mine is on double that and I intend to go to 500,000!(engine only), other parts will have to be renewed.
The rear seats in the 110 don't give you much leg room, but there is so much potential to build it to your spec.
The things to look out for are rust on the bulk head, chassis and rear cross member. You can get repair parts but you shouldn't need them if the owner has looked after the vehicle. A lot of the handling problems are due to nothing but worn trackrod ends and worn bushes which are minor jobs and transform the feel when repaired.
You should be able to get a good ex Army Land Rover for £3500 but it will only be 2.5 diesel with no turbo. A good engine but a bit slow. An Army Land Rover, though, would make an excellent base vehicle for which to create your own multi purpose utility wagon.
If you don't know it, then this is a good place to gain any information :
www.difflock.com
Good luck in your search and I hope you enjoy many miles with your 110.
Cheers, Julian.

 

[flibb]

My point about the 110 and 90 is that they are great for the driver, but not so great for the people in the back. Many defender drivers havent spent a lot of time in the back seats to see how bad it is, tonbridge to billing was enough for me (100 miles). The leg space thing in the mid seats on a csw is very limited, its ok for kids but adults on a long journey its going to cripple them. Things can be done about it, but for £5K you are pushing it, RR or disco would be a better bet for the money.

It all depends what you want the vehicle for, if its carrying stuff and the odd trip with more people = defender. If its mainly carrying people with the odd farm bit = range rover / disco. Disco and RR will go most places a defender will, but the defender will go to other places carry you, your 12 mates (in discomfort) and tow a couple of ton in the trailer. And finally the 101 FC gets you there 20+ mates, and an anti aircraft missile system.

 

[addyb]

Or, you can do what I did, and purchase a Lada Niva 4x4. Laugh all you want at it being Russian, but I've seen these things do utterly AMAZING things off roading.

http://www.4wdonline.com/Lada/Lada.html

If you can, try to get a '96 or newer. It's fuel injected, as apposed to a carb. Engine's got a tad more power, too.

 

[mojofilter]

I swapped a speedboat for a Range Rover Classic about a month ago and I really like it! It is a '93 Vogue TDi with 200k on it but it is pretty sound and drives well. I would rather have had a Defender or even a good Series III, but there is no denying that the Rangie is a better road vehicle. It is slightly sloppy, but nothing that a set of polybushes (if and when I can be bothered) wouldn't sort. Not too bad when you consider the boat was worth about £1700, I have had 2 offers of £2500 already! I must admit that it isn't my primary mode of transport though.

I've not had the chance to get off road yet, but I believe they are quite capable.

 

[havingagiraffe]

Try to borrow a Defender for a long journey before committing to buy. The novelty can wear off very quickly. Either you'll like it or you won't. I absolutely love them, but I'm not blind to their patchy build quality, poor ergonomics, claustrophobic cab, bouncy ride, great thirst and low power to weight ratio. Bear in mind that there's a world of difference between long wheelbase and short wheelbase. I've had a few of each and can never decide if it's worth sacrificing the space of an LWB 110" for the agility of an SWB 90". I did buy a Discovery (100" wheelbase) as a compromise but soon got bored of it - more smiles per mile in a Defender.

You should get a cracking 300 Tdi Defender for five large, especially if you go for the less sought after LWB version.

The Tdi's the one to go for. 12J and 19J diesels are underpowered, and the complex TD5 has reliability issues.

Or you could be sensible and go Japanese.....

 

[morch]

Thanks for all your comments n suggestions. I will be doing maybe two journeys a week of say 100 miles, and apart from that, will be mostly trips of under 50 miles. More often than not, it will be just me and the dogs, but i pick up my kids every weekend so they will be with me. There won't be much serious off road work either. I'm only changing the Jeep cos i'm getting sick of putting fuel in (its the 4 litre petrol) and i find it a totally boring drive.

 

[j.roberts7]

Series 3

Reasons Why

Cheap To Buy, Take Dents Well, Easy To Fix In The Field, And Should Still Get Most Of Your Cash Back Aswell If Yer Sell On Later, Plus Lots Of Parts Are Still Made For Them Very Cheap

 

[demographic]

Got a mate with a 110 gas converted,Rover V8 engined landy.

Seems to do the trick and no slouch either

Don't even get me started on Land Rovers with metalic paint

IMO a landy should be pre dented from the factory so you never get that "my first scratch/dent" worry and have matt paint. The ones with spotless metalic paint are the ones that do the shopping run to Tescos.

 

[havingagiraffe]

My point about the 110 and 90 is that they are great for the driver, but not so great for the people in the back. Many defender drivers havent spent a lot of time in the back seats to see how bad it is, tonbridge to billing was enough for me (100 miles). The leg space thing in the mid seats on a csw is very limited, its ok for kids but adults on a long journey its going to cripple them.

Lack of legroom is only an issue until the lotus is mastered.

Faces blurred to protect the guilty.

I'll get my coat.......

A friend of mine replaced the three person benches in the rear of his 110 CSW with 2 person benches from a 90 and shifted the centre row seats back and up with brackets made from 1/4" mild steel plate. It might be more efficient to relocate the battery under the rear wheel arch and replace the front seat box with a flat floor and a tubular frame to support the front seats. That way, the passengers in the centre row could put their feet under the front seats in the space originally taken up by the seat box.

Landies definitely look better with a few battle scars - A Landy without dents clearly hasn't been used properly.....that's what the salesman who sold me my battered Defender told me anyway.....

 

[lou1661]

Depending on how many people you need to carry you can always change the seats my 110 csw has had the second row taken out and a pair of disco front seats put in, i can carry less people but in better comfort.

 

[markw]

Hi,

Try blanchards in Yorkshire. Got my SWB ex military WOLF from them, havn't look back since.


Try: P.A. Blanchard & Company
Clay Lane,
Shiptonthorpe,
York
YO43 3PU
United Kingdom

Telephone:
01430 872765

Facsimile:
01430 872777
Email:
sales@pablanchard.co.uk

Regards,


Mark

 

[baggins]

Hi Morch,
funnilly enough, i'm just about to sell my landy, probably a bit far for you to come but will try and post some pics for you (and anybody else whose interested).
It's a 110 turbo diesel, a commercial (only 3 doors) but with rear benchseats and some rear windows as well. its got a high mileage but the engine had a major overhaul last year and pulls like a train. Loads of new bits and pieces and off road gear as well. it has 160k on the clock (not bad for an e reg) and i'm asking £3800 for it. (will sell it to bcuk members for less as everyone here has been so helpful and friendly). swmbo has just gotten rid of her car so now we need one between us and that she would prefer a disco, so i've bitten the bullet and agreed.
This is my 5th landy and i don't think i could be happy with anything else, even with lr's many foibles and excenticities.
Hope you find one
pm me if anyone is interested

 

[chrisvreugd]

I'm also looking for a good vehicle, it has to be cheap, 4WD, using less diesel/benzene, doesn't have to be comfortable... any ideas?

 

[havingagiraffe]

I'm also looking for a good vehicle, it has to be cheap, 4WD, using less diesel/benzene, doesn't have to be comfortable... any ideas?

A cheap uncomfortable economical 4x4? It has to be a Suzuki SJ Jeep. Preferably one of the later ones with wider axles which are less prone to toppling over. Unfortunately, there's no factory diesel engine option on these cars, so you'll struggle with wet ignition in deep water. Also, petrol's a bit of a fire hazard and less widely available in developing countries if you have expedition use in mind. It's possible to replace the Suzuki petrol engine with a Peugeot 1.9 turbo intercooled diesel motor, which gives incredible performance in a straight line, but does the handling no favours when cornering.

Also,see these threads:

http://www.bushcraftuk.com/community/showthread.php?t=7763

http://www.bushcraftuk.com/community/showthread.php?t=2723

http://www.bushcraftuk.com/community/showthread.php?t=1976

 

[Spacemonkey]

What's wrong with the Cherry Grand?
You say it's thirsty, well so would a Rangey etc, so why not get an LPG conversion for £1500-2000? With the ever rising cost of diesel it would work out much cheaper to run. You say boring to drive? Well I think Landies would be the same, unless you are a masochist and enjoy the discomfort.

On a different tack, please could any Landie fans check out my Freeloader thread. Ta!!

 

[morch]

What's wrong with the Cherry Grand?

Theres nothing wrong with the Cherry really. I got it before i moved to Cumbria, and i've being doing some dry stone walling work as well as some logging, and it just seems a shame to ruin it by having stones and chain saws rattling around the inside. I thought that the rear of say a 110 would handle the abuse better. As for economy, i average 22 mph (4 litre petrol) and don't really like the idea of a tank full of LPG (stupid i know)