Romance or Madness (of The Long Distance Defender Owner)?

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Retired Member southey

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jun 4, 2006
11,098
13
your house!
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ahh there we go,
 

lannyman8

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Jan 18, 2009
4,005
3
Dark side of the Moon
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my girl and the only 4x4 i would ever have, its abit like bushcraft one you have been bitten thats it........
 
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pete79

Forager
Jan 21, 2009
116
9
In a swamp
I had a couple of old defenders, and I loved 'em. They were ace vehicles. One in particular was amazing; leaked like a seive, cost a shedload in terms of maintenance and fuel, and was so beat up that I couldn't care less if I drove it into a tree. I have switched to an old toyota pickup, and there is no looking back for me. It's reliable, gets really good fuel mileage, is way smaller and less tank-like than my landrovers, and is the guvnor off road. I'm serious when I say that I take this thing into places that I would never consider taking my old landrovers. I rarely ever get this thing stuck, whereas it was almost a weekly event with the defenders.
 

Peter_t

Native
Oct 13, 2007
1,353
2
East Sussex
one thing i never understand is why there is no diff locks on a land rover?
i meen on the axels not the centre diff (imo the centre diff doesn't really count as it has no advantage over a selectable 4wd). im sure it would make them soooo much more capable.

in my mates pinzgauer it has 3 leavers on the dash, one engages the 4wd, one locks the rear diff and the other locks the front. with these you can drive over ditches with no problems and you can engage the leavers on the fly so you don't even need to dip the clutch :D




pete
 
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bilmo-p5

Bushcrafter through and through
Jul 5, 2010
8,168
9
west yorkshire
... 3 leavers on the dash, one engages the 4wd, one locks the rear diff and the other locks the front. with these you can drive over ditches with no problems and you can engage the leavers on the fly so you don't even need to dip the clutch

Never get that one past the Lode Lane Too-Easy panel. ;)
 

EdS

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
beacuase in the desing and run put to the launch of the LR110 in 1983 (90 in 1984) if was felt that the class leading articualtion offered by coils over leafs (that everyone else was using) meant front and rear Difflocks where not needed - to compete with and beat the competion.

And Maggies' governement wanted to keep cost of proping BL down.

Defendes came about in 1990 with the introduction of the 200TDi engine - same vehicle as the 90/110 except engine.
 

Adze

Native
Oct 9, 2009
1,874
0
Cumbria
www.adamhughes.net
one thing i never understand is why there is no diff locks on a land rover?
i meen on the axels not the centre diff (imo the centre diff doesn't really count as it has no advantage over a selectable 4wd). im sure it would make them soooo much more capable.

in my mates pinzgauer it has 3 leavers on the dash, one engages the 4wd, one locks the rear diff and the other locks the front. with these you can drive over ditches with no problems and you can engage the leavers on the fly so you don't even need to dip the clutch :D

pete

Yeah sure... but then again I've just bought a Challenger II which just wastes the Pinzgauer offroad, is faster on road, can drive through buildings and only cost me 15 times as much as the cheapest Pinz on the net.

Come on... get a grip.

Here you go... a realistic comparison:

1993 Defender 90 200 Tdi. Owned since 2006 by me - maintenance costs over and above the service schedule:
Water pump: £32 + 1/2 day to fit
Alternator belt: £6
Clutch Master Cylinder £21 + 1.5 hours to fit + ~500mls of DOT4

1993 Mitsubishi L200. This poor fella owned by it since 2005... read on...L200

Anyone on here got an early 90's plastic fantastic they'd care to share the service record of?
 

johnboy

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Oct 2, 2003
2,258
5
Hamilton NZ
www.facebook.com
Yeah sure... but then again I've just bought a Challenger II which just wastes the Pinzgauer offroad, is faster on road, can drive through buildings and only cost me 15 times as much as the cheapest Pinz on the net.

Come on... get a grip.

Here you go... a realistic comparison:

1993 Defender 90 200 Tdi. Owned since 2006 by me - maintenance costs over and above the service schedule:
Water pump: £32 + 1/2 day to fit
Alternator belt: £6
Clutch Master Cylinder £21 + 1.5 hours to fit + ~500mls of DOT4

1993 Mitsubishi L200. This poor fella owned by it since 2005... read on...L200

Anyone on here got an early 90's plastic fantastic they'd care to share the service record of?

Yep I have a 70 series Landcriuser Prado wagon made in 1993.
I've had it since 2005..

3.0 TD 5 sp manual

All it's had above the normal servicing costs has been a rear wheel bearing a clutch slave cylinder seal kit oh and two new batteries (it has dual batteries and they were the originals so that not too bad).

There is not much plastic on a 70 series...
 

British Red

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Dec 30, 2005
26,715
1,962
Mercia
Twelve year old Landcruiser. One battery, two bulbs, parts costs of about £60. Thats it in over a decade.

It comes with dash controlled diff locks too!
 

British Red

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Dec 30, 2005
26,715
1,962
Mercia
I don't know Adze. I know I bought it under two years old for much less than I could get an equivalent sized and age Defender for. It was my first Jap off roader after years of driving landrovers from Series IIa onwards. so I have a decade of Jap 4x4 driving and more than that of Landrovers. A fair basis for comparison I think.

Purely out of interest - I assume you have owned and driven both for a lomg time too?

Red
 

Adze

Native
Oct 9, 2009
1,874
0
Cumbria
www.adamhughes.net
Japanese 4x4 no, never owned one. Japanese cars, however, yes been there done that with knobs on - I ran MkII Toyota MR2s for the better part of a decade, one domestic one and a grey import turbo (no I don't do blow drying). Sadly, I can no longer afford the astronomical parts prices to keep them on the road so they've gone by the by.

It's a similarly judged reaction to a Japanese 4x4 y'see. For just the same reason I use Insa Turbo Sahara remould tyres instead of genuine Yokohama Geolanders, which is "when I burst one it'll cost me £50 not £150" I'd rather have a car I can fix myself with a hammer, some duct tape and a half decent socket set and some pocket money for parts than go back to the, as I see them, bad old days of £1,000 for a set of tyres and a minimum parts cost of £120 for brake pads. :yikes:
 

johnboy

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Oct 2, 2003
2,258
5
Hamilton NZ
www.facebook.com
Didn't read the question very well then did ye?

Hi Adze,

Im sorry I don't understand?

I thought what you were doing was illustrating that your defender hasn't cost you much to run apart from some minor additional parts.

You were then sort of throwing down the gauntlet to owners of similarly aged 'plastic fantastic' 4wd owners to see if the running costs they had were similar.

I took Plastic fantastic to mean Japanese 4wd's as you said earlier in the thread..

No you wouldn't... you'd be a fool to use anything which has been under maintained. That includes plastic fantastic soluble and disposable pretend 4x4's made in Japan.

Actually that is one thing you can say in favour of japanese 4x4's... the plastic bits and alloy engines don't rust much.

So I thought being the owner of an early 90's 'plastic fantastic' 4wd I'd share my findings on running costs with you. They seem to be more or less the same as your Defender...


So I appologise for not understanding the question...
 

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