Any pointers for someone looking for a RR classic?

When he offers you a job with the right money and nobody more local will offer you any job in your field even for less money. What can you do. Even if I sold the house I couldn't afford a mortgage closer to where the job is.

That does sound like fun.

A lot is going to depend on the roads and traffic. And weather. But forty miles, call it an hour, isn't bad if you can dodge the worst of the local rush-hour. It's not something I'd want to try myself, but it doesn't feel insane.

Good luck, anyway.

Thanks. Once the reality of the fuel usage of a petrol V8 had sunk in, and the "horror stories" of faulty LPG kits, it did put me of them totally, even though a mate swears by them (he does moonlight in various parts of the motor-trade though).

I've even been looking at Ssangyonf Musso and Korando models. I would get the luxury touch, but most of the toys of a Rangie, they appear to need as many spares regularly, but spares supply seems low. The Daewoo badged version get a turbo on the diesels too.

I don't know what to do. I fancy a 4x4, and as a kid in the 70/teen in the 80's, the RR was always the truck of choice. The royals drove them off road for gods sake. Everything else seems wrong somehow. But as a first taste of 4x4 diesel ownership, I can't see how I could go wrong with a Ssanyong that has been well looked after but hit the bottom of the depreciation curve, as a throw away entry. Save the luxury for when I am a little better off.

Stick with the Japanese stuff if you want to go this way - parts are guaranteed to be available. Pretty much any diesel Toyota 4x4 (except the 2.4 turbo ones) will be reliable and cheap to run.

I look after a fleet of Landcruisers and Hiluxs for a civil engineering firm (the only client I kept when I sold my garage) and in the last

1,500,000km covered by the 10 vehicles in the fleet I have done nothing except routine maintenance. Now that the average mileage on the vehicles is getting up a bit I'll have to start replacing front swivel seals and driveshaft UJs but no other failures seem to be looming. Even my own Hilux with 300,000km of abuse behind it has yet to require any serious attention.

Spares availability, and stunning prices, are a major problem in the UK. The average stay for Jap motors in our workshop is over 2 weeks, mostly waiting for parts, and then sending them back to get the right ones - *if* they are available (3 months lead time is not unusual), hence Jap motors rarely stay on the road for more than around 8 to

10 years (a 10 year old Trooper is worth a lift onto the recovery truck, a Hilux tends to have more fibreglass that steel in it's body after around the 7 to 8 year mark, and parts are astronomic , despite a lot of axle components being almost identical to LR ones - particularly the swivel steering arms). Perhaps it's our climate, but Jap motors (off-road variety) are nowhere near as reliable as usually claimed by owners, but that's proably "BMW Syndrome", where owners will never admit to having a problem

- even 2.8 Landcruiser Surf owners! From comments by Antipodean customers, this is probably the exact reverse of the situation over there. LR's Austrailian prices are stupendous and there doesn't seem to be a viable aftermarket operation - it's not LR's fault necesserily though, as Catapillar are reponsible and they seem to be stuggling, to say the least, even in the UK.

Richard

I know, it is M6, M65. That means either busy, fast with suicidal drivers, or sitting somewhere for hours waiting for a suicidal driver to be shifted. I know I want something more comfortable than a rep mobile to be stranded in.

I had a Celica GT4. It worked out cheaper and far quicker to put on a Mongoose stainless sports exhaust than replace a middle section from Toyota in Mild. Was about 3 weeks quicker, if it made it onto the container too.

I always replaced parts with tuning or motorsport parts. Toyota stuff is quality, but it doesn't always have the precission that some handmade motorsport stuff does, or extra material added to weak spots to increase the part life.

That's strange - IME the Jap manufacturers sorted the corrosion problems fairly well by the late 1980's. Parts availability is obviously a problem in the UK and I don't really understand why - on the (very rare) occasion I need parts ex-Japan the lead time is stated as 10 days and they normally arrive in 3 days or so. I'm was aware of a few examples of interesting pricing for Jap parts in the UK but hadn't realised it was the norm - from a quick check this morning it appears that any part I price locally in NZ$ (NZ$3 = £1) will be priced at the same number of pounds in the UK so you're paying 3 times the price. Maybe there's a business opening for me exporting Jap 4x4 parts to the UK (are you listening Richard).

LR's prices here were totally stupid for a long time but have got somewhat better over the last few years, but they have never really offered support for anything except current model vehicles - ordering Series parts from them has always resulted in much laughter and zero results. I don't believe that Cat are looking after the parts here - I think LR is represented by a private company who do all of that themselves which is just as well - Cat were recently unable to supply a drive belt for a brand new engine they had fitted to a truck 3 months earlier.

Milner have got that covered, and anyway I'm not into Jap motors. With new models coming out every 20 mins keeping up with LR is a full-time job!

It will be Catapillar, but possibly with local distribution subbed out.

Richard

Series and Classic Range Rover parts are still looked after by Unipart AFAIK, perhaps you should try ordering direct from them?

Martin

I don't believe that Cat are looking after the parts here - I

From past experience shipping a few parts to the UK I can make a passable profit and still beat Milner's prices by a fair bit.

Most likely - Cat don't actually have an NZ presence of their own so anything is possible.

I think they have a distribution agreement with one of the local places, who charge like wounded bulls. I can probably buy at retail off Beamends, pay the freight and still save a fair bit.

Unipart do most RRC and Discovery I up to the end of 200Tdi - the "Classic Scheme". They are good, but slow - lead time is 4 days. Defender and Series are Catapillar - their record so far is 15 weeks

- excluding Not-At-All, we've had some (admittedly obscure) parts on back-order for well over six months.

Richard

On or around Sat, 06 Jan 2007 12:52:41 +1300, EMB enlightened us thusly:

The world's an odd place sometimes. some of the things I sell I can buy retail from America for the same price as wholesale here. And they *come* from Germany!

I've a theory that I can import them from Germany, mind. Just need to get the cash together for a decent sized order. The supplier in Germany is willing to talk discounts on bulk orders...