Changing 4x4

I know this is a Landrover group and so I am supposed to be biased towards them...but I will be impartial!

Having driven our work Mitsi L200 pickup & Nissan Teranno (3.0 Litre Diesel) and my own Defender 90 (that is 10 years older!!!) I would consider it to be a very easy decision.

Go buy a Defender, however old - Consider a 200Tdi and a 300Tdi as the same engine - technically they are not but as far as driving them is concerned they are. Both are very easy to work on yourself. TD5s are more refined, a bit more powerful, and will need a trip to a garage should anything ECU related crop up, they are also a bit more expensive!

For me the deciding factors are these: 1. A defender has 4 coil springs, most of the others dont and this make a massive difference to the road manners and also helps on the off-road stuff. 2. Engine torque - Defenders have bags of it low down so driving them is very relaxed. The Japense offerings tend to have big turbos on old designed engines, once they are spinning they are OK but waiting for it to cut in around town can be painful.

The only downside to a Defender is this - they are not as high geared as either a Disco or the Japanese offerings so arent as fast on the road and / or engin noise is greater for an equivelant speed in the others. This though is easily resolved, buy a TDi rather than a TD5 and with the money you save, take a trip to Ashcrofts and have the gearing altered in the Transfer box.

M'mm... that means there are no disadvantages to a Defender.

Buy a Defender, he will grow to love it and it will rot away before he chooses to sell it and still be worth more than a Jap effort!

Re-reading above it seems as though I have lost my impartiality somewhere along the way...Defenders Rock!

Just my two-penneth! Jon

well, a diesel defender's mpg would be around 20. a disco would be a little higher, maybe in the 25-30mpg kind of area. the various pick uos are not much better, also averaging about the same as a disco.

~hope this helps~ Rob

In message , Jon writes

What sort of mpg should he expect with a diesel Defender? I get about

23mpg with my old 2.25 petrol, but he does alternate between driving in London and trips to the Lake District. He also drives in, shall we say, a rather younger style than I do. How would a Defender and Disco compare at a steady 70?

His Jeep has leather, aircon, all the works. My old, much-loved 110 has unpowered steering, and no modern appointments such as headlining, although the spiders are knitting a rather fine replacement. I'm not certain he (or perhaps his lady friends) could cope with the culture shock.

Thanks!

Bill, you cant do anything about the culture shock!!

As for mpg - you can reliably get as little as about 19mpg if you drive it hard and silly but if you drive them in your socks at no more than 65-70ish you should reach about 30mpg.

Jon

Hi, the defender below is an early Tdi does average about 28mpg, I keep trying to work out what sort of difference between motorway crusing and windy little roads but haven't really got an answer, I don't fill up accurately enough for that. Does 70 fine on the motorway, isn't quite as noisy as its predecessors but not by much, nosier than a disco.

Regards

Alistair

In article , V890 writes

An average of around 20mpg on a defender would be low enough to indicate either a lot of towing or low gear work or fast motorway driving. Other users average as high as 30mpg. I've averaged about 28mpg overall on 110 station Wagon. I used to average 18.5mpg on my old 2.25 Petrol Series lll LWB SW. I'd be very disappointed with 20mpg on a 200/300TDi Defender.

Not sure about defender, but I have recently done a 2000 mile journey touring Scotland. Had a mixture of motorway 60-80mph and twisting hilly sightseeing roads. Kept accurate records and averaged 27mpg in an auto Discovery TD5.

Martin

04 Disco TD5 86 RRC 3.5 EFI 88 RRC 3.5 EFI

Hi, Who has got money to spare! My son rides around in an old Astra and is just grateful to be insured and on the road. When your paying over a Grand insurance who gives a Toss about MPG and Image. If your worried about MPG get a small car not a 4X4.. Put a tenners worth in and when it runs out put another tenners worth in(unless your off on a day trip then twenty quids worth) that's how it works up here in Yorkshire sod the mileage. Clip him round the lug and tell him to be grateful for what he's got is the best answer.

Adrian Ford

In message , Adrian Ford writes

I'm very grateful for all the contributions but I will exclude the old Astra when I average out the mpg's. It's worth saying perhaps that my son has served his time. He and I have been hammer in hand as the tide came in at the end of a tidal causeway with his Panda 4x4 and a stuck starter motor. I think in the end we risked the hands going through the rust and pushed.

I'm so old that he has now reached the age where he needs a reliable, capable vehicle. His work involves the hills, the trailer and the M1 runs, and when he hit single figure mpg's and had to do a lot of local miles he started to notice the number of tenners he was using.

The info so far has been just what I hoped for. I can now give him a serious talking to when he rings on Sunday.

Which engine are we talking about - the 2.5TD probably does around

24-25 mpg, a 200/300Tdi would be around 28/30 mpg - in 175,00 miles I not noticed much difference between thrashing it on the motorway (90 mph) or delivering round the Peaks lanes. Discovery's seem to do around 1-3 more mpg, but would appear more sensitive to driving style, and the auto seems to be quite a lot thirstier.

As for the original post - comparing Defender to the Jeep is not a straight comparison - Jeep to Discovery is more so. The Discovery has far more room inside - who knows, he may even be able to dispense with the trailer (assuming it not for cannoe's or something).

Street cred? That's go to be Defender - even Clarkson and co. rate it as coolest ride (though I'm not sure thats ncesserily a Good Thing).

Richard

In message , beamendsltd writes

30 mountain bikes. The reason he was looking at the Mitsubishi thing was that he thought it might take some bikes for smaller trips and dispense with the trailer. Often the trailer is towed by an accompanying minibus, but the Jeep has been essential as a general sort of transport/rescue vehicle. None of this is his real job, just a part-time activity. It's very worthwhile and rewarding, but to him costly. At 80% tax, 9mpg is a killer. Don't start me off about chauffeur driven ministers thinking they will swan along the multi-occupancy car lanes, leaving people doing real things paying more and more tax to fund a European satellite system as they sit in the resulting queues.

I know very little about these Jap pickups, not even whether they have low-range or not. He seems quite keen on this, but my gut feeling is that he should be thinking Disco instead.

We know about the failings of the Jeep eg not even room for a proper spare wheel. We also know that I feel as if I've done a real journey when I drive across Wales and back in my pre-Defender 110.

I am getting measurements of about 28 MPG from my Fearns intercooler equipped 300Tdi Defender, sometimes it's come up as close to 40 MPG I can't quite believe that.

If he's style conscious, what could be better than a ragtop defender with big black rollover bars driven around roofless in the summer! It's better than a bodykitted Nova at any rate...

yes obviously, it depends on the type on engine, the reason i said what i said for a diesel defender is cos i run a petrol V8 in mine, so i know for a fact mine does 15 mpg when on the road, and 12 when offroading using massive cluch openings....

As a continental driver ( Def 90 , TD5 , 2004 ) I can give you the following figures:

- up to 100 km/h : 10 litres ( per 100km )

- beyond : 13 litres

The Def does 130 km/h max , but gets very noisy beyond 100 km/h ; acceleration is surprisingly good , as is behaviour on road ! Off road : excellent . So , the only "negatives" I experienced : noisy at higher speed, very difficult to get the interior to warm , a few drops of water coming in from somewhere in the front . Done 27 000 km in 2 y , and loved it !

All the best ! h

V890 wrote: