1. Home
  2. Land Rover 4WD vehicles
  3. OT Any advice?

OT Any advice?

Two questions so I can talk sensibly to my son about this.

First, for someone who just drives a mile or two each morning, does a diesel drink fuel like a choke-ridden petrol engine does when cold?

Second, can anyone give any advice about whether or not to look seriously at an R reg Subaru Forester for sale locally?

Here's the story. Son has a 4litre auto Jeep Cherokee, also R reg. For the past couple of years he has used it for heavy long distance towing of a trailer full of mountain bikes, and for assisting other vehicles that get stuck on the mountains. A colleague of his broke his spine and is now totally disabled. The Jeep has been used to take him to and from Stoke Mandaville hospital since his discharge, and has been fine because of the high seating and easy access, plus the relative comfort. The colleague has now got an adapted van for his wheelchair, so now my son just drives to his home (about 2 miles) and takes over the van. The need for the bike towing has now gone away since he has started to use a fleet of Transits. He is on the edge of London, so the congestion taxes are an issue as well as the mpg he is getting - between 10 and 15 - with these small mileages. Add to which the Jeep agents are unbelievably hopeless, carrying no spares, and reliability has been a bit poor eg 3 water pumps in the last 2 years and a bang on the way home from a gearbox sensor repair turning out to be a loose nut left inside the gearbox. He has decided he can't afford to keep the Jeep any longer, but he wants something a bit 'good'.

I've just looked today at a Subaru Forester here at the other end of the country that looks in good condition. Can anyone here say how good or bad these are for spares and costs of repairs? It's a petrol version. I've only ever heard good things about them, but he always tells me how poor he is, so I don't want to suggest something that is as bad as the Jeep.

Reply to
Bill
Loading thread data ...

A friend of mine has a medium-sized farm and used a Scooby (a Forester or similar - I wasn't really looking) as a Land Rover substitute. It got all manner of abuse, from bouncing round the fields to hammering up and down rough tracks, checking stock, shooting parties the lot. I don't know if he did any maintenance, but the interior had never seen a vac or cleaning cloth. Bought s/h with high miles. When it died, he went straight out and got another. (And he is *mean* - as in tightwad.) Proof, pudding etc.

Reply to
Rich B

A diesel doesn't need a choke, one of the reasons it is more efficient - it uses the same amount of fuel when running cold as hot.

Matt

Reply to
Matthew Maddock

Ones with engine management ECU's & common rail can have complex fuel strategies, for cold start, crusing, economy, power etc etc using the on-injector sensors and solenoids. The Lucas (now Delphi) Diesels unit fitted to a lot of trucks (e.g Volvo) do all sorts of tricks for cold starts, and indeed cruising (each injector is turned off for one "go" in a rotating cycle that eliminates crankshft whip - saving about

15-20% fuel on a 12L 6-cylinder engine at 56mph) - that sort of thing. That was a few years back, I'd expect car engines to be doing similar now. I seem to remember the Td5 has a cold start strategey, but I wasn't directly involved with that and it was a while back. I can't see warm-up time being hugely significant ony any modern engine (except interms of heating the coolant to get the heater going!), particularly since very high compression engines warm up very quickly

- modern diesels don't have glow plugs - just turn the engine over twice with no fuel (or sometimes just a bit, but not enough to fire) and it's as warm as a glow plug would get it - that's why some diesels can seem a bit slow to start.

Richard

Reply to
BeamEnds

Well no, but, chokes went out with carbs. Fuel injection has been standard for many years, cold start enrichment is taken care of in various ways, but not by chokes.

The wife's friend has one and uses it to pull her horsebox. It's an S reg auto and she's had it for years. When she first got it I told her it would be a pile of trouble with huge repair costs. I was wrong, it's been very reliable indeed. I don't know about repair costs because it hasn't needed anything other than routine service.

Julian.

Reply to
Julian

That's not totally true. For instance when and engine is cold it will suffer more drag from cold viscous lubricating oil, this has to be overcome, petrol or Diesel, same problem.

Julian.

Reply to
Julian

My WRX was UTTERLY faultless in 3 years of serious driving & I mean SERIOUS driving. Best all round car i ever owned. The MPG was a bit shit at 20, but the smile was just like riding the fastest bike with sensible pants on! I know the WRX is a performance car, but normally they are the ones that are hard work.

I would easily recommend a Subaru to anyone, get the Turbo version, not the farmer version though.

Reply to
Nige

BTW, boxer engine too! I sit on the bMW bike & you can actually feel the pistons moving side to side!! It's great. They even sound ace.

Reply to
Nige

Nige uttered summat worrerz funny about:

Nah, thats a buckled wheel :-) what ya drinking?

Lee D

Reply to
Lee_D

As opposed to my sisters which was nothing but HUGE repair bills throughout the time she had it, and was glad to get rid of the damn thing!

Matt

Reply to
Matthew Maddock

MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.