I'm in the process of buying my first land rover (always wanted one). I'm struggling to find non biased advice. I've been searching on ebay/ autotrader etc and am surprised at how expensive (comparatively) they are, eg P Reg Defender 90 diesel - 6500GBP @ 90000 miles.
This seems excessive compared with other vehicles?
My questions:
Is 90000 a lot of miles for a landrover? What sort of life should one expect from one?
Is there a genuine reason why these vehicles maintain their value so well? Or am I just seeing overly expensive adverts?
Of the various diesel engines that are available are any better than others? I was told by one dealer that the 300TDi was the more complicated and therefore better engine. Any thoughts?
Hopefully this is the right place to ask these questions, if not my apologies.
Hello Paul, and welcome to the group. I drive a 36 year old Land Rover that's still worth a few bob. Ask yourself how many other vehicles are still around at that age. Your £6500 investment could last you another 20+ years if you look after it. That's the beauty of Land Rovers they will continue going for as long as you are prepared to keep them going.
Like any other vehicle there are good and bad out there, but plenty of folk here will give unbiased advise on what to look for. Its hard to put a value on one without knowing a bit more about it, age and high mileage are not always bad, but it depends on how the vehicle has been looked after. I have seen a three year old 90 with a totally rotten chassis having been used for launching boats in the sea, as well as 40 year old 88s lovingly rebuilt on galvanised chassis with modern engine etc.
I can't add much on the engine choice as I am a petrol V8 man, but am sure someone will be along soon with an opinion.
You may have misheard him! The 300 Tdi is the simplest of the recent engines compared, for example, with the later TD5. It's generally well regarded. A lot depends on what you plan do do with the vehicle - the
300 Tdi is no racehorse but will slog on for ages.
You whack a large intercooler on it and bump up the pump pressure and it makes a hell of a difference, easily as good as the TD5 from what I've seen without all the tomfoolery.
Its perfect for what I do with it. Its probably worth about £6k if I were to clean it up, inside and out. The chassis on it is near perfect, but like other say its all about what is has done up to now.
My chassis gets a steam wash and a fresh coat of underseal once a year, and this seems to fend of any rust.
It will happily sit at 65 (Dont expect to be going fast in a brick shaped vehicle!) all day on the motorway and return 30mpg, or will happily plough though a foot of mud etc.
The advantage of the 300tdi is the lack of ECU. This makes it a lot more viable for me to work on it at home, with no complicated fault diagnostic machine needed - just me and a book now and again.
Once you get this one, and then get the unexplainable 'bug' , you will never query the price again - If you want it, buy it.
On or around Fri, 15 May 2009 08:56:05 -0700 (PDT), snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com enlightened us thusly:
sod-all, for a TDi. The earlier TD engine can be shagged at that mileage.
in Autotrader, undoubtedly. They're asking prices, not selling prices.
in Ebay, try doing your search and then selecting "completed items", and look at the prices they actually sold for.
200/300TDi are about the best of the bunch. The 300 is slightly more refined, but otherwise very similar. If hunting a 90, I'd be looking at the TDi, for certain.
Some things to watch for:
excessive clank/clunk from the middle of the vehicle when changing gear, when pulling off from rest or when stopping and then reversing. There's an issue with transfer box input gear/gerabox output shaft splines on some gearboxes, mostly the LT77 type box, which can be identified by reverse gear being left-and-forward, not right-and-back. I think some early R380 boxes have been reported with the same issue.
Not necessarily a reason to reject an otherwise-good vehicle, but it's good for at least a grand or even 1500 off the asking price, as it'll cost that much to fix. There's no easy fix: recon box and new T-box gear, plus the labour if you 're not set up to DIY; you're talking a minimum of a grand.
Brakes, especially rear discs and calipers, can be shagged, but it's not a hard or expensive fix.
drive slowly at full lock, listen for rattly CV joints - again, not a hard fix but a good bargaining point.
Look at fromt axle swivel housings (end of the axle inboard of the brake disc): they should be shiny and free of excessive oil. Rusty or pitted ones will cause grief.
Chassis corrosion: excessive rust on rear cross member (at back of vehicle) and outriggers, also rust in the bulkhead and footwells. crossmembers and outriggers are not a major issue to fix, bulkhead is.
A good TDi should start almost instantly, so be suspicious of one that takes a lot of cranking. They do have glow plugs, though, which can be faulty and make it hard to start. A puff of black smoke on starting is not uncommon on the TDi but it shouldn't smoke once running.
Many thanks to everyone for taking the time for all the replies. Another couple of questions:
Am I right in thinking CSW stands for County Station Wagon? I've seen these mentioned on the LR web site. Is it some sort of spec - like LX/ GLX etc? How does one tell?
Also ECU - Electronic Control Unit? That means the TD5 has electronics while the 300TDi doesn't?
Mostly true, Late 300TDis had ECUs and all automatics. Which means earlier ones are easier to tweak for more oomph, the later ones can still be massaged but the ECU is more rudimentary than that on a TD5 and is more difficult.
I think the ECU on the later 300TDi engines only got involved with the EGR, which the earlier machines lacked completely, there's not much else an ECU could do on a 300TDi without a set of spanners and a hammer!
Other have given more info about the TDi engines. The TD5 is "fly by wire" the ECU controls then engine full stop. There is no mechanical linkage from say the throttle to the injector pump. There is just a variable resistor at the throttle pedal connected to the ECU, which then adjusts the engine taking into account many other sensor inputs as well.
Which is exactly what the ECU does on my '98 300TDi Auto! It is Fly by wire. The injection pump is controlled by a electromechanical servo. The only mechanical connection to the accelerator pedal is for the cruise control and kick down.
Not even that on a TD5. Cruise just needs the control switches adding. How does a mechanical connection to the accelerator pedal work in relation to cruise? Why does kick down require a mechanical linkage? Curious enquiring minds are intrigued...
On or around Sat, 16 May 2009 21:26:43 +0100, Ian Rawlings enlightened us thusly:
no, late-model autos (and possibly some manuals) have an electonically controlled injection pump and ECU. Why they didn't just up the boost a tad and retune the mechanical pump, I've no idea, since the idea was supposed to be to get a bit more power and therefore a bit more repsonse from the auto version, which had a reputation for being slow - you can get a bit more power and response without even touching the boost on most 300 TDis, simply by tuning it a bit less conservatively - done right it'll still pass the MOT smoke test and will, in normal use, actually improve the mpg slightly, if my experience is owt to go by.
They all have EGR but it's the simple kind which can easily be disabled :-) I found the best option was a 2p piece inserted in the pipe joint... a 10p also works but costs 5 times as much...
I don't think 200TDis have EGR but I'm quite happy to be corrected.
On or around Sat, 16 May 2009 22:52:44 +0100 (BST), "Dave Liquorice" enlightened us thusly:
and lets it stall with the slightest inattention.
Now, actually, I don't think they did a bad job - the most annoying thing is the lack of grunt in the 1500-2000 rev band, means you have to keep it spinning faster than most diesels to make good progress.
I like the lazy throttle repsonse at low throttle, it's much better on rough terrain - less chance of kangaroo disease. However, why not extend the anti-stall which only works at idle with zero throttle pedal, up to say about 1200 rpm? It'd not have made signifcant any difference to the driving, but would have made pulling off from rest a good deal less hassle. Although with practice it does improve. However, compared to the ford/lucas fly-by-wire in the later transit TDis, it's still crap. Those things were almost impossible to stall in normal use.
The TD5 is almost right, and with a few minor differences in mapping, would have been spot on from the start. I know they did make changes, although I don't know when. Mine, being a 99 T could well be the original mapping. Or was the change the addition of anti-stall?
Are we talking Defenders or Discoveries here? The wiring diagrams I have for the late 300TDi engines for a Defender have an ECU fiddling about with EGR, and the earlier 300TDi like mine has no electronic EGR.
Yep, it's the bastard reason I can't just tweak up the fuelling on my injector pump! It ain't got the wee screws and all. I omitted to say it's a Disco, the Defender might be different! What am I saying? A Defender IS different from a Disco!
The use of the baler twine from the accelerator to kick down to accomplish the cruise control in the reverse direction is a bit confusing. It leads one to think there is a mechanical attachment from accelerator to injection pump, perhaps this is the same bit of string used for non electromagical engines?
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