First Landrover

paul.rogers6 · 2009-05-15T15:56:05+00:00

Dear AllI'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) theyare, 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 oneexpect from one?Is there a genuine reason why these vehicles maintain their value sowell? Or am I just seeing overly expensive adverts?Of the various diesel engines that are available are any better thanothers? I was told by one dealer that the 300TDi was the morecomplicated and therefore better engine. Any thoughts?Hopefully this is the right place to ask these questions, if not myapologies.Many thanksRegardsPaul

May 15, 2009 24 Replies

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Ian Rawlings 17 years ago

Indeed, I get the feeling that a fair few people are talking about Discoveries in a thread asking about Defenders, and aren't coming clean!

All this guff about engine management on 300TDis seems to mostly be talking about Discoveries despite the OP wanting to know about Defenders, and they are different, as far as I'm aware the Defender never had a proper ECU on the 300TDi, just an EGR twiddler, none of this electronic pump stuff until the TD5 came along.

Were there even any Defender diesel automatics?

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paul.rogers6 17 years ago

Hi guys

Again many thanks for the replies. I feel happier now, what I should be looking for for the price. And also what mileage to expect. Thanks especially for the tips on what to look for - they'll be a great help.

I'm off to see one this pm. Wish me luck.

Thanks again

Regards

Paul

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Austin Shackles 17 years ago

On or around Sun, 17 May 2009 09:00:53 +0100, Ian Rawlings enlightened us thusly:

Discoveries, since the Defender didn't come with an auto box. Good point, I doubt the defender ever got the electronic pump. If any manual ones did, they'd have been the very lasy few off the line. I thought it was only the autos.

Actually, I do wonder if the whole thing wasn't down to using the wrong settings in the auto box, e.g. trying to run it on a V8 one, so as to only need 1 box. I'd imagine that, on a TDi, would shift at just a bit low revs to keep it nicely on boost. But that's pure supposition - just sounds like the sort of thing that LR would do, given their record on diesel motors: "Hmm, the peak torque revs on the TDi are about the same as a V8, I reckon we can get away with the same 'box settings", without noting that the V8 will rev to 5500 quite happily if booted, and makes about 60 more BHP.

Then when it was apparent that it was a dog, chuck a differnt pump on it and get a few more ponies.

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Austin Shackles 17 years ago

On or around Sun, 17 May 2009 11:32:57 +0100, "GbH" enlightened us thusly:

That's about it. on a V8, the throttle cable goes to the carb linkage or injection throttle body, and a second cable is attached to the other end of the linkage which goes to the 'box.

It's possible to tweak the behaviour of the box to a slight extenmt by adjusting the latter. However, you have to ensure that the cable can never be pulled beyond the maximum inside the box - it bends and or breaks things inside.

If you remove the cable connection and pull it by hand, you can feel how it works: first it pulls against a spring, then it seems to hit a stop, then if you pull a bit more it goes click and moves about another 1/4 inch. That last bit is the full-blown kickdown. To get the maximum repsonse from the box, you need that to correspond to "pedal to the metal" in the cab, the trick is to have the usual "assistant" hold the pedal down, then adjust the cable to leve just the tiniest bit of slack in that position, so it can nevr try to pull the 'box cable past the end of the travel inside.

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