Just returned from a 3-week trip to Italy with the Disco II and caravan, and reporting for duty Sah.
Disco performed brilliantly throughout, cruising at 65-ish all day with no problems. Figures were:
2865 miles driven 659.35 litres of diesel used 19.75 mpg (2 mpg worse than normal UK figure).Good bits: temp gauge never went above half-way, even pulling the van at cruising speed in 35 deg all day, or up a hill to a site in S France which required first gear and full throttle for well over a mile. Saw lots of Defenders in Tuscany, mainly standard vehicles used on the vineyards and olive groves. Said hello to them all. Tom Tom was awesome.
Downside: used about a litre of oil - not too bad considering - and about a litre of coolant, which suggests a leak somewhere. No sign of any leakage, so must be tiny. (Do they still make Barr's?) Slight worry when there was a huge drip of water from behind the rear n/s wheel whenever we stopped. Got underneath, even tasted it (!) - pure water. Worked out in the end (correctly) that the evaporator for the rear air-con must live there, but worrying for a time.
I was also a bit concerned at the start about the engine. After all, putting 24 litres of unleaded into an empty diesel tank isn't the best thing to do 4 days before you set off, is it? Searched this group and the interweb, and did all the right things before we set off, and I seem to have got away with it. (With work and other commitments that week, draining the tank wasn't an option.)
We'd been promising ourselves this holiday for about 10 years, and it was fantastic, although we are now totally broke. 1500 unread messages on afl - 'sgonna take a while to get through that.
Back to work tomorrow to earn the money to pay for it. Bugger.