Advice on two potential Defenders and possible others...

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Once you have bought one and are stuck in trickling traffic for miles you will hate the clutch, then whens it damp as anything outside and you realise its damp inside and the screen wont demist fully and the side windows are permanently misted, then the condensation from the sunroof drops in your crotch you will start to hate it, hard work to drive compared to any eurobox of any age.
Half the mpg of any diesel eurbox
So in a nutshell they are slow/smelly/hard work to keep in decent nick, parts not dear at all but if you own it for any period of time you will do some repairs more than once. wheel bearings seems to be my 90s favourite for some reason?
Last year I only spent 70 quid on service bits, but then I only did 200 miles in total:rolleyes:

On the upside when its snowing and you are messing around on and off road awesome, visiting an off road site excellent, great around town as no one messes with you and if they do who cares they will always come off worse, I cant count the number of cars who have hit me! the number of wing mirrors I have removed with my wings, once a guy pulled out in front of me he didnt even look idiot! I t-boned him, I have a huge galved winch bumper fitted, he had no front end left on his car rad dumped all the coolant headlamps laying on the floor, heard bloke who saw it happen say to his missus he picked the wrong car to pull out in front of:D
Also good for carrying crap/messy gear/dogs around as you can hose the thing out
No one ever parks next to you in any car park, if anyone opens theirs doors onto your car they damage theres on the rock sliders.

I sometimes think about selling mine, but its a great back up car, I wouldnt want to go back to using it as a daily again, 5 years was enough.
 
Conversely, I drive mine every day and it's the cheapest car I've ever owned because I'm able to do all the work on it myself. It costs me 15.6p/mile in diesel and 2.3p/mile in other costs (service/repair/insurance/tax etc.), so just under 18p/mile all in is not too bad. Okay I'm doing 36,000 miles a year in it so I benefit from economies of scale with things like the insurance/tax/MOT but it's still generally a very reliable and cheap car to run considering it's 24 years old with 266k on the clock. If you're paying someone to do your servicing/repairing/welding though it would be quite an expensive car - as always your mileage may vary...

It's worth noting that I do not submerge mine up to the axles in muddy water every other weekend. I used to do 'pay and play' type off-roading when it first had it and it was a second car, however whilst fun I soon found out that it means you often spend the intervening weekends fixing the damage from the previous outing. This kind of off roading will mean a lot more work, and that's fine if that's what you want to do but one should be aware of it. I stick to greenlaning now which tends to be much kinder to the vehicle and (generally) doesn't result in repairs having to be carried out.

Very versatile vehicle: it will pull 3.5 tonnes, do 70mph on the motorway (though I prefer 60!), tackle any off-road work with ease, return 32mpg, simple to work on, fun to drive.

The only time it becomes a drag is when you're stuck in traffic, luckily for me this is pretty rare where I live and only really happens on the motorway. The ride is choppy too, but that's just the wheelbase. A 110 would be better for that by a long way, neither will ever be a Rolls Royce though. I've got a 110 in build at the moment to take over from the 90, the chassis on the latter is reaching the end of its useful life.

I would still recommend driving some before buying though as the others have said, they are different to normal cars and some people don't get on with them.
 
Eli-Joby Maeckelberghe said:
I thought the idea of a landy is that you can drive over these types of obstacles! A old work colleague got a defender the other day and I hear he drove it straight over a 30 metre grass roundabout... twice! haha. He's a classic example of who you don't want to buy one off I guess, hehe
Click to expand...

Now you are getting the idea.
Look at the seller, the one you want to buy off is the old boy that kept it garaged, used it once in a while go tip, and loved servicing and polishing it! ;)

I doubt if driving over roundabouts will seriously damage a landy, but it may attract the attention of the traffic police.

lynall said:
Once you have bought one and are stuck in trickling traffic for miles you will hate the clutch, then whens it damp as anything outside and you realise its damp inside and the screen wont demist fully and the side windows are permanently misted, then the condensation from the sunroof drops in your crotch you will start to hate it, hard work to drive compared to any eurobox of any age.
Half the mpg of any diesel eurbox
So in a nutshell they are slow/smelly/hard work to keep in decent nick, parts not dear at all but if you own it for any period of time you will do some repairs more than once. wheel bearings seems to be my 90s favourite for some reason?
Last year I only spent 70 quid on service bits, but then I only did 200 miles in total:rolleyes:

On the upside when its snowing and you are messing around on and off road awesome, visiting an off road site excellent, great around town as no one messes with you and if they do who cares they will always come off worse, I cant count the number of cars who have hit me! the number of wing mirrors I have removed with my wings, once a guy pulled out in front of me he didnt even look idiot! I t-boned him, I have a huge galved winch bumper fitted, he had no front end left on his car rad dumped all the coolant headlamps laying on the floor, heard bloke who saw it happen say to his missus he picked the wrong car to pull out in front of:D
Also good for carrying crap/messy gear/dogs around as you can hose the thing out
No one ever parks next to you in any car park, if anyone opens theirs doors onto your car they damage theres on the rock sliders.

I sometimes think about selling mine, but its a great back up car, I wouldnt want to go back to using it as a daily again, 5 years was enough.
Click to expand...

I use mine mainly for work, bit more mileage than that, about 2.5-3k average. Often had them as a sole car, and it is fine on local mileage. Now I am a bit older I prefer to have a car as well for long journeys.

Retroanaconda said:
Conversely, I drive mine every day and it's the cheapest car I've ever owned because I'm able to do all the work on it myself. It costs me 15.6p/mile in diesel and 2.3p/mile in other costs (service/repair/insurance/tax etc.), so just under 18p/mile all in is not too bad. Okay I'm doing 36,000 miles a year in it so I benefit from economies of scale with things like the insurance/tax/MOT but it's still generally a very reliable and cheap car to run considering it's 24 years old with 266k on the clock. If you're paying someone to do your servicing/repairing/welding though it would be quite an expensive car - as always your mileage may vary...

It's worth noting that I do not submerge mine up to the axles in muddy water every other weekend. I used to do 'pay and play' type off-roading when it first had it and it was a second car, however whilst fun I soon found out that it means you often spend the intervening weekends fixing the damage from the previous outing. This kind of off roading will mean a lot more work, and that's fine if that's what you want to do but one should be aware of it. I stick to greenlaning now which tends to be much kinder to the vehicle and (generally) doesn't result in repairs having to be carried out.

Very versatile vehicle: it will pull 3.5 tonnes, do 70mph on the motorway (though I prefer 60!), tackle any off-road work with ease, return 32mpg, simple to work on, fun to drive.

The only time it becomes a drag is when you're stuck in traffic, luckily for me this is pretty rare where I live and only really happens on the motorway. The ride is choppy too, but that's just the wheelbase. A 110 would be better for that by a long way, neither will ever be a Rolls Royce though. I've got a 110 in build at the moment to take over from the 90, the chassis on the latter is reaching the end of its useful life.

I would still recommend driving some before buying though as the others have said, they are different to normal cars and some people don't get on with them.
Click to expand...

Mine have always been cheapish to run as well, for similar reasons.

With OP being, I think, a self employed tree surgeon, I was wondering whether he would have time for maintenance and repairs. Also, there are a few issues for work. One is that the small back doors limit load space, for practical purposes there is often less useful space than a small van.
When I used to use series on tree work, it was always with trailers on hand, and back-up from other vehicles on the firm if needed.
 
I use my 110 CSW for my work, and do about 1,000 miles a month in it. The TD5 is fairly refined, more so than you'd think for a Defender.
The clutch can be made lighter with a cheap kit costing £20, which makes it much easier in traffic.
I used to drive vans but l'd not go back to one.
The Defender makes a day's driving much more fun! Maintenance costs more than a van but that is more than offset by the lack of depreciation. I get about 28mpg which is a lot more than half what my van did....the Transit Connect averaged about 32mpg.

We've done two holidays to Scotland in it this year, the first was 430 miles from where we live and the second 240. The 110 was fine as long as we took it easy. It will sit happily at 65-70mph.
 
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