How do i cut running costs

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Hello,

There are endless ways of making your land rover cheaper to run, most of it comes down to how much time and effort you are willing to put into it yourself. In theory, you can fuel your land rover for nothing. It depends on whether or not you have the balls to walk into your local chippy / chinky and offer to take away their waste vegetable oil for them. You can then process that (cleaning it, removing the glycerine and then thinning it down) and it makes a very good clean fuel. Some people even use old heating oil or old engine oil as a good alternative to standard diesel. Again, the time you put in to sourcing and preparing a fuel is where you save the money. When you pay for diesel at the pumps, don' forget that you are paying for the convenience, and the processing (fractional distillation etc) that has been involved in the production of the diesel. Thats how fuel stations started off, providing most people without the knowledge or the capability of being able to produce or source their own fuel with a fuel that worked straight from the pump. Most diesel that you buy at the pump wont actually give your vehicle the best performance either. Veg oil alone is a better fuel than standard DERV.

Don't worry about insurance, they're dirt cheap to insure. It costs me less than £900 a year third party fire and theft as a 19 year old (now 20) and thats with a 200tdi engine. When you're looking at defenders, you want to get one with either a 200TDi or a 300TDiengine, they're brilliant. Good fuel return (30-35 mpg) it'll run on anything oil wise and it's very reliable. Don't get a V8 if you worried about economy, because you'll spend more time crying about it than driving the thing. Also avoid any other petrol model's or older diesel models such as the 2.5 N/A (12J) or the crap 2.5 TD (19J).

Bare in mind that you will be starting anew hobby in mechanics. Land Rovers don't just keep going without much due care, attention and servicing. If you're not prepared to work on it yourself and look after it mechanically, don't entertain buying one. They're reliable by all means but you need to find a need to fix them even when they aren't broken as so to speak ;)

-Pos
 
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is this true?, no sarcasm??
i'm thinking about getting a 90 or 110 pre tdi and running it on alternative fuel,
as i can't afford the TDI version, and i want to keep the disco too.

the TD is just a lumpy old fashioned diesel engine, trust me they LOVE veggy oil, and pretty much all other types of heavy oil

veggy oil will flush the crap out of the fuel system and will expose those iffy IP seals but when fuel become free or 50p/l you can afford to have a new pump (or change to viton ones) every 6 months AND still save a pile

sensibly looked after the TD is a fine engine
 
Originally Posted by Sean
the 19J engine LOVES veggy oil

is this true?, no sarcasm??
i'm thinking about getting a 90 or 110 pre tdi and running it on alternative fuel,
as i can't afford the TDI version, and i want to keep the disco too.

I'm interested in this one too. I have a 300Tdi Disco and I'm going to get myself a 90 this year somehow, but my budget is lowish.
On another note, my 300Tdi just will not have veg oil, runs like a sack of sh1te on it.
 
i have no problems with 70/30 veg oil mix in my 300tdi,
although the oil i use is pure rapeseed.
Which seemed to be highly recommended after searching forum.
Sean what is an IP seal?
 
i have no worry about putting the work into it as i am currently training to be a mechanic.
i am looking into using veggie oil or biofuel at the moment theres a lot of information about it.
from what ive read the 200tdi is also the best engine to get.
thanks for the advice
 
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