G'day Ladies & Gents,

I'm currently an owner of a Prado 90 series but am considering moving from the "dark side " to a Landy at some stage.

I spent my Army career in & out of 110's over the years & that's why I have a healthy respect for them. We have had them in some fairly rugged terrain, loaded to the gunnels on many occasions, from our beautiful jungles to the awesome outback, overseas in equally nasty areas from Somalia to Timor in my time in. They've also been in many other operational conflicts & are no doubt still pulling their weight.

On a not so positive note, my mate bought a new 130 around "98" & had numerous problems with it & couldn't get rid of it quick enough. This has always been a niggling problem for me, not to mention the snide remarks from many journos in our fourby mags.

My wife & I have been looking at Defenders over the last few years & thought what better place to get the good oil or bad, from the horses mouth's instead of reading quick reviews or listening to opinions from people who've never owned one. We've always liked the 110 Defender for it's rugged looks & build, great ground clearance, massive cargo area, no carpets, big payload, towing capacity & alloy body. Lately it's been the Defender 130 that's caught our eye for the fact that it still has room for 5 but offers something the 110 doesn't, the ability to carry fuel, gas bottles, smelly wet camping gear & so on in the back, separately from the cabin.

It's great to be here & we look forward to reading about Defenders in general on this fantastic site.

Cheers Steve

Welcome - spend a bit of time browsing the threads here. You will see what the real problems/advantages are.

John

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JDNSW
1986 110 County 3.9 diesel
1970 2a 109 2.25 petrol

G'day & welcome to the forum..

Welcome to you

Go the mighty Fender

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03 RED 130
78 S3 88 'zara'
78 101 FC 'herc' 30-260
63 88 GS 'bessie' 112-290
66 S2a 88 'claire'
69 S2a 109 'jack'
68 109 'charles' 172-447
60 W/shop 'dio' 111-372
78 FFR 29-755
and more to be sold
REMLR 270
SLOw 6 & 7
GCLRO 71

Welcome!!

Welcome to the forum Steve.

A friend once told me to think of a Defender as a giant meccano set that comes preassembled from the factory. If you expect Lexus reliability and build quality, you'll come away dissapointed. If however, you can live with the fact that you may from time to time have to reassemble some of its components to get it just right, then you're ready for defender ownership. Or rather, you'll find defender ownership a satisfactory experience.

If you're after a 130, you'd probably be looking at either a Tdi or a Td5 engine, both of which have been proven reliable. They have been around long enough so that their potantial faults are well known. So long as preventative maintenance is carried out, they should be reliable and trouble free. A new Puma 130 is also an option (powered by a Ford 2.4l turbodiesel out of a Transit van mated to a 6 speed gearbox), but they're still relatively young and apparent;y still have some teething problems (I could be wrong here - somebody please correct me if I am).

Td5's have a brain which doesn't like water, oil, excessive vibration and the like, and if/when it starts playing up may take some troubleshooting to diagnose and fix. They are on the other hand more powerful and refined than their predecessors, and can readily be tweaked by brainwashing. Pre 2002 Defender 110s had a stronger (salisbury tye) rear diff, after which they changed to a weaker (rover type) one. I can't recall if 130 were subject to the same (cruel) treatment, but I'm sure someone here can confirm.

The Tdi's are completely mechanical, so there are no electronics to go wrong. Thought by some to be more reliable for remote area travel, they are also a bit rougher and don't have as much power. Two variants were available - 200Tdi made between '91 and '93 (or sometime in 94?) which came with a weaker 5 speed (LT77) gearbox and the later 300Tdi (94 to 98) which came with a stronger (R380) gearbox.

Between '81 and '90, Land Rovers also came fitted with an Isuzu 4BD1 engine (the civilian equivalent of an army 110 "Perentie"). These are the roughest out of the lot, but thought to be the holy grail of reliability (completely mechanical, and designed to pull a 6t truck). In their naturally aspirated form, they are a bit gutless compared with their younger (turbocharged) siblings, but where they lack in power they make up in low down torque. They also respond well to turbocharging, and can go as well as a V8 at 1.5 to 2 x the fuel efficiency. Unfortunately, they were never fitted to a 130 out of the factory, and your better half may require some serious convincing before agreeing to one. Don't ask me how I know.

That should get you started. The pros and cons of each engine have been covered in many a thread on these forums, so have a read through, decide which one best suits your purposes (and budget) and then make up your own mind if you're ready to take the next step.

Good luck.

Bojan

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1986 90 Commercial, 3.9L V8i... F+R MD's, 4:11 centres, 35's and a few other goodies on the way
1984 120 3.9Tdi, LT95, F+R MD lockers, LT95a & perentie PTO / winch in the garage
1984 V8 County - cannibalised for parts

Thanks for the very detailed response Bojan, I appreciate the thought that went into it all. The meccano analogy I found quite funny but I can certainly see how this has been applied to the Defender.

As the others have suggested in replies to my intro, I've been searching this sight for guidance & good ole google has been busy.

Thank you once again to all the nice welcomes, this is certainly a top site to tap into.

Regards Steve

welcome

can confirm no Salisbury diff in ours


Mrs hh

__________________
03 RED 130
78 S3 88 'zara'
78 101 FC 'herc' 30-260
63 88 GS 'bessie' 112-290
66 S2a 88 'claire'
69 S2a 109 'jack'
68 109 'charles' 172-447
60 W/shop 'dio' 111-372
78 FFR 29-755
and more to be sold
REMLR 270
SLOw 6 & 7
GCLRO 71