Thread: Please share your Defender 130 problems

Thanks all for your feedback, it is very informative and helpful!

I met a 130 owner yesterday and asked him about his car. He was very chatty and we ended up talking for about half an hour. Long story short, he bought his 2.4 Puma 130 new and spent upwards of $15,000 on it in the first couple of months replacing injectors, fuel pump, EGR valve etc. It wasn't covered under warranty as LRA claimed he had bad fuel. He is pulling out the 2.4 diesel and putting in a 6.5 litre (or thereabouts) petrol based on the theory of having a large motor working easily rather than a small motor working hard.

This makes me view the 4.5 from the LC in a good light, as I have been struck by how low the power output is for such a big motor compared to the new TD's available, but it is likely in the same vein of 'big motor working easily'.

The 130 owner did say that the ride in his car is the best of any 4WD he's ever owned.

If the 130's are going to be breaking down a lot with expensive fixes then this puts the higher buy in price of the 79 in a better light also. The most expensive 'common failure' part of the 79 seems to be the injectors.

I have also had an ex Defender owner say that a lot of dust enters the cabin when on dirt roads. Can anyone confirm this?

Hmmm, lots of thinking to do.

Does anyone else have other issues I need to be aware of?

Bad fuel can happen to anyone. Is say ol mate there is plain unlucky. Recently a forum member has sourced an extra water collection bowl to fit the standard filter. This mod is $60 or around $250 with a dash board light that flashes when water is sensed. EGR valves are going to be a regular refit every 40 to 80k most likely. A remap can eliminate this function and give you other benifits along the way.

As for Jamie's truck getting stuck, he usually is third, has it weighing 4T with god knows what, and just maybe, it could be a bit of selective editing. I do find it surprising whÃ*t he does get stuck in, but he also goes through where others don't. I think it's more driver skill than poor car capabilities.

Dust. There are small square rubber blocks on the front and rear edges of the doors. I replaced mine with some bigger, and softer rubber from Clark Rubber. I did this half way through a trip in Alice Springs. From then on and still with the air con on I found dust entry to be minimal. Mind you, it wasn't terrible to start with, just not as good as jap doors.

Re dust, just get the latest model door rubbers, made all the difference to my old Puma.

Allan

Originally Posted by Sparkys

Thanks all for your feedback, it is very informative and helpful!

I met a 130 owner yesterday and asked him about his car. He was very chatty and we ended up talking for about half an hour. Long story short, he bought his 2.4 Puma 130 new and spent upwards of $15,000 on it in the first couple of months replacing injectors, fuel pump, EGR valve etc. It wasn't covered under warranty as LRA claimed he had bad fuel. He is pulling out the 2.4 diesel and putting in a 6.5 litre (or thereabouts) petrol based on the theory of having a large motor working easily rather than a small motor working hard.

This makes me view the 4.5 from the LC in a good light, as I have been struck by how low the power output is for such a big motor compared to the new TD's available, but it is likely in the same vein of 'big motor working easily'.

The 130 owner did say that the ride in his car is the best of any 4WD he's ever owned.

If the 130's are going to be breaking down a lot with expensive fixes then this puts the higher buy in price of the 79 in a better light also. The most expensive 'common failure' part of the 79 seems to be the injectors.

I have also had an ex Defender owner say that a lot of dust enters the cabin when on dirt roads. Can anyone confirm this?

Hmmm, lots of thinking to do.

Does anyone else have other issues I need to be aware of?

All Common Rail Diesels are rooted easily with bad fuel. Lancruisers are MUCH worse, because if you do get bad fuel you have twice the bits to fix v8 vs 4 cyl, and they are Toyota GOLD plated bits. I've heard of $30K+ repair bills on these V8's from less than 50cc's of water .

Most fuel contaminations are covered by comprehensive car insurance - at least the decent policies.

I'm onto my second puma, have tallied up around 200,000ks between them and have driven them very hard with lots of heavy towing due to my work, I've been pretty impressed with them so far, reliability hasn't been an issue, did one egr at about 90k in my first, vacuum pump at 105k and the second ute,now at 75k hasn't missed a beat, dust does get in but a few bucks spent at Clark rubber fixed the issue.I'm still running all standard driveline as I havnt managed to bust it yet..

Originally Posted by Sparkys

Thanks all for your feedback, it is very informative and helpful!

I met a 130 owner yesterday and asked him about his car. He was very chatty and we ended up talking for about half an hour. Long story short, he bought his 2.4 Puma 130 new and spent upwards of $15,000 on it in the first couple of months replacing injectors, fuel pump, EGR valve etc. It wasn't covered under warranty as LRA claimed he had bad fuel. He is pulling out the 2.4 diesel and putting in a 6.5 litre (or thereabouts) petrol based on the theory of having a large motor working easily rather than a small motor working hard.

This makes me view the 4.5 from the LC in a good light, as I have been struck by how low the power output is for such a big motor compared to the new TD's available, but it is likely in the same vein of 'big motor working easily'.

The 130 owner did say that the ride in his car is the best of any 4WD he's ever owned.

If the 130's are going to be breaking down a lot with expensive fixes then this puts the higher buy in price of the 79 in a better light also. The most expensive 'common failure' part of the 79 seems to be the injectors.

I have also had an ex Defender owner say that a lot of dust enters the cabin when on dirt roads. Can anyone confirm this?

Hmmm, lots of thinking to do.

Does anyone else have other issues I need to be aware of?

Buy a Toyota,you sound like you don't want a Defender that will break down alot with expensive fix's .The most common failure part on the cruiser isn't the injectors,it's the whole vehicle. Pat

I've come to not really favour the V8 LC. Yeah, they have nice torque and power. But I find them really poor to drive. They have no character. Being that I don't own the LCs i'm driving means I can thrash them. Which they seem to do reasonably well.

Originally Posted by PAT303

Buy a Toyota,you sound like you don't want a Defender that will break down alot with expensive fix's .The most common failure part on the cruiser isn't the injectors,it's the whole vehicle. Pat

I am certainly beginning to lean heavily towards the cruiser.

After hanging out on the Landcruiser forums and the Defender forum for a few months I am seeing a massive trend here with posts saying "Aargh, my Defender is doing this and this and this wrong" and very, very few posts on the Landcruiser forum saying "My Landcruiser is doing this wrong".

I am in no way knocking your Defenders either, I value all of the feedback that's been provided here and they still remain a good car in my view.