Thread: 200 or 300tdi 110 for The Big Trip

Originally Posted by rick130

That's good fuel economy for the GQ, the ex's GU TD42T ute only ever got 12.5l/100km when unladen, and it all went downhill when towing !

Mine never got near 11 in the three years I had it. Pat

Originally Posted by discowolf

Hi rovercare, yes silver top, no rust. Bought it when about 17yrs old from 1st owner. Old bloke who did about 9k per year. Didn't even have dust in it (unlike now). Car has now just reached 275k. religiously serviced, never scrimp on service or repairs when required. Not interested on blowing the engine. Pulls like a steam-train, but admit its slower uphill, even when not towing. But that doesn't bother me.






Why wouldn't you have a 2-300tdi? For me a 110 is highly desirable. Surely a 300 fully maintained (rebuilt motor etc if necessary) would be good for touring Oz? How's that fellow (timko?) from Finland travelling Mongolia on another post? So many seem to have great service from theirs. Am I missing something here as I peer through my rose coloured glasses?

The only way you will kill a td 42 is with silly fueling. As said fit a good turbo upgraded fuel pump, service it religiously and it will easily do 500k + .

I hope this is useful to the original topic. After 20 plus years working for govt with regular travel to remote SA, camping out for a couple of weeks at a time and much travel over very rough tracks, I found myself looking for a private vehicle that could do similar stuff, tow car trailers from time to time and also a run around urban car all in one. From MQ patrols through all the models, odd landcruiser, hiluxes and one 200tdi I think it must have been - it was just a 'tdi to me back then, I had tried quite a few vehicles. As a new car the Landy was a lemon, but it was gearbox mainly I remember during warranty time. Most recently it was the 4 cylinder patrols that constantly drained my budget by falling apart literally at times, under warranty, but Nissan never came to the party on any of it. Like a chunk of the chassis falling off and going through a long range fuel tank on a 15000km car and Nissan say because there are old man emu shocks on it they wont cover it!! Or a bent front diff assemply at 22000km with a $5k bill attached to it - we weren't offroad racing! One V8 landcruiser had some pretty scary bills attached to it also under warranty. In the old days I would have just gone to a govt auction and bought a car that someone had run in for me but there was no way I was touching anything new.

To cut a long story short I ended up with a 93 200tdi.... and then a 96 300tdi defender 110 wagons! The defender choice was simply the combination of load area, towing capacity, fuel economy, reliability and simplicity (of a well sorted car) and ride/handling (compared to some other offerings - and after about a year I feel like I got it right. So rather compare one good car of one type with a bad car of another, i'm just saying that for the type of use for long distance travelling and towing my particular car has done a good job for me - so the 300tdi is not inherently a car that can't do what you are looking for based on my experience.

I was actually surprised at how well it does tow heavy loads, but Yes I wouldn't say no to a little bit more power. Has anyone used diesel gas injection? (ie. as opposed to a mate of a mate that you heard about once if you know what I mean!) Based on dyno data on their website it would appear to solve all my problems.

And just regarding comments on the best or the right car. I looked at quite a few and also Discos and came to the conclusion that it was going to be very difficult to find that well cared for car that someone has properly gone over, so I decided to go with a rusty 200tdi with low mileage and then just go over it from scratch and put a zillion hours or so into it to make it into what I couldn't find. Got it all the way from interstate and then as luck would have it a couple of weeks later a 96 300 with arb lockers etc came up for sale at my brothers neighbours house a few minutes from my place! I still had to spend lots of hours fixing bits of rust and sorting all sorts of things, but on the whole have been more pleased with it than I had been expecting from it. Mainly having all that space to load in that big sort of box being the back of the wagon is so much better than any Patrol I used.

I still have the 200 and with a bit more time on my hands these days I think I will still go over it and put it back on the market as what I found to be rare beast as a well sorted Defender - more for fun than profit. - but I don't think that will happen quick enough for you. Ive only driven the 200 a few times but I was hard pressed to pick the difference - I agree the condition is more important than if it is a 2 or 300 from my brief experience.

Excellent post. Pat

Originally Posted by Craigb

I hope this is useful to the original topic. After 20 plus years working for govt with regular travel to remote SA, camping out for a couple of weeks at a time and much travel over very rough tracks, I found myself looking for a private vehicle that could do similar stuff, tow car trailers from time to time and also a run around urban car all in one. From MQ patrols through all the models, odd landcruiser, hiluxes and one 200tdi I think it must have been - it was just a 'tdi to me back then, I had tried quite a few vehicles. As a new car the Landy was a lemon, but it was gearbox mainly I remember during warranty time. Most recently it was the 4 cylinder patrols that constantly drained my budget by falling apart literally at times, under warranty, but Nissan never came to the party on any of it. Like a chunk of the chassis falling off and going through a long range fuel tank on a 15000km car and Nissan say because there are old man emu shocks on it they wont cover it!! Or a bent front diff assemply at 22000km with a $5k bill attached to it - we weren't offroad racing! One V8 landcruiser had some pretty scary bills attached to it also under warranty. In the old days I would have just gone to a govt auction and bought a car that someone had run in for me but there was no way I was touching anything new.

To cut a long story short I ended up with a 93 200tdi.... and then a 96 300tdi defender 110 wagons! The defender choice was simply the combination of load area, towing capacity, fuel economy, reliability and simplicity (of a well sorted car) and ride/handling (compared to some other offerings - and after about a year I feel like I got it right. So rather compare one good car of one type with a bad car of another, i'm just saying that for the type of use for long distance travelling and towing my particular car has done a good job for me - so the 300tdi is not inherently a car that can't do what you are looking for based on my experience.

I was actually surprised at how well it does tow heavy loads, but Yes I wouldn't say no to a little bit more power. Has anyone used diesel gas injection? (ie. as opposed to a mate of a mate that you heard about once if you know what I mean!) Based on dyno data on their website it would appear to solve all my problems.

And just regarding comments on the best or the right car. I looked at quite a few and also Discos and came to the conclusion that it was going to be very difficult to find that well cared for car that someone has properly gone over, so I decided to go with a rusty 200tdi with low mileage and then just go over it from scratch and put a zillion hours or so into it to make it into what I couldn't find. Got it all the way from interstate and then as luck would have it a couple of weeks later a 96 300 with arb lockers etc came up for sale at my brothers neighbours house a few minutes from my place! I still had to spend lots of hours fixing bits of rust and sorting all sorts of things, but on the whole have been more pleased with it than I had been expecting from it. Mainly having all that space to load in that big sort of box being the back of the wagon is so much better than any Patrol I used.

I still have the 200 and with a bit more time on my hands these days I think I will still go over it and put it back on the market as what I found to be rare beast as a well sorted Defender - more for fun than profit. - but I don't think that will happen quick enough for you. Ive only driven the 200 a few times but I was hard pressed to pick the difference - I agree the condition is more important than if it is a 2 or 300 from my brief experience.

Nice post. So in terms of government cars I assume you'd have had Landcruisers? How'd they go, especially when the kms built up and how long did the factory suspension last?

In that 'unit' there was one landcruiser ute that would be less than 3yo (have to be changed after that) with the V8 diesel and a custom built canopy on the back. To a point you got to order what you wanted and this guy was 'toyo head' and regionally based so I couldn't give much of a first hand account - or vouch for the objectivity of the comments I had from the guy who ran it! I think it was an injector problem that was a non-warranty expensive repair. I drove it a few times and you gotta love the low down torque of that 8, but as much as he raved about how good the economy was it drank a lot more than my Nissan without having the numbers on that. As far as suspension, I would describe the canopy as 'designed by a committee' so it had every whistle and bell and therefore weighed heaps. The leaf spring suspension had to be upgraded and be legally certified to carry it and still sat down in the arse. And I never heard of anything falling off the chassis or bending, so given the areas that went I would say they are pretty tough compared to the Nissan. If I had stayed I would have been a little torn with the next vehicle mainly because my Nissan with canopy was on a coil sprung rear, which gave fantastic clearance and wheel travel, and my light canopy plus long range tanks of something like 220l it had fantastic range. Working in places like the Flinders on back tracks, or 4wd courses where we had all the cars out at once, nothing could stop that coil sprung ute when a hilux or landcruiser would be lifting wheels and slipping due to wheel travel or Nissan wagon dragging its body on the ground. Nothing worse than stacking rocks etc late in the day stuck in some creek bed with diagonal wheels off the ground - set up camp, crack a beer and shift it in the morning! Just a shame they can't build a Nissan that stays in one piece for more than 20k km! Not like the old days - esp GQ. And our cars can't run for more than 60k km so not much of a guage - often the feel like you have just run them in for someone!
So having said all that I feel pretty good about my Landy, good suspension travel, low overhang, good fuel range (have 120l tank but uses a lot less fuel) and it hasn't fallen apart........ and you get used to drafts and leaks!

Originally Posted by 2stroke

Nice post. So in terms of government cars I assume you'd have had Landcruisers? How'd they go, especially when the kms built up and how long did the factory suspension last?

Both my work utes were on the bump stops withing months with bugger all on them,our troopy lasted a fortnight carrying six blokes in it,the suspension is nothing short of pathetic on Toyota's,for some reason every now and again they wouldn't start,the motors would spin over but no fire,I worked at Jaguar mine outside Wiluna and they fit FTE's from rusted hulks after the V8's crap out,lots of sites are using Isuzu/Holden utes,VW's etc,the Rangers are giving trouble,like Prado's/Hilux's they have the smart alternators that don't charge for long enough so leave the battery dead after driving at 40k's/hr around site,thats dumb as Ford made a model that was for mine site compliance. Pat

I know the Police in the Western Deserts found that the windows fell out of the Troopies at around 30000 Km due to the body cracking up.
Nissans were much worse with body cracks.

Land Rovers are not perfect but there are parts of them that last better than the opposition.