Now Own A Patrol But Thinking Defender

I own a DC 130 and I love the dynamics of the vehicle.
The steering, suspension ,brakes, payload are above average.
Landrover could have the world at its feet except for one thing.
The pommie build quality.
Expect to be under the thing fixing it .
( yes I am going to cop some flack on a landrover site,,,,,the truth some times hurts)
They have gone back wards and fitted the rover diff to the later 130s instead of the salisbury and the front CVs no longer have oil level plugs.
The rear seat passengers still have little foot room.
The front inner guards have gone from gal steel to plastic , etc
The Puma engine models can have build quality issuses.
The fact is why landrover doesnt sell defenders in Aust in numbers is they do not have japanese built quality and design forsight.
Now after saying that when the going gets tough and the load is heavy the defender is hard to beat.
It is also a pity that landrover Aust didnt continue the 4lt series of turbo Isuzu motors to the current day as no matter how many bells and whisles the a small 2.4/2.5 litre motor has it is hard to replace the power delievery down low and though the rev range of a larger motor working easier.

I worked on toyota's for a while and they are also replacing alot of metal parts with plastic and I have noticed that the qualility has also gone downhill,more and more of their parts are straight from Thailand,they even use electrical tape on the wiring instead of conduit. Pat

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 101 Ron

The Puma engine models can have build quality issuses.

---

thats not just a puma thing...

Its every bloody landrover.

theres a heap of TIC jokes about it..

my favorite being the cats one and the objects visable from space one.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 101 Ron

the front CVs no longer have oil level plugs.

---

Really :confused: Since when?

bout 96ish maybe a bit later by the time it rolled down to aus

Some times I think that my old 109 Stage 1 1978 was better built than my Defe Tdi300 1994 :(
The body on the 109 was stronger. If only the 109 was fitted with power stirring. oh well we cannot have all.
I guess that the County is the King of the series/Defender Land Rovers :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Blknight.aus

bout 96ish maybe a bit later by the time it rolled down to aus

---

Guess I must be confused by the terminology

they all have a fill plug.

they dont all have a level or drain plug.

the ones that dont have them are the ones that were setup to have the one shot grease from the get go. Some that do have them are one shot from the get go but were put on till stocks dried up.

[QUOTE=Chucaro;1070605]If only the 109 was fitted with power stirring/QUOTE]

you could probably set up power stirring to run from a pto.

; )

As someone who has 3 Defenders from a 1950ish to a 07 Puma (which I no longer have) and has also had a couple of Patrols, stay with the Patrol. I can almost live with the poor build quality of a Defender but not with the lack of backup from Landrover Aust