Defender engines

[SteveAG]

Hi, trying to buy an old defender, have read many articles and watched countless videos relating to the different engines. My outcome re engines.
Puma - best on road
Td5 - middle for both on and off road
300tdi - not great on road
I did own a td5 and found it great.

I’m looking for a daily driver + get away tow vehicle for a small van

My question is what of the year models should I avoid in a td5?
And what would be considered too many kms (obviously would depend on maintenance- upkeep-servicing)

If I could afford a puma same questions apply.
Is they a year model to avoid?
And what is considered a lot of kms on one of these engines.

I have had many ‘dare I say it here’ different model Toyota’s with 300+ Kms and they are still going

Thanks in advance
Stephen

[DiscoMick]

We had a D1 with a 300Tdi which was still going well at 340,000 km. Just need regular servicing and timing belts and they go forever, that's why the British Army chose them.
Our Puma is at 160,000 and is fine. These things have been flogged to death and neglected in Transit vans all over the world.
They are both tough reliable engines.
The 6 speed gearbox works well with the Puma, but a 5 speed plus 300Tdi combo is also good, although not a rocketship.

[Robmacca]

Are u handy with a spanner? This will save u heaps of $$ over the long run...

I have both a Tdi300 and the Puma 110 Wagon and they are quite different in performance and interior as well. I love them both and use both as my daily driver but I work shift work and therefore do not drive in daily peak hour driving. I think in any manual vehicle this would become a PITA over time...

Tdi300: No electronics / Simple / parts fairly cheap / not so sensitive on fuel quality / pretty good on fuel / slow but not annoying slow as there is some mods that people do / very basic inside and out / A/C not that good. I love driving it as I get to see my surroundings more so...

Puma: Mine is remapped and it goes really well and it makes for a great touring vehicle and I also drive it to work sometimes just to give it a run. It has a better interior and dash and A/C but has a few shortcomings that by now most have probably been fixed. It's obviously a lot more fuel sensitive and costly should anything happen in this area...

[SteveAG]

Thanks Robmacca for the feedback

Luck to have 2x, Im struggling to buy one ;)
As far as 'handy with a spanner' I know what one is, but I'm not mechanically minded.
I have a good mechanic, but not a good bank balance so I had better learn

My dream would be able to buy something simple that I can learn bits and pieces on the fly.

I'm leaning towards a TD5 (for some reason) I guess I am thinking on road speed - a Puma may be a little out of my price range.

My fear on the 300tdi would be the top speed on the highway - even my first TD5 wasn't that great - used to top out at around 100khp
I've heard to look for a TD5 after 2001 - I can't recall why - from memory it was to do with probs with the engine mounts and a few bugs - any ideas?

The 300tdi - I fear may be too slow - especially for Sydney freeway driving - although potentially I could research some mods to improve that.

Thanks again
Steve

[spie]

Perentie?

[Robmacca]

I'm not real up-to-date on TD5 but what I know:
Early ones had plastic dowels in the head which melted if the head got hot - All should be fixed/replaced by now I would have thought
After 2002/2003 model Td5's switched from a Salisbury rear diff to a rover rear diff
Oil seeping up the injector wiring harness
Injectors are costly to replace (same goes for the Puma)
I think there was an issue with the bolt for the oil pump (?? not sure) but assume these issues also would be fixed
Poor A/C like the Tdi300
Electrical issues ?? (unsure what)
Remapping can only be done to a certain version (unsure if its before 2002 or after) I may have got this wrong though but I remember reading it somewhere..





Thanks Robmacca for the feedback

Luck to have 2x, Im struggling to buy one ;)
As far as 'handy with a spanner' I know what one is, but I'm not mechanically minded.
I have a good mechanic, but not a good bank balance so I had better learn

My dream would be able to buy something simple that I can learn bits and pieces on the fly.

I'm leaning towards a TD5 (for some reason) I guess I am thinking on road speed - a Puma may be a little out of my price range.

My fear on the 300tdi would be the top speed on the highway - even my first TD5 wasn't that great - used to top out at around 100khp
I've heard to look for a TD5 after 2001 - I can't recall why - from memory it was to do with probs with the engine mounts and a few bugs - any ideas?

The 300tdi - I fear may be too slow - especially for Sydney freeway driving - although potentially I could research some mods to improve that.

Thanks again
Steve

[gromit]

My fear on the 300tdi would be the top speed on the highway - even my first TD5 wasn't that great - used to top out at around 100khp
I've heard to look for a TD5 after 2001 - I can't recall why - from memory it was to do with probs with the engine mounts and a few bugs - any ideas?

The 300tdi - I fear may be too slow - especially for Sydney freeway driving - although potentially I could research some mods to improve that.


My 300Tdi is fairly standard (unmodified engine wise) but to be fair, not used that often nowadays. There was a period when it was my daily driver.
I've never had a problem keeping up with traffic on the freeway, maybe a bit slower getting to top speed. If I unloaded the storage system and gear in the back it would probably be a bit faster getting there.

One of my boys has a 300Tdi Disco and he's constantly playing with the injector pump settings. Drives it like it's stolen, pushes out quite a bit of black smoke on acceleration, I'll have to find out his top speed. I did follow him on the freeway a while back, he was towing a car on a trailer and was sitting on 100kph.

Can't comment on TD5 as I've never owned one but I get the impression that they have better performance and a whole different range of problems compared to the 300Tdi.


Colin

[incisor]

i don't get the hate on the performance of 300tdi powered vehicles

they perform fine if you take the time to drive to their abilities...

mine does 120+kph pulling a van when needed

definitely not uphill tho but if you use the gearing to your advantage they pull better than 4bd1's up long slow hills at 80+kph esp into into a headwind

it's a regular occurrence on the di'agular highway when i am coming home from wattlemere

[Discofender]

My vote would be for the Td5, last and best engine that Land Rover designed themselves. I could be biaised as I have two, a D2 and fender. I have had a 200tdi which was good, but more power (remapped) plus the traction control in the Td5s makes them superior. Don't be scared of the electrics, if you can get a 15p engine (2003 on), the 10p model had the issues mentioned by others.

I have learning and doing all of the maintenance on the td5s myself, there are some great online resources such as discovery2.co.uk and trailerfitter's toolbox.

Good luck finding one as prices have jumped during Covid.

Discofender

[Summiitt]

Im running all 3 engines daily in 130 Utes for forestry work, lots of windy, twisty mountain roads, low range and towing, the 300tdi was and is a great engine, but drive it against a 2.2 puma and they seem very dated, however at 560,000km it has never ever let us down and has only had the pump rebuilt and usual timing belt changes.
The Td5 has proved reliable but again well down on power compared to the puma, 310,000km it has been a good reliable motor.
The 2.2 pumas strongest point I think is the gearbox, the 6 speed is a ripper and matches very well with the 2.2. Im surprised how well it handles the weight of a fully loaded 130, the early pumas ran a 2.4l which had some issues with vacuum pumps blowing, but most should be sorted by now.

[AK83]

I would recommend a TD5 over a 300 tdi.

A remapped(easy to do) TD5 defender on std gearing is more than fast enough in almost any conditions.
300 tdi requires more $s to get more power from it (compared to a TD5), and it will never have the same smoothness or power.
remapping can be done on any TD5, as the ECU can exchanged to a mappable(NNN) ECU if the original is an MSB type.

eg. if you have a choice of an earlier TD5 with MSB and later one with a NNN, but the cost difference between the two is say a couple of thousand, then for $500 or so you can locate an NNN ECU and retro fit it to the cheaper older TD5.
IIRC the NNN may even work out of a Disco, which are more plentiful in supply.

If budget is going to be tight, Tdi will be the cheaper version overall to keep it going when something does go wrong.

If the choice turns out to be a TD5, then as a minimum, factor in the cost of a electronics analyser tool like the nanocom, to figure out the small gremlins that it will inevitably suffer to begin with.
Once armed with accurate knowledge of what the issue is with a Td5, you won't waste any money on the required fixes(like we did).

Whatever you get, remind yourself that it will be an old car, and as such will have old car wear issues. You just won't know until you have put some klms under your own posterior with it.
And those wear items will surface from anywhere .. not just the major ticket items like turbo/fuel pump/head/gasket/ etc... that could add thousands to the cost in the short term.

as an example: A friend bought himself a TD5 defender with huge muddies on it, and some other mods that indicated that a previous owner had the notion of extreme off roading. eg. suspension is way too hard/harsh .. and so on.
But they had no clue on how to properly maintain it! They rebuilt one of the front wheel bearings utterly hopelessly! This particular model requires a shim ring to get the preload correct, not the dual nut design of most defender/D1/RRC axles.
Previous idiots rebuilt the bearing without! the spacer. So there was no way to set preload.
Poor friend driving it around, and with loud as hell muddies, couldn't hear the unhealthy bearing noise as it wore out quickly.
Turned it into a molten mess eventually. So as the subsequent buyer of a mindless previous owner he had to bear the brunt of the $1K fix to sort it properly.
So once that was sorted the next imperative was to check that the same skilless process wasn't performed on the other front axle too.(it wasn't).

Sorry I have no knowledge of Puma era vehicles, but many parts up to the TD5 are interchangeable between defenders/D1's and RRC models, so this makes certain parts more plentiful and that means usually cheaper too.

My experience with LR vehicles of old over a few years of ownership is that it will cost you approx $5-10K to sort out issues over the period of a couple of years, which then translate into mostly trouble free motoring for a few years after that initial trial and error timeline.
Happened with my RRC, and now D1, same with bro and his D2, and now with my friend and his Defender(once his 2 year trial period will come to an end! [biggrin])
Soon I believe that I will go through the same process with my impending D2 project too! [bigrolf]

Hope that helps you work out what your budget should be!

[DDrew]

[QUOTE=AK83;3087542]

Whatever you get, remind yourself that it will be an old car, and as such will have old car wear issues. You just won't know until you have put some klms under your own posterior with it.
And those wear items will surface from anywhere .. not just the major ticket items like turbo/fuel pump/head/gasket/ etc... that could add thousands to the cost in the short term.


My experience with LR vehicles of old over a few years of ownership is that it will cost you approx $5-10K to sort out issues over the period of a couple of years, which then translate into mostly trouble free motoring for a few years after that initial trial and error timeline.