Thread: '03 TD5 78,000kms

well ive got a 110 of that vintage with 20k Km more on the clock so so long as its been looked after at least half as well as mine has (which given that it had stealer servicings for most of them isnt all that well) your good to at least 105 K Km,

if the hand books got the servicing history in it your laughing.


03 means its after the oil pump bolt problem and the only other biggie is the oil in the Ecu harness problem which can cause some wiredo running but is only about an hour to fix and about $110 in parts.

There are claims that the 130's crack their chassis. Mine hasn't so don't know how comon it is.
The k's are very low but maintenance is the big thing over the k's. Mine had 72,000 on purchase and had been butchered.
They are a great rig so just get it checked out first as this was my mistake. You hear of vehicles that have had a hard life and run like a dream so it comes down to how well it has been maintained.

Hi! Do get it checked. The best way is by someone who knows them. A normal RACQ check might not cut the mustard.

Yep, getting it thoroughly checked over is a good idea.
Even though when we got our Defender we didn't - but that was with only 15k on the clock and plenty of time left under warranty.

The oil pump bolt only needs to be checked/ done once - I believe it's a bit more work but easy enough to do when doing a service. There's a great write-up of it on here somewhere.

The oil in the harness is the one to look out for - I'm treating it like a service item to take a look at the plugs to check that no oil has escaped and started to make it's way up the wires toward the ECU. There are a heap of threads on flushing, and numerous ideas on permanently fixing the problem.

I was under the impression that the issue of the chassis cracking was mainly due to overloading + dirt/corrugations or something like that. I guess if it looks like it's had an easy life (so far) then I wouldn't be getting too anxious about it (but check anyway).

Other than that, make sure everything runs properly, nothing sounds too much out of place, and yeah, get a good check over it.