">Design? That's for wimps!<"
The original LR was all about design. A wimpish LR? Oh! You mean a disco ..... ;-)
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I used to have a SIII diesel, 1980 I think it was. Main advantage is that ordinarily, you can fix one with a hammer and screwdriver, Im not sure if thats the case with the 90?
Mind you, its also pig slow, incredibly noisey and the brakes leave, well something to be desired, like an ability to stop. With that in mind, the 90 is possibly better if you get a good one.
As with any old car, buy the very best you can, get all the checks done by an expert and dont be afraid to pay good money for a good car because a bad car will always drain your pockets way beyond the top price. As for the Landie in particular, I understand seeking one with a replaced chassis is always a good idea.
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">ts also pig slow, incredibly noisey and the brakes leave, well something to be desired, like an ability to stop. <"
I think that's called character ;-)
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allied to a crumple zone usually made out of some foreign tin on wheels. Just been out in mine this afternoon to attend to some problems. On a good day you can't beat nor on a bad day come to that.
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"You are my crumple zone"
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As I said somewhere before. People do keep away from you in a Landie - probably afraid of catching some rural illness. Mine was corrosion free as it lived in Spain for most of it's life.
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Nice on MM you didn't dissapoint :)
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A different form of transportation. Car-park-damage-proof. Depreciation-proof. Intimidation-proof ..... I sometimes consider one on camo with an odd number plate and the white blot on the rear diff. One sometimes observes hardy individuals driving Lightweights in camo, no top, no windscreen but a balaclava and good eye protection. Fantasists perhaps?
It's odd. I've spent many years escaping the rougher side of motoring. I detested my early Minis, I loathed my LR. Most of my mileage is now in a Mundanomobile, I get in, I turn the key, the aircon works, the electronic geegaws work, the car can get round corners faster than I can command it ...... but now I want a 1966 Cooper and an early LR V8. And was there ever a better launch than the 1970 Range Rover? Perhaps the 1964 Mustang.
And if that drop down ad appears again, I shall immolate my monitor.
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Mine is still on the original chassis although most of it has rusted away and be replaced by large sections of plate!
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While I havent quite been softened quite to Mondeo standards, I gave up the LR on account of just how damn awful it was to drive, but it did what it said on the tin and you can make them more comfy if you want to spend some cash.... and I miss the simplicity now and character that it had.
Mine wasnt mint, more lived in than that, but it was like a meccano set and even a novice mechanic can do alot of tasks themselves - cant say that these days!
I rather fancy another diesel, LWB this time with highback seats and overdrive. Then I can park it in Tesco and if someone backs into it, all I will get when I come back to it are some paint marks and perhaps a bumper to unhook from the towbar :-)
Maybe this would solve my estate decision too.... then again, 15k a year in one - better get that soundproofing in bulk!
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www.santana-motor.es/SantanaMotor/porta.htm
How about one of these ? I saw one on the road yesterday.
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Santana Anibal diesel is the slowest, noisiest, most uncomfortable LR ever. Note the cart front springs.
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But hasn't it got a dead simple diesel - can't be any slower than a C reg Landie..
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I drove a Landrover 90 in the late 1960s as a student.
It was wonderful driving up hillsides and farmtracks, pulling a trailer full of stones which we broke to build roads with (I was young and fit then :-(
It was wonderful driving through heather to get to the gun butts when beating grouse.
The pedals were nice and big - ideal for driving in wellies.
And that's it.
It was noisy, uncomfortable, cold , noisy, full of vibrations, uncomfortable, noisy and heavy to steer and noisy on normal roads. It was also very noisy.. so noisy one became deaf.
Did anyone say it was noisy? I don't hear well nowadays due to driving landrovers on roads. They were very noisy.
Old cars are much over-rated. They were pretty carp when new.. and get worse as they grow older and as I grow older I become less tolerant. They are also very noisy.
madf
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JH
C prefix i.e. 1985 / 1986.
On sale for £1950, but i haven't got under it yet. Looking around on Ebay, somewhere about the £1500 -£2000 mark seems ok, obviously depending on condition. Plus it's filthy, which i like!
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Rust rust rust rust and more rust.
Get something Japanese, at least it will be reliable. An old Diahatsu Fourtrak or similar?
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Japanese 4x4s rust just as fast as a Landie of the same age and the parts for an old one are far harder to come by, thus more expensive. Landrovers have a huge following, so theres far more backup and advice available for them.
As has been said before on one of my threads, reliability on an old car is individual to the car by this age as an abused Fourtrack is no more reliable than an abused LR, but potentially more expensive.
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Hello Hugo... hope all is well!
madf.... if you were a student in the 60s I guess that would have been a S.II or S.III you were using? The 90 was a worthwhile improvement in most areas (ride/noise/comfort/equipment/speed/economy). I see less of an improvement from 90 to later Defender though.
stunorthants is right about the old Japanese 4WDs. I've had some terrible problems getting parts at affordable prices without travelling the length of the country. The one massive advantage of the old Land Rovers is they have a huge huge parts availability and every last job you could need to do has all the info in books and on the web.
The Series/90 models do wear their scratches and dents with pride... no filler or spray cans required.
They are possibly also the most ageless and classless vehicle about. An almost new TD5 SWB Defender pulled up outside our shop yesterday. It was dull blue and dirty but still looked dead cool. Had it been 20yrs old and a 90 the effect would have been the same.
Having said all that unless you intend being up to the bonnet in mud an early Discovery is probably a far better all round vehicle if a daily commute is involved. A pre 1993 200TDi 3dr in flat green with workmanlike steel wheels and chunky all terrain tyres plus a steel "winch type" bumper on the front looks damn purposeful. I quite accept it would lack that ultimate street cred you get from a 90/Defender but after using it's "comforts" commuting through the winter you'd forgive that..
David
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Hello Hugo... hope all is well!
All is well thanks :)
My disco is still providing good service despite an eye watering MOT bill about 18 months ago. That rear boot panel that helped me negotiate the £500 off has now had to be replaced.
Mare, if you do go down the disco route, do what MM suggested. Among other things he told me to take a screwdriver, lift the carpet in the boot and have a look at the rear boot panel.
As I later found out a rotten one suggests much more rot elsewhere. Either haggle hard or walk away.
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I had one for some years (sold in 96) with 175,000 on the dial (2.5 n/a). A few predictable repairs on an old design diesel; new clutch, that's about it. Easy to do the basic stuff yourself, plenty of expertise/spares around. Someone ran into the back when my wife was driving, wrote their thingie off and Mrs. L had a paint damaged tow bar. Good fun,lots of character.....if you want one get one. There's always time to get a standard smooth euro saloon as you get older. Oh, I forgot, I think it's still around, probably lots of bits have been replaced, but you can do that with a 90!
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"Land Rover SWB on a C reg. Perfect thing for the commute in Bristol, "
Sorry guys but I can see the attraction of an old Land Rover (if you have some occasional ploughing to do but don't have a tractor, or you live on top of a snowbound mountain) but for a commute IN Bristol??
Let's put it another way
"I have to commute IN Bristol, need a car for this (not too expensive to buy or run). What would you advise?
Answer -Anything other than an old Land Rover!!
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Phil
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Oh, or then would your answer be
"not an old Land Rover but try a Disco"?????
I don't get it.
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Phil
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It's easy Phil.
The commute is Bath to Bristol. BA2 2HF to BS8 1BG.
I could sit on the A4 going nowhere and have spent quite enough of my life doing so. This can easily take me over an hour. In fact yesterday leaving the office at 2.15, i got back to bath at 3.25. Stuck on Maudlin St, it'll get better, oh no it's not, Arnos Vale is rammed and i've still got Brislington to look forward to. Yes i should have gone another way, but it's that thing of "oh well i'm here now".
Or I can go Timsbury, Chelwood, Pensford, Chew Magna, Dundry, Bishopsworth, Bedminster, Ashton (or some other variant, but essentially west towards the lakes then north over Dundry), over the Plimsoll Bridge and up the hill. About 60% extra distance, but guaranteed journey time of 40-50 minutes. That's mainly lanes and Dundry is a steep and high hill, and not nice when it's cold. The Almera can do most of the year, but i don't fancy it when it's cold i.e. below freezing. Plus the height of any 4WD would be an advantage in the lanes.
Sometimes i can get in early like today, but most of the time i have to work around the kids, whose school is a mile in the opposite direction from Bristol from home.
The perfect answer would be the train, if i lived near either of the Bath stations and the office was near Temple Meads. As it is, i'm 20 minutes walk away from either station in Bath and the office is in Clifton, so a half hour sweaty walk up Park St, or the number 9. Which gets stuck in the traffic. So another hour plus journey, with reduced flexibility. Or i could use the Park and Ride. I used to do that but again, it drops off too far away from my office. And it's really no fun in the winter.
Plus, you know what, i fancy a Land Rover. I can afford it. It'll be in addition to the Almera, not replacing it. Plus as someone said, it's completely classless which the Almera's not, so that's another advantage.
You know what, writing down WHY does clarify things. I still want a Land Rover.
Mare
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>>most of the time i have to work around the kids
Ahhh... so a SWB is no use to you is it?? We sold our restored S.III diesel and bought the Discovery with the one main factor being I couldn't take the kids out in the SWB.
David
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my biggest complaint about land rovers is the lack of heating and windscreen defrosting or demisting,this is worth thinking about if you are using it in heavy traffic on a daily basis and there must be a way of improving this
I would think you would get a tdi engined defender for not much more money and it would have about the same value when you come to sell it if you look after it
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Theres nothing that cant be upgraded ref the heater.
I have to say, of the Defenders and Discoverys that I have cleaned over the years, its been the older Discos that have been most rotten.
I was cleaning an N-reg diesel auto the other day, well looked after and fairly clean, but rust in the seams in doorshuts ( serious ), bottoms of two doors, the rear door had serious rust around the handle and the front arches were on their way out. My SIII was nowhere near this bad and ive seen so many Discos like this, which is strange because most of them dont do any serious work, whereas the Defenders are more abused yet seem better at taking it.
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Hmmm.... there is nothing you can't do to upgrade a Series/90/Defender heating as long as you are happy to plumb in a second heat exchanger, fit a more powerful fan and re-deign the heater ducts! Another problem with the de-misting is that the 90 is rarely water tight so suffers misting as all that wet in the floors drys off to appear on the cold screen.
The Discovery rust can be an issue... but the answer is to pass over the rustyu ones and buy a good one. This is not always age related.
Their construction is different. The older Land Rovers have a steel chassis and steel bulkhead... both will rust like the devil. However all of the body you see is alloy so there is no visible rust (well apart from the front panel around the rad grille).
On the Discovery the chassis is the same basic design in steel and the outer body panels are alloy. However this is all fitted to a steel under skin which is rotting on some now. Parts are available to do the repairs but access can be a problem with a lot of stripping out of trim.
What you are seeing in the Discovery door shuts is the steel corrosion of the under body. The doors similarly are a steel back with an alloy skin (actually same as the LR 90).
You shouldn't see what we all think of as rust on the wings or rear door but it is that white powder alloy corrosion and it happens under the paint looking like steel rust bubbles.
This alloy/steel reaction is worse on the 3dr models just in front of the rear wheel. The trapped mud and wet sets up corrosion and the alloy will often perforate at that point.
I don't think mare wants a Discovery anyway but I do wonder where his kids will go?
David
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My mate paid £1800 for a 1991 H reg Discovery earlier this year with 210k on the clock, 6 months MOT and tax and no service history, only to have to spend nearly a grand on welding to the bulkhead and chassis. I seriously think he's been ripped off here. He's got his MOT next month and malfunctioning reverse lights and excessive exhaust emissions are probably just two of many items which it will fail on.
Martin
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Me again
Now, naively i thought a SWB Land Rover had three front seats and four in the back facing each other. Kids are 7 and 5. I appreciate that in a 1986 vehicle the rear benches won't necessarily have seat belts, but could you not retro fit belts? But if MM is questioning the kiddy seating, then I've obviously missed something....
As you can tell, still haven't gone to see the vehicle in question, and as I said at top of thread, indulge me. But i really do appreciate the advice (must remember torch to look underneath).
Thanks
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mare.
Our kids now 9 & 11 but were 6 & 8 when we went from SWB to Discovery. I have no idea where the law sits on this but I care about the kids!
A SWB 90 may have no seat at all in the back ( our last Series was like that) or the bench each side. In both cases the front centre seat will just have a lap belt..... and I would not want any kid of mine in the front with a lap belt.
The rear sideways bench seats almost never ever have any belts but when they do these too are lap belts. Even with belts the sideways seat is pretty useless in an accident. Our Discovery is an early 7 seat with the two rear seats being sideways. Only in the most exceptional circumstances and at low speeds will I let anyone use them.
There are some front facing rear seats made for the back of the SWB... you can find them in the LR mags. They are pricey and I have no idea where they mount the belts for them. They do rob all the load space though.
I'd been a keen Series/90 Land Rover owner for near on 20yrs before the kids pretty well forced the change on us when they started to want to come out with me.
I have no real axe to grind but with the kids your age the Discovery is the best vehicle ever. The rear seats sit above the fronts so they get a great view. The rear floorspace is tall enough for them to stand up and change (if you're at the beach or similar)... as is the rear loadspace.
David
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MM (David)
Clearly i had missed something. Thanks for that.
Why does no-one make a three seater fun vehicle?
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Thanks for detailed reply Mare but I think your final sentence says it all - "I still want a Land Rover"- but what you really want is 2 cars!
Your justification for the LR is just - "That's mainly lanes and Dundry is a steep and high hill, and not nice when it's cold. The Almera can do most of the year, but i don't fancy it when it's cold i.e. below freezing." - which is probably 2 or 3 days per year!
The obvious solution is something like a Panda 4x4 or a Kangoo Trekka for this journey which would be safe and warm and comfortable with CD/radio etc for the kids and you on your commute.
you also want an old LR - this is for you to spend hours on repairing and fiddling with on your driveway and your sorties off road. I last drove a LR in the late '60s, early '70s and madf sums a LR of that vintage up "It was noisy, uncomfortable, cold , noisy, full of vibrations, uncomfortable, noisy and heavy to steer and noisy on normal roads. It was also very noisy.. so noisy one became deaf." - probably great as a hobby, but as a commuter car pretty carp.
Buy an old LR as your hobby (but don't put kids in it and don't commute in it), something else (how about an Almera!!!!) as your commuter - best of both worlds!
Regards
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Phil
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