Old school RR’s are indeed class if you like welding

We are in this category.

Well then I wasn’t talking to you was I?

And don’t try and out-rural me you pansy Rick Stein surfing townie boy! I’m from actual countryside where people farm and there’s not a boutique hotel in the whole county!

We have a boat to tow

HAHAHA! You hardcore country lad you! If your living doesn’t depend on it then you’re just playing 🙂

And don’t try and out-rural me you pansy Rick Stein surfing townie boy! I’m from actual countryside where people farm and there’s not a boutique hotel in the whole county!

Okay then (oh Rick Stein doesn’t surf BTW) – we live on a smallholding slap bang in the middle of an AONB. There is a large farm adjacent to it. There is a farm opposite us. In fact there are farms surrounding us. Every local run I do is about 90% across farmland. Wife’s family farmed for generations and still own farmland. Hell I was even a farm labourer for a while. Out rural you? Well if you think that’s what I’m doing, you’ve now got something to try and bleat yourself out of.

There was also this stuff last year called snow. Piouses and Passats aren’t much good in snow.

Boutique Hotel? Relevance? Perhaps it just means it’s nicer here and people will pay more to stay.

Come on Mol, you are making it worse. Much worse.

Lol.. someone in Cornwall boasting about snow! I’ve heard it all now!

5 acre smallholding.. yeah you’re just playing, admit it 🙂

Not got a driveway across your vast estate then or what?

my car ownership consists of:
series 111 swb truck cab
90 soft top with 200tdi
300tdi defender swb hardtop
50th anniversary defender V8 bored out to 4.9 litres producing 265 bhp
series 111 v6 station wagon
200 tdi defender soft top
3.5 factory v8 truck cab 90
Td5 defender hardtop chipped upto 200bhp

on order puma 110 station wagon (not the poncy xs, matt :wink:)

my favourite that i won’t sell is the 300tdi. That one has had the suspension lowered by 1 inch and has koni shock absorbers; its as comfortable on the road as most cars and i happily drove it 400 miles upto fort bill 3 years ago).
to the OP the resale values on 110’s are vey strong.

marcus – the roadtax rules have changed for 2011 and the 110 stationwagon will be £200ish same as utility model (euro class 4?)
2006 -2010 model years get charged £415 roadtax.

the range rover classic is ace. fact
(would love to own a mint 1994 300tdi manual vogue se)

Are Defenders what ‘Poor Men’ have in their garages?

5 acres of land?

Rural area of natural beauty as a place to live?

Jeez….

Lol.. someone in Cornwall boasting about snow! I’ve heard it all now!

5 acre smallholding.. yeah you’re just playing, admit it

Boasting? Funny as we were stranded here for four days last Winter. Couldn’t get out or into town. Hardly boasting.

Yes it is a smallholding – used to be a farm then a working nursery. And most of it is woodland and needs clearing, work which a Defender will help a lot with. Yes our livelihood doesn’t depend upon it but unlike many LR owners, this will see some serious action.

Farmer – the V8 one sounds cool! You getting a County then? We just wanted ABS so the XS was the only option.

Resale values are very very strong which made finding one a bit of a headache!

The BM – bought at 2 years and 4 months old with 16k miles, list price £38.5k, we got it for £21,250.
The LR – just hit three years old (comes with a years LR warranty though), 31k miles, list price £31k, cost us £21k and was easily the best “deal” we found. That’s amazing depreciation resistance!

I should point out at this point that I was goading Mat somewhat which isn’t really very nice. After all, the guy has issues 🙂

But really, I don’t think you fall into the category that needs a Defender as a utilitarian tool simply because you have 5 acres.

I’m blinkered. I’d love one. Especially one of the newer TDis – far better economy on the road, and not too sluggish.

Although according to a friend that owns a landscape gardening business, the 90 is a far better drive.

farmer giles – was thinking more of company car tax and claiming VAT back, but cheers for the advice.

I Got rid of a 1992 / 93 200tdi RR about 3 years ago – Whish I had kept it.

mat and molgrips – you guys have some issues between you which need sorting out !!

mat and molgrips – you guys have some issues between you which need sorting out !!

He flies off the handle at any hint of a slight… which annoys me.. and it shouldn’t!

mat – i assume you are referring to the 4.9l one?
i could get that all 4 tyres (285 width) to wheelspin in the dry if i was accidendly too hard with the thottle. 0-60 was 9 seconds and a top speed in excess of 110 mph.
The only downside was the auto box. First and last auto i will ever have. i ended up selling it for a honda S2000, which i sold 3 months later because i realised that i was going to kill myself or someone else.
Having a vehicle that only has a top speed of 80 mph has its benifits for drivers like me!
i’m getting the base model because i like the white roof and black wheel arches (how sad am i?) but loaded with winter pack; mp3 stereo and air con (insistance of mrs fg).
why do you want abs?

Farmer – yep the mental V8 was what I was referring to – sounds mad!
My BM has 286bhp and daft torque – turn off the traction control and it’s black “11” time all over the road! Hell knows what that sort of power would be like in a Landie!

Want ABS because I trust it – has helped save my bacon once or twice. On the cop course I did, the instructor heaped praise on ABS and made us do several 50-60mph to zero emergency brakes in wet conditions to show us how well it works – since then I’ve sworn by it.

Bum warmers and aircon also handy.

Mol – me, issues? Well if I do have them, they are exactly the same as yours, except yours are worse. Best example was when someone said I seem to be doing well – you jumped in and said “he isn’t the only one doing well” – from then on, I haven’t been able to take you seriously!

marcus – it would hve to be a soft dash version – i’m a tart
pimpmaster jazz – the tdis will do 27 – 30 mpg
the Td5 s are slightly less but you can chip the nuts off td5s – standard 130 bhp upto (and beyond) 200bhp making overtaking a safe and happy experience.
i still prefer the 200/300tdi as it has a throttle cable and goes when you tell it to (td5s sometimes thinks you have made an error when you mash the pedal and slowly accelerates).

Farmer – I used TD5 110s when a Geotec Engineer and we pushed them very very hard. One day in the middle of nowhere in South Wales, I heard a big “bang” – checked the engine and it had a dirty great hole in the block! Not sure what happened but it was a wee bit alarming.

300TDI seems preferred by LR afficionados but it means getting a pretty old model – wife had two (took her test in one) pickup 90s – great fun but very light at the back end. Caused a few “interesting” moments!

mat – if (when :cry:) the abs breaks take it to an independant garage to get it checked – dealers will charge you £1500 and it is rarely the whole system that needs sorting.
you don’t need abs because (a) you are high up and can see the problem arising sooner and (b) because you have a big steel bumper at the front to clear your way!

It’s warrantied for a year (might extend that too) so we should be okay. Found what looks like a good independent LR guy to look after it for anything else though.

After a near hedge careering moment in an older 110, I thought ABS (and traction control) might be handy! Knowing LR, it’s probably some crude system that involves rodents grabbing the disks or something!

Mol – me, issues? Well if I do have them, they are exactly the same as yours, except yours are worse. Best example was when someone said I seem to be doing well – you jumped in and said “he isn’t the only one doing well” – from then on, I haven’t been able to take you seriously!

Your issues are quite different to mine!

I don’t remember that ‘doing well’ thing to be honest? I think there was a thread regarding income which I didn’t want to join in because mentioning money NEVER comes out well, but I did, in order to contribute. And it didn’t go well.

You seemed to be sure I was boasting, when that was the utmost last thing on my mind as it always is.

+1 for ABS tho.

Mol – seriously though, we are similar. I know that because I’ve had bust ups with other similar people before – passionate about certain things yet stubborn. Bring two together and they either get on like a house on fire or things get ugly.

Time to take the little one swimming now!

what happened with the mate/broken car?

passionate about certain things yet stubborn

Yeah I’ll give you that. However I don’t randomly insult peoples cars when I get annoyed 😉

300TDI seems preferred by LR afficionados

There seems to be a bit of a Luddite tendency in LR circles, and the TD5 was shunned by many for being reliant on the Devil’s Electrickery. In fact it’s a fantastic engine, and as has been said, very tunable.

Where the 300tdi does win out is if you are heading off to remote areas of the world – it’s a simpler engine and therefore potentially easier to fix.

mat – i’ve heard good things of buryas (sp?) bridge and devon 4×4, down your neck of the woods if that helps.
the big v8 was quick but it still couldn’t go round corners, even with stiffer anti roll bars. The 200 bhp Td5 was better balance between speed and ability.
driving a 90 feels the same as driving a 110 for everything except turning circle; for which all 4×4 are pants, and the longer = bigger pants

cranberry – i hated the throttle response of the td5 fly by wire system. At a busy junction you try to pull out towing a heavy trailer and press quickly on the throttle and the ecu thought you had gone over a bump and accidently pressed down hard; so would only drive forward on little more than tick over. re-mapping never solved that problem and i had the td5 for 4 years/50k miles and considered that to be its only fault.

300tdi was brilliant AFTER LR sorted out the pulley alignment on the timing belt

I got mine remapped/given a bit more oompf as well – it does make it much nicer to drive.

That said, when getting it stuck in soft sand it’s still hard to find a middle point between stalling and spinning the wheels.*

* not driver error at all, honest.

cranberry – try 3rd low 😉

oops double post

Farmer – cheers for that. Will check them out. Inlaws have a gaff in South Hams (nr Plymouth) so often out that way. Some cracking lanes to have fun in up there.

I had that in the TD5s I drove a couple of times and thought it was just me driving like a muppet. Disconcerting when towing a three tonne drilling rig or a 1.5 tonne bowser of water!

Mol – you basically called most Defender drivers ****…

😉

I think the defender is as at home on a farmyard as it is outside a nice restaurant.

Well it would in the sense that it would appear someone who owns a Defender has come to visit, the farmers I know drive mondeos. The broken down landrover in the barn (or the 5 broken down LRs in the barn) has been surpassed by the quadbike.

Talking of Landys, a friend of my Mum’s has written a Landy kids book and it’s my little ones (2 years old) favourite book by far!

http://www.landybooks.com

When your Landy arrives Matt you are going to have one super excited 2 year old on your hands.

Beamers – he keeps saying “can we get a real Land Rover?!” (he has a little model one at the moment) – very cute!

Well it would in the sense that it would appear someone who owns a Defender has come to visit, the farmers I know drive mondeos. The broken down landrover in the barn (or the 5 broken down LRs in the barn) has been surpassed by the quadbike.

Thinking about it most of the bigger farm farmers that I know drive knackered old cars and usually don’t bother to lock them either!

i had a convoy of 15 land rovers at my wedding and our wedding car was a 101.
the land rovers were mainly driven by game keepers and mechanics, plus tree surgeon and a financial advisor.

we are all **** – but i don’t care

Most farmers I know drive Discoverys… 😕

All the farms surrounding us use Defenders but I know plenty of other farmers elsewhere. Most have a Defender then something more comfy for doing more road miles.

We aren’t farmers but have the BM for big miles/fast fun and then the Defender for other stuff – two almost oppositely targeted vehicles that between them, should cover all bases. Don’t need an “in between” vehicle like a Disco/whatever but I do like them a lot.

Farmer – veeery cool!

Just posted a link on the LROi forum for that book Surf-Mat – I think that there might be a few on there who’d like that book for their kids.

Cranberry – nice one! She did all the pics herself too – pretty amazing!

What’s the LROi forum BTW? Worth looking at? Only checked Landyzone so far.

I found http://forums.lr4x4.com

to be the most STWish

LROi is a bit Bikeradar 🙂

Edit: So you’d probably get banned at LROi 😉