Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) Twisted

Only in humour

My local farming friends agree and have long since migrated to something reliable

Oddly enough my decades of Land Rovers (Series and 'real' Defenders) have been utterly reliable .... they've always just been there to jump in and get the job done whenever my more sophisticated vehicles have had 'Computer-Wobblies' and 'Sensor-Frenzy' ... my one reliable old backstop.

Perhaps always favouring the older pre-electronics versions is the key to that .... currently have a '97 I've owned for 15 years that's never let me down ... not getting rid anytime soon!! 🙂

I do enjoy the banter though 🙂

K

Yes Toyota and Nissan fill the void for them.

They all had an old Landy around but their favourite was always the Brat as it suited the terrain better and they could drive faster sheparding or herding up and it stayed shiny side up (most times) C of G in the right place. Unfortunately they melted quicker than BL products..
I liked driving them too...

After nearly 120k trouble-free miles our Td5 Landy decided to throw a wobbly last week, the ABS shuttle valve failed. It's still perfectly driveable, we just have no ABS or Traction Control until it's fixed. Hardly an issue at all really, after all earlier Landys have no such luxuries, and we still have the diff locks to fall back on should we need them, but nevertheless, I do find the T/C handy, especially on wet grass hauling trailer-loads of logs out of our fields, the gate is halfway up the hill and it's handy not to churn the ground up more than it needs.

When it comes to fixing it, the problem is that although the shuttle valve is a cheap part, what tends to go is the internal wiring of the ABS pump itself, and the standard LR part is something like £2k!

Fortunately the ever-inventive Land Rover community has figured out what to do. The solution is to fit a new shuttle valve, but splice into the wiring to take an external line to earth, and another to hook into the ABS pump sensor cable that goes from the pump to the main ECU. That way you bypass the dodgy internal wiring and don't have to fit a complete pump. It's known as the 'Option B' solution, and applied to anything with a Td5 motor, Discoveries included.

Not only that, but some enterprising person is selling re-worked shuttle valves on Ebay for only £90, which seems like a complete bargain to me.

The LR community is fabulous for fixes. When I had my Series 2 and 3, anytime I had a problem, I'd have an answer in seconds, usually with part numbers!

I had a RRC Vogue for a while. The ABS warning light came on - took it to the dealer who checked everything - the ABS was working perfectly but the sensor that turned off the warning light has failed. £80 plus labour (20 odd years ago). Square of black masking tape did the job.........

My first Land Rover a LWB Safari that I built out of three. I spent many a year in LR`s both diesel and petrol, V8 and fours, Series 2A onward. Once I started building renovation about this place and bought an old Datsun one ton pick up-truck.. That was the end of LR`s for me and the start of numerous 1 ton pick-up`s, both Jap and Ford for over circa 40 years. Sorry to say the pick-ups were far cheaper to run on fuel, parts and in truth suited the tasks I needed them to perform better than a LR.

I am all for having an old diesel or carb thing equipped with minimal electronics about the place. I guess I have that in my +8 (-: However if this E10 stuff becomes the norm I suspect the old thing may not like it too much..!

As for LR, it seems my good lady is still flying the flag with her choice of 4x4...However I am less than impressed when a wheel rotation sensor fails causing the ABS to go into failure mode.. which is no big deal, but subsequently it seems the programming is such that the next logical step is to lock up the FWD system if and when the brakes are applied, making all sorts of grinding noises, enough for the mechanically sympathetic to abandon forward progress... Only £480 to interrogate the ECU and fit a new sensor..! And advice that the two year old discs should be replaced after no more than a couple of thousand miles of commuting I think the quote to replace front and rear discs and pads was circa £1300.. I think I need to blow the cobwebs off my tools..Given the cost of O.E. parts from outside the dealer network..?

Showing my blind-spot ....these modern generic SUVs don't even register as Land Rovers with me .... if it's not Perpendicular Gothic and can be fixed with a hammer it passes me by .... have to say that come the winter drifts my old girl is the trailblazer punching through them down the mile of forest track between us and the road .... my neighbours then feel able to follow in their big butch pickups🙂

K

Absolutely. If you can't chuck a dead sheep in the back and pressure-wash it out afterwards it ain't a proper Landy in my book.

We made the plunge into ECU-based Landy ownership 20 years ago, when we bought our 9-month old Td5 to replace our previous 200 Tdi. We had dire warnings from some people about how you couldn't trust them and they'd break down and leave you i the lurch, but for us the reverse has been the case. Much less trouble than the Tdi, more powerful, smoother, and nicer to drive. Drinks a lot less diesel too.

No worries with diagnosing stuff either, the Nanocom unit is £500 and does everything you need. Although in our case we haven't bothered as our local Landy specialist is less than 2 miles down the road and they don't charge us anything to put the code reader on it.

I well remember in RSA in the rainy season having go out and recover our Land Rover in the Toyota Land Cruiser as it was lighter and had far better ground clearance. The locals took the piss something chronic which was totally justified in this case, at this time the vehicles had to have local content so they were built out there unlike the LR.

I have enjoyed many miles in very varied terrain in a 110 V8 special though which was fitted with 24v battery bank behind the seats under the floor, it had the standard 12v system for the running gear but the electrical screening involved was unreal to deal with when it developed a misfire.. It did far less to the gallon than my Morgan with a full set of gear onboard though.. Happy days in a previous life..

I didn't think we were talking about SUV type things, well I was talking utility jobs with a metal floor that the mafia could use