Land rover

[Jester129]

Have you lot forgotten about bleeding brakes? No, not bleedin' brakes! Bleeding the brakes every couple of weeks, because the brake pedal got spongy?
Such fun in the middle of winter with snow on the ground (and the schools were still open). Them were the days! Not!
Now I drive a Skoda Octavia and it is absolute luxury, after driving the Skoda my sister owned in the 90's. what a piece of carp that was. Now you open the bonnet and it's all VAG labelled. Quality.

 

[Antho]

Ive had a disk herniation and strangely the Defender is the most comfortable position on any car ive driven as it has a good lumbar support.... still bumpy as hell, rattles all over the place, lets dust and water in all the time but its the best car ive ever had... ive pulled all sorts of cars and 4x4s out of the sand on our local beach. Its a great work horse best suited to a low millage rural location. Totally cool, amazing fun and you could be anyone rich or poor.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

... The thing with old cars is that they are all horrible to drive. It is like getting a rental car in the USA. An E Type may be beautiful to look at and sound nice, but the steering, brakes, suspension is not comparable to modern day cars.

I used to drive my uncle's V12 E Type occasionally. It was bloody treacherous anywhere near a corner.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

My friend went bankrupt and bought an old three cylinder (iirc) Skoda for fifty quid. He used it for eighteen months and sold it for fifty quid. A bit of a come down from the Roller, but he said it was the best car he ever owned, financially.

 

[AJB Temple]

I used to drive my uncle's V12 E Type occasionally. It was bloody treacherous anywhere near a corner.

They still look nice though. Especially the convertible E types.

 

[robgul]

Have you lot forgotten about bleeding brakes? No, not bleedin' brakes! Bleeding the brakes every couple of weeks, because the brake pedal got spongy?
Such fun in the middle of winter with snow on the ground (and the schools were still open). Them were the days! Not!
Now I drive a Skoda Octavia and it is absolute luxury, after driving the Skoda my sister owned in the 90's. what a piece of carp that was. Now you open the bonnet and it's all VAG labelled. Quality.

I went from 10 years owning a couple of Discos to a Skoda Octavia estate that I kept for 12 years, brilliant car and really just a VW in different clothes - and then got scrappage on a new Dacia Duster (2wd sort) in Nov 17 (that's really pretty much a Qashqai in different clothes) - that Duster was sold at a BIG discount to one of my daughters and I bought another new Duster in May 19 ..... excellent, in some ways better than the Disco.

 

[Oddbod70]

Have you lot forgotten about bleeding brakes? No, not bleedin' brakes! Bleeding the brakes every couple of weeks, because the brake pedal got spongy?
Such fun in the middle of winter with snow on the ground (and the schools were still open). Them were the days! Not!
Now I drive a Skoda Octavia and it is absolute luxury, after driving the Skoda my sister owned in the 90's. what a piece of carp that was. Now you open the bonnet and it's all VAG labelled. Quality.

Lordy, how could I have forgotten about the brakes!

I never had to bleed them, but for some weird reason the front left brake shoe adjuster on my mini kept slackening right off (It was probably obvious why, but not to an inexperienced me at the time).

The effect was somewhat alarming. Especially braking into right hand bends in the wet. Mind you, with all of 30hp on tap, going fast enough to come to any real harm was somewhat unlikely. (Did get it up to 84mph coming down Haldon hill, Dartmoor, once ... only).

 

[Shavings]

Have owned three ladies, one as a recovery vehicle, have worked on most 4x4s and my choice would be a....Daihatsu Fourtrak but getting someone to part with one might be difficult.

 

[Shavings]

Sorry predictive text changed landies to ladies, could be interesting though!

 

[Eric The Viking]

My old landrover may smoke and rattle but will always keep going, just a nice simple bosch VE injector pump wheras modern common rail diesels may produce as much power as a petrol but I would not want to drive one through 6ft water.

I wrote off our VAG people carrier by (I think) causing hydraulic lock by driving it on a flooded road (only about 9" of water). Common-rail diesel.

In contrast we were standing on Tarr Steps a few years ago when a 110 went through - nearly got knocked off the bridge by the bow wave

 

[BillK]

I've got a 110 Defender, 300tdi motor, so its got simple fuel & electrics. Touch wood nothing big's gone wrong so far, just had a lot of leaks to deal with - used it every day before going solo and couldn't have it dripping in the works car park. I'm 6 foot 3, I did the Mud seat rail conversion where you chop out some of the bulkhead behind the seats. The new rails give loads more room to slide back and more height, it's perfectly comfy now. I love driving it, going a distance you just settle into cruising at 60-65mph and relax.
The heater's great (after a rebuild) if moving along, but trickling in icy winter traffic it's not much cop. I don't face subzero commutes anymore so that's OK. On the flipside all the glass and ally makes it really hot on a warm day. Although it's now getting insulated so might be a bit better, it was a bare-bones ex-RAF one.
Insurance is cheap, a bit over 200 quid. Obviously area matters and this isn't the priciest Landy out there.

Before that I rebuilt an ex-mil Series 2a Lightweight, it was also my daily car and nothing went wrong although it did get a going-over in the rebuilding. Bumpy roads gave the kidneys a good old rattle, and joining a fast-moving motorway could be hairy cos acceleration was non-existent. It was good while it was here but the Defender's a lot better for daily driving.

 

[Nigel Burden]

Lordy, how could I have forgotten about the brakes!

I never had to bleed them, but for some weird reason the front left brake shoe adjuster on my mini kept slackening right off (It was probably obvious why, but not to an inexperienced me at the time).

The effect was somewhat alarming. Especially braking into right hand bends in the wet. Mind you, with all of 30hp on tap, going fast enough to come to any real harm was somewhat unlikely. (Did get it up to 84mph coming down Haldon hill, Dartmoor, once ... only).

Converting understeer to dramatic oversteer.

Nigel.

 

[Ollie78]

If you like fixing things buy a Land Rover. If you need to go anywhere buy a Toyota.
I miss my mk 3 Hilux.
Also defenders are silly money. Ooh what about a Unimog for full on awesomeness.

 

[TFrench]

what about a Unimog for full on awesomeness.

My dad's one. It's awesome. Life size Tonka toy.

 

[marcros]

I imagine that it makes the land river fairly fuel efficient in comparison!!

 

[lurker]

I gave away my series two this summer.
Was a daily work vehicle when I was hedge laying and dry stone walling.
Did 5mpg on farmland.
Then it sat in the garage for 10 years and I had no inclination to sort it out.
Current owner is enthusiastically rebuilding it.

 

[lurker]

Four pages about landies and no mention of Ice Cold in Alex

 

[Oddbod70]

Ah yes, wasn't that the one where they had to hand crank the wretched thing up the sand dune backwards with the starter handle?

 

[lurker]

Ah yes, wasn't that the one where they had to hand crank the wretched thing up the sand dune backwards with the starter handle?

Nope. They got back to Alex and there was one in the street scene.
This was supposed to be during the war but the first Landy was built several (about ten IIRC) years post war.

 

[Oddbod70]

I unreservedly apologise to land rover then! (I'm sure something was hand cranked backwards up a sand dune in some film - That's going to be bugging me for the rest of the day now!)