M

mikeh501

Active Member
Hi all,

I'm considering buying a defender 90 for playing about at the weekends. I know next to nothing about off-roading but it looks like fun. I'm thinking of buying a project, something with a good engine, chassis and bulkhead and timping with it. Bit of a hobby type thing. :cool:

What sage advice for a newbie?

I live in Stoke in Staffs. Fairly near Derbyshire etc.
I fancy a V8, if only for the noise :D (but i've heard the 300/TD5s are better?)
I've done a search for clubs, and there seems to be a few. Is this my best start point?
Are there are 4x4 specialists in my area?

The big question... There is shed loads of choice out there, but i've no clue as to what I should be looking for... standard but tidy, or already blinged up? I'd spend probably up to £7k for the right truck. I'm not a mechanic, so it would have to be in fairly decent nick. I've also seen adverts where they say you can have a refurbished vehicle (simmonites), whats all that about?
 
mikeh501 said:
Hi all,

I'm considering buying a defender 90 for playing about at the weekends. I know next to nothing about off-roading but it looks like fun. I'm thinking of buying a project, something with a good engine, chassis and bulkhead and timping with it. Bit of a hobby type thing. :cool:

What sage advice for a newbie?

I live in Stoke in Staffs. Fairly near Derbyshire etc.
I fancy a V8, if only for the noise :D (but i've heard the 300/TD5s are better?)
I've done a search for clubs, and there seems to be a few. Is this my best start point?
Are there are 4x4 specialists in my area?

The big question... There is shed loads of choice out there, but i've no clue as to what I should be looking for... standard but tidy, or already blinged up? I'd spend probably up to £7k for the right truck. I'm not a mechanic, so it would have to be in fairly decent nick. I've also seen adverts where they say you can have a refurbished vehicle (simmonites), whats all that about?
Click to expand...

Define offroad do you mean quarry bashing in Pay & play sites? or greenlaning? Greenlaning isn't offroading as all the lanes are public highways. Refurbished (In Simmonites case) usually means bodged repairs and a valet then charge an unrealistic price for a heap of ****e.
 
wilty's rate,if ya cant do stuff ya sen ya gunna spend **** loads gerrin it mended,ant ya som bod ya can go wi t see if really gunna get in t it.
 
Would you spend 7 grand on a hang-glider then go hang-gliding with no experience, probably alone, and no idea of how to control it?

No.

People will help you here, good advice, a bit of banter and maybe even come over and off road/lane safely with you..

But if your main reason for buying a landy is 'the noise'...may i suggest you contact James R, you'll find him in the greenlaneing section...he's very noisy and allegedly will give you a good hard ride up the dirttrack.
 
Bloody hell boys; all a bit hormonal tonight int you? At least the noob's asking for advice; we all knew nowt once!!

Cast yer minds back to whenever it was you first got the bug; what made you want your own Landy? I can rememememember very clearly thinking 'I wanna play!!' - we all started somewhere! :p

Redhand is a pikey transvestite dwarf, Wilts has shell shock, from being too close the the Plain, Jimbo's just so bloody east mids, none of us have a clue what he's on about; we just smile and nod, and Storm99 does thigs with Trolls and clearly hasn't had his medication yet tonight
:welcome2: the asylum! ;)
 
Wow, you lot are a friendly bunch of tosspots eh :welcome: I think you lot should lighten up a little.

For the record :)

I'm not interested in hang gliding. Are you nuts?
I fancy both green laning and pay&play days.
I do like the noise of a V8, who doesn't? But its not the only feckin reason FFS
Can somebody translate jimbo, as he sounds like owd grandad pigott Dialects - Potteries - Stoke-on-Trent and given i'm from around here I still didnt understand a feckin word. Just because you talk like that, doesnt mean you should type it lol.

Thanks for the simmonites stuff. large barge pole I guess.
 
Trouble is only you can answer what you're asking!

What I mean is many people have many different ideas of what's suitable for off-roading, green-laning and whether it's a pure plaything or also needs to be used weekly/daily as the main daily driver.

Some people get in a Landy and immediately want to compete and join clubs do trials, ccv's etc .. others are quite content to go green-laning, no need for competition etc so a completely different set of priorities as to what's suitable.

I'd say get something cheap, save your money, play with it and decide then what you want from it after you have a little more experience and have actually tried it out. I also spent 7k, 7 years ago on my Disco, it was at the time the cheapest we could afford that was in good nick with FSH, one owner, low miles etc .. but we also needed a tow-car for the caravan and family .. a Defender wouldn't have been suitable. Now our needs have changed and a Defender would be far more suitable for what we do with it!

Have a search through the forum, there's lots of posts advising what to look for on any model of Landrover, this question is asked so often the 'locals' get ****ed off and you don't immediately get the answer you think you should have.

... and lighten up fercrissakes, life's fun, enjoy it and just give the psis back .. )
 
storm99 said:
But if your main reason for buying a landy is 'the noise'...may i suggest you contact James R, you'll find him in the greenlaneing section...he's very noisy and allegedly will give you a good hard ride up the dirttrack.
Click to expand...


lol 'now wiping orange juice off monitor and keyboard'

:D:D:D
 
in summary what we are all tying to do is save you wasting your dosh..
go out with a few pepes who have a landy and try them out in different ofroad situations,if you turned up at a dealers with the sort of qs you posted in fred 1 then they would rub there hands and sell you most expensive bit of kit they had in stock but it may not suit your purposes.
dont be in a rush to throw money at a landy that may look pretty or sound nice..
try b4 you buy
 
wiltshire landyman said:
in summary what we are all tying to do is save you wasting your dosh..
go out with a few pepes who have a landy and try them out in different ofroad situations,if you turned up at a dealers with the sort of qs you posted in fred 1 then they would rub there hands and sell you most expensive bit of kit they had in stock but it may not suit your purposes.
dont be in a rush to throw money at a landy that may look pretty or sound nice..
try b4 you buy
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice. I'm not looking to buy the first thing that comes along :) thats why I thought i'd ask on a LR forum... not sure that was a good plan now lol. Looks like i've some more googling to do and get in touch with a local 4x4 club.
 
theres loads of good pepes on ere,and the amount of knoweldge is unreal..
we will however take the **** but dont take it personally its the way things are done.

but hyperthetical qs are very difficult to give an answer to as everyone will have there own views

good luck in your quest for a landy and when you get one im sure you will be a regular visitor to the forum
 
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