I agree, with exception with Land Rover products, that always have issues and failures no matter how attentive and fastidious the servicing regime.

Utter carp! There will be problems with anything mechanical , including helicopters , and you dont get any more fastidious than that .
More than 4 decades with multiple landrovers have been extremely reliable, some have been so in situations ( Outback Australia ) when going to recover other vehicles , it was very important . JMHO
 
Yeah, ok, I've owned enough different 4x4's to conclude that the products are poorly designed and built using crap components, I like Defenders, but I'm not a foaming mouthed fan that cannot see that other brands can be better to live with.
 
Basically its all down to what you want out of the vehicle , it may not be a defender that ticks the boxes , you may well be a Honda CRV person :)
Luckily there are now plenty of flavours out there, although the Defender flavour , wont be available for much longer , I am personally happy about that as they have been rapidly losing sight of what it was all about anyway. :( JMHO
 
I agree, with exception with Land Rover products, that always have issues and failures no matter how attentive and fastidious the servicing regime.

Landrover are unreliable out of the box and everyone knows it. But we still love em.
 
Landrover are unreliable out of the box and everyone knows it. But we still love em.

No they are not , anymore than any other make, agree with the second part :cool:

Its quite amazing the difference between some landrover owners and landcruiser owners , one rubbishes the vehicle they chose , the other neveradmits anything has ever gone wrong , whereas the truth lies somewhere in the middle , if either were as black or white why would anyone ever make a different choice :confused:
 
No they are not , anymore than any other make, agree with the second part :cool:

Its quite amazing the difference between some landrover owners and landcruiser owners , one rubbishes the vehicle they chose , the other neveradmits anything has ever gone wrong , whereas the truth lies somewhere in the middle , if either were as black or white why would anyone ever make a different choice :confused:

Complete rubbish but you are a fan boy. They are unreliable and have a justified reputation as such. Tata seem to be addressing this slowly and LR will be all the better for it.
 
No they are not , anymore than any other make, agree with the second part :cool:

Its quite amazing the difference between some landrover owners and landcruiser owners , one rubbishes the vehicle they chose , the other neveradmits anything has ever gone wrong , whereas the truth lies somewhere in the middle , if either were as black or white why would anyone ever make a different choice :confused:
I think the description my stepdad gave of defenders is best:

"They break often, but rarely seriously"
 
Complete rubbish but you are a fan boy. They are unreliable and have a justified reputation as such. Tata seem to be addressing this slowly and LR will be all the better for it.

The day when anyone could call me "boy" have long past :), as for some of the later offerings you may have a point , as they have been importing components from other makes (Ford engines) , and some models have had some issues (1.8 freelander) but I have operated every series model upto td5 defender , and a good few other versions of discovery and rangerover including the tacr2a , and they have been eminently reliable.
i have also operated in the motortrade for a good few decades , on two continents , and other makes of vehicles have just as many issues even the so called bulletproof japanese makes , some of the rep that landrover is getting now is due to owner incompetence in maintaining , a supposedly simple vehicle which tempts them to think they are able to do so. Ergonomics etc are another matter , hot floors in high ambients for example , but in the end no one is compelled to buy something they dont like , or can trade off a plus for a minus. I currently run some other makes to suit certain requirements and dont wear rose tinted specs quite yet .;)
 
The day when anyone could call me "boy" have long past :), as for some of the later offerings you may have a point , as they have been importing components from other makes (Ford engines) , and some models have had some issues (1.8 freelander) but I have operated every series model upto td5 defender , and a good few other versions of discovery and rangerover including the tacr2a , and they have been eminently reliable.
i have also operated in the motortrade for a good few decades , on two continents , and other makes of vehicles have just as many issues even the so called bulletproof japanese makes , some of the rep that landrover is getting now is due to owner incompetence in maintaining , a supposedly simple vehicle which tempts them to think they are able to do so. Ergonomics etc are another matter , hot floors in high ambients for example , but in the end no one is compelled to buy something they dont like , or can trade off a plus for a minus. I currently run some other makes to suit certain requirements and dont wear rose tinted specs quite yet .;)

Probably more luck than anything.
 
Goodness me James!! That sounds like a right pain in bum! Sorry you guys didn't get to go on your trip... Glad you're both ok though and are home safe :)
 
Goodness me James!! That sounds like a right pain in bum! Sorry you guys didn't get to go on your trip... Glad you're both ok though and are home safe :)

Thanks. Yeah, it wasn't ideal. It was kind of fun and we had a nice week at home relaxing. Back at work today though which sucks.

The defender is back on the road now, so gotta decide whether to keep it or sell it...
 
Ooh Betty

lol, wait a while and you'll laugh at it frank.

sounds like you freaked over some minor stuff imo. you should have just got a few bags of one shot, bottle of ep90 and a lil oiler to fill the swivel up with every now and again. and just wipe the excess off. part of the adventure.

i'd never use a garage abroad, they see british, take the pee and are slack as anything.
 
Thanks. Yeah, it wasn't ideal. It was kind of fun and we had a nice week at home relaxing. Back at work today though which sucks.

The defender is back on the road now, so gotta decide whether to keep it or sell it...

so in the end what was really wrong with it? :)
 
Careful with the H-3 and there 5 cylinder inline. Pot number 5 like to over heat at slow speeds(off road) Has been there down fall from day 1. Has been discussed on different 4x4 mags in the US


4x4 with a 5 has to be something with TD5
 
so in the end what was really wrong with it? :)
The swivel seal was kinked and all of the one shot grease came out...
Ooh Betty

lol, wait a while and you'll laugh at it frank.

sounds like you freaked over some minor stuff imo. you should have just got a few bags of one shot, bottle of ep90 and a lil oiler to fill the swivel up with every now and again. and just wipe the excess off. part of the adventure.

i'd never use a garage abroad, they see british, take the pee and are slack as anything.
Yeah, in retrospect we should have carried on with the trip, but the group decision was that it was broken. Plus it creaked when steering which I thought was the swivel bearings being knackered from no grease.
 
The swivel seal was kinked and all of the one shot grease came out...

Yeah, in retrospect we should have carried on with the trip, but the group decision was that it was broken. Plus it creaked when steering which I thought was the swivel bearings being knackered from no grease.

if you were to constantly worry about it then the trip wouldn't have been any fun anyway :)

i like to think i'd be all a-team and end up tying mounts on with rope and crazyness like that.. reality is usually different though.

not fancy taking the plunge and trying again? do a mini trip first to iron the kinks out?
 
if you were to constantly worry about it then the trip wouldn't have been any fun anyway :)

i like to think i'd be all a-team and end up tying mounts on with rope and crazyness like that.. reality is usually different though.

not fancy taking the plunge and trying again? do a mini trip first to iron the kinks out?

Yeah, I think if I had driven it further I would have noticed it before the trip. I knew they leaked slightly, but it had only ever been a drop after being parked overnight. I guess with the grease heating up with both the weather and friction it got more viscous and ran out.

To be honest instead of constantly worrying about the swivels we were worrying about how we were going to get home! So it didn't make that much difference.

We are provisionally still taking it to Morocco in Spring. Whether Sarah comes with me or not seems to be a talking point!
 

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