At the risk of attracting the wrong replies ....

[RichardD]

I'm hacked off. My 110 has a host of niggling wee problems which are irritating me which will all be sorted under warranty but Too much has gone wrong for me to be happy to simply fix and continue. The car is reaching 3 years old and although I can extend the warranty I'm not confident it won't keep letting me down.

Problem is there is nothing out there that does exactly the same job for the same money. Sure there are lots of very nice big 4x4s out there but they either horrible looking, too pretentious, have the wrong image and/or too expensive.

I do a decent mileage each year and need to love my car not just like it so I have a problem. Do I buy a new one later this year and hope it is both made better than mine and holds its value better as this is the last year of UK manufacturing or just keep the damn thing and live with or sort the niggles.

Or should I cut the crap and buy some jelly mould plasticky lump because it's sensible?

[jojo]

[DD]

Wha are the problems? Maybe yours is a Friday car? Maybe the probs are fixable for the long run?

[cynic-al]

I like to think everything is fixable but I don't know exactly what your problems are. I don't think you'll ever have a car with no problems. I've known cars that everyone tells me are well made an reliable (like vag ) and you wouldn't believe the problems people have had and the mechanics just don't seem to know what to do.

There's a porsche at work that's had 5 software updates each taking over 2 hours and the clock still doesn't work

I'm not even going to suggest a pickup as I know you live your defenders. I really want a 110 but I don't know if I could live with it every day.

[DD]

It's the age-old test........do you still look back at your car when walking away from it after parking? If you do, it's a keeper.....

[** GED **]

my car has wee niggles.

its had 14 years of abuse.

your car has wee niggles

your car has had three years of not much abuse and regular services.

that tells you all you need to know.

no other marque has owners who are so blinded by their loyalty that they cant see the **** poor workmanship. its iconic, its british, its blah blah blah.

its three years old mate. its not going to get any better.....

speak to colin batch. he adored his disco. there was nothing better.

have you seen his landcruiser BTW?

[RichardD]

That's the thing DD, I do that almost every time!

I've looked at all the pickups and I like they way they look but inside they are are super plasticky and they are even more limited or poorer value than the 110, the D Max has rear drum brakes!!

Ged, I expected your response but the thing is, it is not being blinded by loyalty, my eyes have always been wide open with Landies as are most people's. I look at jelly mould 4x4s and I'm not jealous. only the more blinded LR hater will deny all its attributes.

The niggles:
Bulkhead leaking again which is killing the electrics slowly
Bulkhead has corrosion, again
One of the rear mudflats has fatigued off
The 'stainless' hinge bolts are rusting (not covered by warranty!!!)
The steering pulls to the left which LR says is not happening

The car has been back too many times to list, some of which are the tech's fault and some are a lack of basic parts needing to be ordered doubling the visits.
The fault level is no worse than my dads bmws or mercs and they were seriously top of the line brand new cars.

An LC might be nice but the first time it slides into a fence or earth bank in my field and gets scratched or dented I can knock £000s off its value.

[** GED **]

[** GED **]

why not use the challenge truck in the field, then if you dent it....

[RichardD]

[cynic-al]

Most pickups have drum brakes and leaf springs at the back, they're more forgiving over the load range and allow the new purchase price to be from the 15k mark. However it's a pickup, they're not performance vehicles, they are what they are. Plastic, yup, they're Japanese! It's functional though. Yes you can get better offroad, yes you can get better motorway cruisers, yes you can get more comfort and more toys but for me as an all rounder and for the price they can't be beaten and in my experience residual is pretty good, I lost £5k on a ranger in 4 years.

I don't think suggesting things like land cruisers are realistic as alternatives as they are a completely different vehicle and market. I think if you see a pickup as an unacceptable replacement to a defender (as they're the closest available alternative) then take the defender somewhere more sympathetic than a land rover dealer and get it fixed properly, ie by someone who will actually fix a problem rather than someone who will just swap it for another new part that doesn't fit. Or make the alterations yourself? If you got a new one in warranty you'd be unwilling to do that due to warranty which means arguing and trekking to dealers and even if it does hold value better as its one of the last, it still costs you more in real terms to change than to stick.

[RichardD]

All very good points and rather than trying to compare like with like I'm looking at my usage so a passenger car is more useful but a pickup is not out the question.

Just been offered a firm £24,000 by Mitsubishi against a used top spec LWB Shogun.

And LR warranty have approved everything including the wee spots on the bulkhead.

[** GED **]

[RichardD]

Ged, that is EXACTLY how I feel. I even felt upset when at the dealers looking at a used Disco

Having been to the paint shop to have them look at the warranty stuff, all the tatty bolts, the peeling powdercoat (2 catches only) and the spots of rust that I persuaded them were not stone chips are all being sorted. The water leak is a feature of Defenders, and I'm only owrried about it affecting the electronics so even though they can deal with the leak a wee plastic drip shield will be installed at the same time.

The pulling to the left will be looked at by a mate with a 4 wheel alignment set up on Monday.

Once all that is sorted and the car is as it should be then I can start trying to be rational about it.

Whilst over the other side of town I went to look at an L200 and a Shogun. Both very nice, the Shogun is much nicer but the rear seats are less well appointed than even the Defender ones and for some reason the UK spec does not include the rear diff lock. For only £3k more than a new XS Defender you get a new Shogun with everything you could want that is not 'pimp'.

However an 18 month old one with 16k miles is up for sale down south for under £25k and a 3 yo one for only £20k!! Which is a great deal for the used buyer but pish for the 1st owner. In theory, if I were keen, I could sell my 110 and all the dress up bits for easy money and buy a nice low mileage Shogun. On that basis given that there are literally no 2012 110 XS CSW Defender for sale on Autotrader I don't need to rush into making that decision.

But ..... but ..... I know she's let me down and will undoubtedly do so again in the future but can I see myself with anything else?

[RichardD]

Correction ... I didn't look far enough down the list ...

There is one, selling for £26,000!!!!!!

[** GED **]

and thats why landrover have gotten away with producing substandard crap for all these years mate.

the water leak is a feature of defenders.....

yeah, coz theyre shonky.

the koreans who aint exactly known for their vehicle building skills are that confident of their manufacturing processes that their jelly moulds come with a seven year warranty.

lawnmower, who, if you believe the hype, invented the offroader cant even get their vehicles to last three without claiming that water leaks are fitted as standard.

now do you see why i laugh?

because people excuse this and then complain that i laugh!

if people were realistic, like, mostly, you have been, then people wouldnt laugh.

i hope they sort it for you, coz i would truly hate to see you spend that much and to have to excuse it. for that much you should be entitled to a top rate vehicle thats not shonky. good luck and dont believe that a defender SHOULD leak.

[RichardD]

Now you're being a prat.

Landrover don't make any such claim and there is a very good reason why any car is made and remains popular for over 60 years. The far eastern crapwagons are cheap because they are ugly, slow and destined for the scrapyard in under 10 years. No matter how much you try to justify your choices your car is a cheap, nasty ugly copy of the most basic 'technology' left over from the bottom of the barrel left over from what the rest of the world has progressed from. If that suits you then fine but stop protesting how much you loathe defenders, it's getting embarrassing.

For all their faults landies last for decades and remain true to their design brief after all this time. It is a practical design that works well when compared with similar vehicles - commercials. It is not, nor does it pretend to be a landcruisers.

Today I looked at shoguns and landcruisers and when compared to the Discovery they are cheaper for a very good reason, they are simply not as good. Would I spend that kind of money on a passenger car? Nope, but you should be careful about confusing idiosyncratic choices for stupidity.

83.5% residual value after 2.5 years. No matter the reason, that is cheap motoring.

[RichardD]

Ged, when I say prat I'm really meaning youre poking with the proverbial stick.

We all know you love landies just like you love iPhones but you're so invested in being a hateboy you can't admit your love

[** GED **]

[mike328]

(written from the fence im sitting on)

I love landrovers; theyre icons, part of history, the look of them, the heritage, the scene of people surrounding them, the after-market support, their off road ability out of the box with no modifications...etc...

BUT, I don't want another one. my dad and brother still have one each, but not me. my mrs likes minis and a lot of my mates like beetles and its for similar reason to why I like landrovers that I like those as cars (less the offroad ability bit..) but I still don't want to own any of them! but i still just don't have any love for a jelly mould car....

I had to have my say but other than that I think its each too their own!

[RichardD]

Ged, I've always said there are 2 economic ways of car ownership; buy exactly what you want brand new and keep it until it's dead or buy one in its last few years of repairable life.

Ok, most defenders leak but for the lifetime cost there is no other vehicle that will do what it does. Electronics aside a 25 year old Landy can be rebuilt to last another 25 years for a couple of weekends work and a few £000 and there are few other cars out there that you can say that about.

The fact remains that I am puzzled by how much you loathe Defenders. They're not normally a marmite and the fact that I do love my Defender but I'm also annoyed by its failings seems to annoy you even more.

I'm lucky, I can afford a £30k car but my first Landy cost me less than £6k and was like new and until someone else mashed didn't give me a seconds hassle.

Perhaps hateboy is simply the other side of the coin from fanboy

[bazza_413]

If you get emotional over any car you will forgive all its failings and its deprecation, if I had spent 30k on a vehicle and had the problems you have had, my decision if I purchased another the same would be based on how the dealer helped to fix them and their general level of service and sympathy to your situation. In the last month I have fitted new rear pads and discs to 3 14 plate land rovers all sub 2000 miles due to bad design, the guy who owns them knows all their failings but puts up with it as they tick all the work boxes for his needs and he gets them with no warranty so gets a better deal. He wont drive a Land Rover on the road and uses a VW Amarok so what does that say.
All vehicles have their problems no matter what they cost or where they are made, we either drive vehicles we like, vehicles we need or vehicles we can afford.
If you took the purchase of the next vehicle on a practical points system with no emotion or preference to any particular marque you would probably have a short list of say 6 vehicles, but add in the emotion and you end up with 1.
And sometimes the best vehicle is the one you like driving and looking at no matter how much grief it gives you.

[** GED **]

[Xpajun]

[** GED **]

theses not much to add, except that ive just been outside and checked my £500, end of life, bottom of the barrel, left over, slow, ugly, technologically backward, embarrassingly basic crapwagon jelly mould and despite the piddling down rain, it still isnt leaking.

but then, i dont expect it to...


goodnight.

[cynic-al]

I think to simplify the forum for new users we should dump the little used technical sections and replace with a petty squabbles section.

[RichardD]

[winchman]

[** GED **]

[jojo]

We've had Land Rovers on the farm for as long as I can remember (and that's a long time) so I can say categorically they only leak when it's raining! A typical day would involve loading/unloading anything from feed to logs to piles of all sorts of **** and getting in and out dozens of times. If it was raining your wet weather gear would get wet (surprise, surprise) and dump half a cloud full of rain all over the inside of the Land Rover every time you got back in. This never happened on a dry sunny day although the inside could still be soggy from the day before. We maintained them properly and they never gave any significant problems and they did what we wanted them to do and they lasted well despite being worked hard and earning their keep.

Fortunately all that hard graft is done by someone else now and I drive one of those posh "Chelsea Tractor" type Land Rovers. It's good on and off road but I wouldn't fill it with a pile of horse ****.

J