UKH

Curious to how many Land rover Defender / Series owners there are on UKC.

I've got a 2007 2.4 TDCI 110 that's also a basic camper conversion , probably spend more time thinking about it than the outdoors at the minute , what have others got?

I used to have a series 2a that I bought from a guy who worked for ITV. It was on TV every week on the opening credits of heart beat. 

Cost me £100 and was in a right state. I estimated 2 weeks and £1500 to get it back on the road. 6 months and 4k later it went through the mot. Cracking machine. 

43 mph down hill with a tail wind but impossible to stall, the engine had been replaced with a perkins tractor engine. The problem with impossible to stall is it ate difs, half shafts and prop shafts for fun. 

Never owned one but I took a friend's Series II-ish to Morocco then along the Algerian border in the depths of one of those super cold winters early 2000s, sleeping in the back and on the roof. Fun trip despite the tractor. I know people love them and they have their uses (on a farm mainly) but I've never really understood the appeal.

jk

In my time i've had a Series One, several IIa's, several III's, 2 x 90s, a Discovery and a 110 CSW converted to a Dormobile camper. 

The best were the Series One, a Diesel Series 3, a Ninety CSW and the Dormobile. 

I was a true Land Rover nut, but one day the 110 let me down slightly on the way home from the Alps and i just thought i'd had enough of the relentless maintenance.  My wife thought i was joking when i said i'd sell it when i got home, but i did and bought a Nissan Patrol.  The Patrol was the best vehicle i've ever had. Utterly reliable. Still regret parting with it 5 years on.

So i'm like a reformed smoker. Land Rovers look nice but if you want to put your key in and it work every time without fail or fuss then you need a rice-burner!

Currently landroverless and feel naked but have had in the past....

1979 RangeRover 3 door.

three 110 county station wagons. (one TD and two TDIs) - brilliant for taking a family of 5 on long camping trips.

TD5 discovery (because 'er indoors decided she wanted to travel in luxury for a change) - this ended up costing a fortune in spares including a replacement engine cos the oil pump drive sheered outside Aberdeen and the turbo blew somewhere near Glenrothes.  Decided enough was enough and bought a skoda Octavia estate which did everything I needed and returned the kind of MPG that gives land rover drivers wet dreams.

Now the family has left home I'm thinking I might try and find an old 90 csw.

Had a 200tdi 90, a 1998 300tdi 110 and a 2.4 TDCi 110 and Dad also had a TD5 110 until it unfortunately became too uncomfortable, I had hopes to inherit that. Used them as an everyday runaround. Learned so much about car maintenance and mechanics from them.

Miss them all, except the TDCi, that can go to hell. Also don't miss rolling around on gravel in the dead of winter manhandling various bits back in place or trying to find the source of yet another oil stain on the driveway.

Would love another 300tdi, perhaps a 90, but they rarely come up for sale here and often require more restorative/ service work than its worth. When finances allow I think I will definitely try and pick one up in the UK (ideally rebuilt on a galv chassis) and import it here. Though my dream has always been to build a Series III lightweight from the ground up.

My fingers still twitch when I drive past one, but have to remind myself I'm in a yeti and not in the club any more.

Currently own a much-modified 1997 300 Tdi Discovery 1 which was re-imported from Japan some years ago. I've owned it for 12+ years. It does work for a living and is now much used as a support vehicle for Welsh bothy maintenance. It was the first ever vehicle (other than a quad) to be driven to the recently rebuilt Cae Amos bothy in Snowdonia.

Have also previously owned 2 x Discovery 1s - a 1996 300Tdi 3 door and a 1995 V8 5 door and a V8 110 LWB station wagon and a 1959 Series 2 2.5P SWB. (Not all at the same time obviously!) All dated from pre-BMW ownership, so probably the last of the 'proper' Land Rovers. The V8s were both lovely things, amazing performance for a big 4x4, with a great soundtrack, but fuel consumption could be reduced to single figures without too much effort, so totally and utterly impractical. Apart from the Series 2, all proved to be extremely reliable, but this required/requires a huge amount of preventative maintenance.

In 2005 we did an 11000km trip in South Africa and Namibia in a rented Toyota Hilux; the first Toyota 4x4 I'd ever driven. It was a revelation; it went everywhere I'd have taken one of our Land Rovers to - and then some - including a 3 day off-piste solo crossing of Namibia's Messum Crater. When we returned it, the hire company's service manager said that the Toyotas on the hire fleet were faultless  and all they did was change all the oils and filters and send them out again. He also said that the Land Rover Defenders they'd once had on the fleet simply fell apart. Toyotas are welded rather than bolted together (Land Rover) so they held together well when driven/shaken on rough, bumpy roads. It got me thinking....

Despite being a Land Rover obsessive, when the time came to replace one of the Discoverys, I took note of the horror stories surrounding Discovery 2s and 3s and, recalling our experience with the Hilux, I simply looked elsewhere. For the past 6 years we've also owned a Toyota Landcruiser. It's far far better built than any Land Rover I've ever had; totally over-engineered and faultlessly reliable with no need whatsoever for any preventative maintenance. It's now 15 years old and, in our ownership, it's passed every single MoT with no advisories. In bog standard form it'll go anywhere a 110 Defender will go. It's towed a twin axle flatbed trailer loaded with 3+ tonnes of building materials destined for Dylun bothy up the old Melynllyn mine track from Cwm Eigiau with 4 people on board. It didn't strain at all. Not once have I regretted not buying another Land Rover.

The very clever, tongue-in-cheek  marketing phrase dreamt up by Toyota for the Australian market is, in reality, probably not that far off the mark: "If you want to go out into the bush, take a Land Rover. If you want to get home again as well, take a Landcruiser."
 

Same as you; I have a 2007 2.4 TDCi 110 but in XS trim. Had it from new, it's now on 80,000 miles and very little has gone wrong (so far...). It's the third Defender/Series vehicle I've owned. 

You've got to be an enthusiast to own one (obviously) and I do find myself questioning myself regularly these days. The cost of vehicle tax and fuel, the occasional wet carpets, the useless windscreen washers, the crap radio reception, the less-than-ideal reality of long journeys. But I still love it, it is absolutely a classic design, and still incredibly useful in so many ways. Plus the lack of depreciation - apparently they're going back up in value!

2013 Defender 110 CSW (2.2 Puma engine), great fun though I've not done any proper off-roading yet that a car wouldn't do!

I definitely find i'm way more attached to it .... and driving it ! than any other vehicle I've had !

despite all the leaks , noise , rust etc etc