What you’re actually here for is to find out if it has let us down, right? And don’t worry, that’s what I’m going to tell you including the costs at the end. If you don’t own a Landy you might have a laugh, but go ahead, we’ll take your jokes any day because it’s good fun and that’s just how we roll!
BACKSTORY
We’ve had this vehicle for 10 years now and it hasn’t been a weekend warrior nor is it a pavement princess, it is our daily driver. In a previous life, our Defender has been to Mongolia and back, and it has crossed through all of North Africa from Mauritania to Algeria and everything in between.
We’ve camped out of this vehicle during our 2-year Europe Expedition, sleeping in it, on it, behind it and next to it. It’s been through all of Europe with us from East to West, North to South. We’ve explored the Alps and the Pyrenees, we’ve been offroad, we’ve been through Corsica and we’ve been to the southern tip of Spain. So, if you’re doing all that you might need something that’s pretty reliable in my opinion.
So, has it been reliable? Are Land Rovers reliable? Let’s have a look at Britain’s finest export – beyond Guinness, but that’s Irish. Let’s have a look at how our 110 Tdi has held up for us.
mechanical
The 200 Tdi engine is still original. The head’s never been off it and the reason I know this is because if we do go down the Alps and use a lot of engine braking, you do eventually get some blue smoke out the back. You have to be aware of that and I suspect valve stem seals which haven’t been tackled yet.
The LT77 gearbox and the old LT230 transfer case are original. The gearbox whines like nobody’s business on the road, but so far has kept it together, although the transfer case has had a modification with a little plate over the drain plug which I suspect they might have lost out in the desert and came up with this solution. It still manages to keep most of the oil in though.
Half shafts? No big deal. Diffs are fine. I’ve put some drive flanges on the rear axle just to keep the oil in basically.
The front prop shaft did let go. I had to replace that and it was ‘user error’ – I didn’t grease the nipples on the UJs. Preventative maintenance! If you notice a shuddering under load, then it’s a sign things aren’t very happy, and they can only take so much…
We have replaced the radiator and the water pump, which I did myself which was pretty interesting and quite a cool job (pun intended). It’s also one of the easiest jobs on a Land Rover 200 Tdi, and quite cheap which is always good.
The clutch had to be replaced at a certain point. I don’t know how old it was when we got the Landy, so it’s arguably expected. This was also a really nice job to do, something you can do at home and the clutch kit isn’t exorbitantly expensive. So you’re saving on paying the mechanics by doing a lot of the repairs yourself, and it’s also not extremely expensive on the parts side of things.
What we haven’t needed to do is the starter motor and the power steering pump. You need some luck here as a Land Rover Defender owner because these are some of the parts that can be very expensive, especially for a left-hand driver of this age. The rest of the mechanicals like wheel bearings have held up okay, no big deal.
The one thing we did do was replace the swivels (which Victoria did herself – no joke) because the old chrome swivels were pitted and rusted. ‘Dakota’ has gone off-road and done some overlapping expeditions so you can expect some wear and tear and they were starting to seep out of the seals, so you replace the whole thing. It’s also something you can do in your backyard or on your driveway. Quite a nice job.
The other big deal was the bushes because this vehicle has had a hard life and all the bushes were completely worn out as you can imagine. They have been replaced piece by piece, taking care of the familiar death-wobble or death-shake as well.
Rust
The other thing that is not related to the engine environment is rust, and we do have rust. The bottom of the doors are basically gone and there’s a hole in the passenger side floorboard – where the bulkhead used to sit is a piece of steel that has transformed into a hole at the moment.
Beyond that not much else to report because the chassis has been sealed underneath. The first owner was meticulous and I can confirm things like going to North Africa because he wrote it all down in a little log book documenting everything. And each time they came back from a trip they did a full service and replaced all the fluids which is always very good.
The door hinges have got a bit of rust on them – like any car of this age that hasn’t been stored in a de-humidified garage. I mean it’s 32 years old now so I’m calling that pretty good. Obviously, the front ventilation flaps do leak as you will know if you own a Tdi or anything younger than a Puma. It seeps through the dashboard so we get water on our toes every time we’re driving And this is why flip-flops are best for Land Rover owners. A lot of people seal these vents off or replace the rubbers. I’m just going to leave it because it’s a time capsule. I want to see how far this thing can go as standard.
Daily running – wear items
Wipers – obviously because they cost nothing so they don’t last very long. Besides that, we’ve replaced the front brake pads. The rear brake shoes haven’t been replaced because they were not set properly so they weren’t actually being used properly! Now they have been adjusted, and we can finally slow down in the Alps which does help us a lot and you don’t have to work on the engine so much with blue smoke coming out…
One little thing we did was replace the starter battery. We had a really old Optima Blue Top in there which was fantastic but after about 8 years, it also gave up. Who knows how old it was?
We’ve gone through one set of tyres. There were some really old Nangkang ATs on there, which – if you’ve seen them – are as hard as anything and extremely slippery in the rain, which is not a good thing especially when you’re lugging three tons around.
Basically, besides the usual oil and filters for servicing, it gets through the roadworthy inspection every year which is pretty amazing if you think about it. Especially for a vehicle that has quite a hard life.
Interior
The heater control lever cover was completely broken which I managed to Super Glue together. Also, in that section, the dash vent lever cable gets loose so you can’t control the airflow to the windscreen or your feet. It’s basically like a bicycle brake cable – if you reattach it everything works fine. The heater works great. The dashboard itself still looks pretty good, it’s got a couple of little splits a few centimetres long, but for 32 years in the sunlight in southern France, that’s pretty good going.
The steering wheel has taken a beating. It’s worn smooth and there’s a bit of cracking in the top from sun damage and probably also because that’s where you put your hand when you’re driving, but it’s still in one piece and useable, so I am not calling that a failure point. The ceiling is pretty standard – no drooping, just a bit dirty. The seats have some special seat covers and seem to look original and the padding still looks and feels okay. I don’t know if the seats were replaced or refurbished but we’ve had them as-is from 280,000k to 400,000 km and they’re still absolutely fine.
The seat belt doesn’t retract very well anymore, so you keep catching it in the door latch, which is common. The interior door latch handle did snap in half, so I replaced it with a Britpart which snapped in half again! Now that’s an OEM part.
The driver’s side exterior door lock was worn out, so was replaced. Then it was the starter ignition barrel at a certain point. It wasn’t holding the key in the ‘ON’ position so I had a little bungee cord wrapped around the column to keep it ‘ON’. Essentially, once you start the car and you let go of the key it’ll just turn back and the engine will shut off. Now we can drive ‘normally’…
What I never understood is the metal side rail that isn’t in one piece. This is quite long on a three-door commercial and it has two weld seams that rust and that’s basically the only rust you can see on the outside. It looks like the rear bulkhead hasn’t been welded and although the whole bodywork looks like it’s been through the wars – it’s got some battle scars – it still looks presentable enough.
Driving
You rev match nicely when changing gears to protect the clutch and go very easy on the throttle. Max speed is about 90/95 km/h. Basically you’re like a truck – a heavy artic(ulated) truck – that’s how you’re travelling down the road. It’s noisy, so if you want to play some music need to put your little Bluetooth speaker on maximum – but that’s okay too!
The indicator stalk has worn out a bit so as well as the light switch. Wipers work pretty well and basically everything that should work does work. And man, I tell you what, we don’t have a cover on our engine – one of those sound-absorbent things – but it just sounds so good. It growls and rattles like a bunch of bolts and it’s just perfect
The headlights are really bad, so you basically try and avoid driving at night. I need to look at upgrading those to maybe LEDs or something or try to work something out
Breakdowns
It has let us down twice. The first time was on our way back from Croatia where it just died on the road. Luckily we were right outside the parking lot of a supermarket so we could push it in there on the starter motor. We then spent 6 hours trying to find the problem. Initially, we replaced the fuel lift pump with an electrical fuel pump (for a Peugeot) which we bought at a spare shop but that didn’t work. Eventually, we called the AA man. HAK is the AA in Croatia and they are top guys. He spent a huge amount of time eventually tracing the problem back to the fuel cutoff solenoid. The little spring had disappeared somehow which meant that it was permanently closed and wouldn’t let the fuel through – which is exactly what it was supposed to do. The fix was to remove the little plunger and we could drive off home. So I just needed to replace that part.
The second time was my own fault. I decided to replace the temporary electrical fuel pump with the original mechanical fuel pump, so I bought one in a blue box (Britpart). Yeah… I know! At a certain point about 2 years later we just stopped getting any forward motion and we were towed away. Own fault – of course I had to do that with a very cheap aftermarket lift pump.
The Tdi
The Tdi is weeping a bit of oil from the rocker cover,but nothing major. I replaced the crankcase ‘breather’ – basically if it’s smoking a little bit more than it should be, it’s kind of an indication. Super simple to do and super cheap as well. I put in a new viscous coupling when I replaced the water pump, and it is working! I’ve never had a working viscous in over 15 years of owning these things! As I said it’s the original engine – the head hasn’t been redone as far as I know. The turbo is good, no big deal, and a stainless exhaust makes a big difference, obviously if that starts to rust then you have a problem
Clutch fluid
The slave cylinder has been replaced a couple of times because we kept losing fluid out of the reservoir. We would fill it up, drive about 100 km or so and then you have to fill it up again. You would know because the clutch pedal just goes to the floor and then you know it’s empty. I finally traced it down to the little hose that connects your slave cylinder to the pipe coming up to the master cylinder. The problem was it had little microporous holes in it squeezing out all the oil slowly, and you couldn’t tell where the fluid was going.
Light switch & electrical
A lot of light bulbs were replaced and the headlight switch was worn out, but not how you think. It’s got that little ball in it which falls into a little ridge as you switch from ‘off’ to marker lights to headlights. That little ball had gotten stuck in its little detent so I bodged a quick fix. You know those little packets you get with screws in them at the hardware, that hangs on the little hook? That little plastic packaging – if you peel them apart you can use one of those thin pieces of plastic and stick it in the headlight switch. It keeps that little ball bearing in just enough to give a little bit of resistance but you can still use the switch so I don’t know if that counts as a failure point because we’ve been driving like this for about 5 years now!
Ownership
We’ve had the vehicle for 10 years. When we bought it at 280,000 km we hardly looked at the vehicle. We drove it for 10 minutes, paid the guy and that’s it. And it hasn’t really let us down much – about one and a half times. Basically, there’s not much to go wrong, it’s very simple and I would say a 200 Tdi is better than a 300 Tdi in that respect – but I’m obviously biased.
I know Land Rovers have a reputation for being unreliable I’m not listening to that! This is our daily driver, it goes everywhere we go. Land Rovers offer so much more than just transport and are actually better than you think they are. If you just treat it with a bit of care, a bit of attention, a bit of mechanical sympathy it will last a long time.
So after roughly 120,000 km as our daily driver, I can certainly recommend it. What a lot of people don’t realise is that these things can be used as a daily driver. A lot of them are second cars, they’re weekend warriors, they go on holiday once a year and the rest of the time they’re stored and they hardly do many miles. Not this one, this thing gets used every single day.
Costs (10 years)
So, here are the running costs including the estimated repairs, servicing, and spare parts considering a lot of this is done by ourselves – we only need to decide on which parts to order (spend more for peace of mind or gamble on a cheap blue box). I hope this blog has been a bit helpful to those of you out there considering a Land Rover (Defender). It can be daunting because of the reputation for being unreliable – like any car really – but if you approach it with some mechanical sympathy it will surprise you with its competence. Or it certainly has for us!
COST OF UNEXPECTED REPAIRS (OUTSIDE NORMAL SERVICE & WEAR ITEMS)
- FRONT PROPSHAFT €200
- RADIATOR €300
- WATER PUMP €60
- CLUTCH KIT €190
- SWIVELS €300
- BUSHES: €200
- DOOR HANDLE €20
- DOOR LOCK €15
- IGNITION BARREL €60
- FUEL CUTOFF SOLENOID €20
- FUEL LIFT PUMP €35
- CRANKCASE BREATHER €15
- VISCOUS FAN COUPLING €40
- SLAVE CYLINDER €15
TOTAL REPAIRS: €1470 (PARTS)
Ten Years = €150/Year
(outside normal servicing and wear items)
ESTIMATED NORMAL SERVICING COSTS & WEAR ITEMS
- BRAKE PADS €60
- OIL & FILTERS €1200
- GARAGE HOURS €2000
- WIPER BLADES €30
- BATTERY €170
- BALL JOINTS €120
- DRIVE FLANGES €60
- PAINT €40
- TYRES & WHEELS €100 (+ a second set came with the car)
TOTAL SERVICE COSTS: €3780
TOTAL RUNNING COSTS (10 Years)
(Service & Repairs excluding Diesel & Insurance)
€3780 + €1470
Approx. €5500 (call it €6000)
