Sheffield

The main problem with scrapping road tax and putting it on to the fuel tax is that is removes the last vestiges of any requirement to register a vehicle. It is very easy to have an unregistered vehicle now, but at least the lack of road tax may alert the police to an illegal vehicle if they see one. Without the need to pay road tax why bother to register a newly purchased vehicle if no one can check if you have not done so?.

All these firms are wholesalers, as has been said. They buy items in bulk from a variety of makers. Some will be reputable companies who may have made the parts concerned for the original car maker, and some will be companies in the Far East making the parts to a specification they have been given. That specification may be reduced from the original to lower costs, and also firms in the Far East are well known for gradually and secretly reducing quality during a production run. Unfortunately the wholesaler can not open and inspect all of the items he receives, and it is left to the end user to find out whether the item is any good or not. It is all part of the disadvantage of ceasing manufacture in Europe and sending it to the Far East. Because of the size of the Land Rover spares market it seems particularly troubled by poor quality and dishonesty. I looked recently at some parts on the internet. Britpart £12, Land Rover in a Land Rover box £54. Not difficult to see why Britpart still sells despite the reputation.

I find that the problem with Britpart is not poor quality, but variable quality. Some things of theirs that I have had have been good quality and good value, but on the other hand I have had Britpart things that were just rubbish, quite unfit for the job. The problem I find is knowing in to which category the item I want falls before I buy it. They are generally not manufactures, just wholesellers, so I suppose they are to some extent dependent on their suppliers, which if they are in the Far East may be a problem of consistency. .

By today's standards I suggest that is the best you could expect, and under the circumstances, quite reasonable.

Our 300 Discovery has had a Nissens rad for just over four years, running without a fan, and without any problems.

While I agree frequent oil changes are a good thing, there is a school of thought that changing the oil on a box that has not had oil changes at proper intervals in the past can do more harm that good. There used to be a piece on the Ashcroft web site about this problem. The oil change can dislodge accumulated muck and cause problems. I suspect if the gearbox has not had an oil change for a very long time it may already be too late. Does the noise appear when the engine is working harder than usual, say up hill, at a fair road speed, go away or reduce if the throttle is lifted a little, but not be noticeable in normal easy driving?

I understood good quality copper brake pipes are a copper alloy, so less likely to suffer from work hardening. I have seen many steel pipes rusted through, but never seen a failed copper brake pipe. I suspect it is one of those theoretical problems that does not happen in practice. Or has any one actually seen one broken through work hardening?

It seems to me that we should bear in mind that Land Rover does not exist to make land-Rovers, or any other vehicles. It exists to make money. Every thing else is just a means to that end. And they seem to be making vehicles that sell very well indeed, and so seem to be working well towards their prime objective.They have to make what the buyers will buy. I wonder how many of the people who say they should make what would be in effect a Series 3 would actually buy one if they did. These days the commercial market generally wants something like a Toyota pickup, and the upper market wants fancy toys.

Our 200 Discovery which we have had for 20 years has had silicon fluid in for most of that time, and has given no brake trouble at all. The 300 we purchased 5 years ago came with a 2 day old MOT and 2 brake pistons rusted solid in their calipers. I refurbished all calipers with s/s pistons, fitted s/s hoses, replaced the steel pipework with copper, and put in silicon fluid. It has had very good brakes since that time.

I agree that s/s pistons and proper seals are well worth while. i also use silicon fluid, which does not attract water so much.

Does not "young lads, new into breaking" raise suspicions?

One problem with buying cheap oil is being sure what is in the tin matches what it says on the tin. It seems it is not only the smaller companies and traders that can mislead.

With the TDI I don't think it is what oil you use that is most important, it is how often you change it, and the filter of course.

The plug in sort are a waste of money. The sound waves they give off do not pass through solid objects so do not disturb mice when they are hiding. Also If the mice and rats are established they will ignore the sound waves and live with it. Having fought a long battle with mice I can say that poison is the only way, Get the sort the mice can take to their nest, so you kill the lot. Although the glue is very effective it only gets a few. They don't like moth balls, but you will have to keep replacing the moth balls as they loose their smell. Block up all the entry holes if you can, as a mouse can get down a hole the size of a pencil. If you find a nest with babies give them to the hens, who will enjoy them. I started not wanting to hurt them, just shift them, but it soon became all out war, as all wars do.

Does not putting a tube in it depend on whether the wheel will accept tubes? I understand alloys on Discoverys should not have tubes. Some years ago I took a punctured tyre on a Discovery alloy wheel to be mended without taking care to see what they were doing. They put a tube in which subsequently burst while I was doing 60 on the A14. The fact that they had used a 14inch tube in a 16 inch wheel did not help.

No body has mentioned the Royal Mail yet. I assume this is because they can not bring themselves to utter the name. They seem to take so long to deliver parcels it must cost them more to store them than it would to deliver them in a timely manner.

I agree that diesels, or at least older ones, will suffer heavy taxation in the near future. It is something politicans can do that does not hurt the top of society who influence politicians, will only hurt the less well off who don't matter, and will seem like a good idea to most of the general population. It will also be popular with both car makers, and the second hand car trade, as a large part of the second hand car supply will quickly become of little value, increasing the price of petrol cars. The French have already signalled their intention to increase the tax on diesel fuel. The fact that it will make little difference to overall world levels of pollution is neither here nor there. Politicians do things that suit them and their string pullers, or sound good. It does not have to be good.

I think it inevitable that older diesel vehicles will be taxed off the road, as they are an easy target that will not upset the politicians and their string puller.. Such vehicles are mostly in the hands of the poorer people in society, who have little political power, and either do not vote or if they do tend to vote for the wrong party. Recent governments policies have show that, and I do not just mean the Tories. Remember the 10 pence income tax? Not much encouragement to those of us who have aquired a good 300TDI Discovery we had intended to keep in the long term.. The real causes of pollutions are too difficult or too powerful for polliticians to take on, but they need to be seen to be doing something.

I believe the Range Rover sensor goes between about 680 ohms and several meg ohns, and does not go open circuit, which can mean difficulies in driving a relay directly. Also I have found even a very small low current relay draws more current than the RR sensor can live with for long. Some sort of device that can measure the change in resistance over that range without putting any load on the sensor is required. I have also found that with the RR sensor in a 300TDI tank the fluid level drops quite a lot before the alarm is triggered. If the alarm goes off water is already very low, and it is necessary to stop and investigate quickly, given the low tolerance of the 300TDI to low water level..

As an aside to this, the autobox models get through front brake discs and pads quite a bit quicker, because of the lack of engine braking. Indeed given the risk of damage if the hand brake is applied while the vehicle is mving, if the brakes fail on an auto there is not much one can do about it, except steering for something soft.

In all these build code explanations I have seen the engine marker is a letter. But our Discovery has a figure 7 instead of a letter. I assume this is because it is a TDI auto with EDC, but I have never seen this confirmed. It does have the 3 for the autobox as well. It also carries a Special Vehicles build plate, but I don't know if this is significant in this connection.

Another reason for letting oil from the axle lubricate the wheel bearings.

Thanks for that. Disappointing, but thanks for saving me an unnecessary job finding out.

I have a spare nearly new alternator taken from a RRC V8. Can I use it on a 300TDI Discovery by rotating the front plate to suit the mountings or will the rev counter output be different, please?

Of course what we want is a converstion to run the TDI on petrol. That would slove all the problems. Land Rover did at first consider a petrol version, but it went no further than initial planning.