Lightning

To the O/P in America l might get some stick for this but, Have you looked at the LWB Jeep Wrangler? lt's the same sentiment as a Defender and seems reliable enough. Plus it's a fair bit cheaper. And they look great apart from the huge front bumper, but that can be replaced with a better looking one.

Thank you for the replies. ABS and T/C were standard on the XS TD5 certainly after 2002, and optional on all other versions

You will likely find that replacement of the injector harness will cure the running issues. Take the rubber gasket out of the red plug so any remaining oil drips out rather than possibly getting into the ECU.

Check the spindles aren't seized, one was seized on our TD5 Defender and it made the wipers slow with little power. The water seals on the spindles are rubbish, water gets in and causes them to seize up. The drive mechanism can fill with water and then in freezing weather they don't work at all (This happened on ours) The spindles can be replaced fairly easily although it takes a fair bit of dash dismantling to do the driver side one. Always use genuine Land Rover spindles.

l am looking at buying a 2005 Defender 90 XS lt all looks great except that the ABS and T/C lights DON'T appear when you turn on the ignition. What could this mean? On our last Defender the ABS modulator failed and l was quoted nearly £2,000 to repair it

Suzuki have now stated that they are pulling all their IC engined cars from the UK and are only going to sell hybrid models.

Can l assume that the transmission will carry on for years with this bearing spinning in the housing? Not that you’d put it back in like that, but there’s no need to dismantle the transmission just to check this bearing.

If you take out the interior light switch you can use a 60cm extension tube on an aerosol wax product through the hole. I managed to get the tube right up to the windscreen blocks as the spray grease could be seen to seep out of the seams. You can then just move the tube around while spraying the product.

Fair enough. A bit worrying that the floor can already rot out on a 2010 Defender, even one that’s been looked after.... Better get outside and check my TD5

Is this a private sale or are you buying from a dealer?

Just done this job on my 110. Those two bolts are just on the edge of the floor (after you’ve removed the main floor panel) and l drilled a couple of 16mm holes in the floor edge to get the bolts out. The holes are covered up when you refit the main floor panel, although l put grommets in them anyway. Also the body dropped very slightly when l removed the old crossmember, nobody said that would happen! It was only a few mm but, The rear doors were hitting the catches. It’s actually the front body that drops not the rear. I had to jack it up a little with my trolley jac

I fitted Discovery 2 spring isolators in the front of my Defender 110 TD5

Yeah short journeys can cause this. Not sure there’s much you can do about it, but at least it runs OK. lf you use flushing oil or any similar products it could make more problems for you.

I think it’s for a bilge pump when the Land Rover is sold in countries where it rains a lot.