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Thoughts and musings on the new defender


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22 hours ago, reb78 said:

If it was easy to bring Aussie Ford stuff over I would have a '74 XB GT Falcon in the garage. (You might guess one of my favourite films from that...)

You might save a fortune by just buying an Aston Martin or a Ferrari...

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22 hours ago, reb78 said:

Haha. Yup. I came to a similar conclusion some years ago! 

A couple of vehicles lately have nudged a million Aussie dollars at sale.  One was a fairly recent Holden ute, the other an older Falcon GT.  I guess they're never going to make stuff like that again, so those who can are going to grab them whenever they come up for sale.  My friend, who lives near Melbourne, bought a Holden station wagon brand new in 1964 (he's an old friend but still going strong).  He maintained it well but it wasn't shiny, more of a work hack.  When he finally relented to the pressure to sell, he got many times what he'd paid new for it.   I think he just got tired of people harassing him to buy it.

In truth, older Land Rovers are under the exact same pressure.  In fact, I recently paid a wallet-hurting amount of money for a very rusty Series Three, because it was super-original and had a relatively low mileage (63,000).  I have a well-earned reputation for being very reluctant to open my wallet.  However, unmolested, half century old vehicles aren't that common...

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12 hours ago, deep said:

In truth, older Land Rovers are under the exact same pressure.  In fact, I recently paid a wallet-hurting amount of money for a very rusty Series Three, because it was super-original and had a relatively low mileage (63,000).  I have a well-earned reputation for being very reluctant to open my wallet.  However, unmolested, half century old vehicles aren't that common...

Be honest - an old Series is one of the cheapest and most practical classics you could hope to own. Every time I watch something like Car SOS I'm reminded what an utter ar5e ache it must be to have to neatly weld up swoopy pressed steel bodywork or try and source rare pieces of trim that were only made in low volume for a few years.

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Tidy, road-legal Series Land Rovers are fetching enough money to buy a new car, sometimes even enough for a new four-wheel drive car (at least here).  Definitely the most practical classic you could hope to own but probably not the cheapest.  We don't have salted roads so still have lots of classic cars with reasonable bodywork.  Ironically, so so many older Land Rovers were used as beach cars that they tend to be the rustiest things out there (well, not as bad as early Land Cruisers, most of which dissolved back into the earth decades ago!).

Actually, I can't really think of old Land Rovers as "classic" and it really bothers me that it's so hard to buy a cheap hack these days.  I've had plenty of cheap, usable ones over the years and find the idea of prissying one up so that you don't want to scratch it a bit sad.

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On 4/24/2021 at 1:24 AM, deep said:

 

There really isn't much available here, if you want a new car with off-road competence.  New Defenders cost as much as I paid for my house and I rarely even see dusty ones, let alone dented ones*.  Most people buy second hand imports and jazz them up (and break them, like the V8 Toyota I found blocking a track yesterday) or take the ubiquitous crew cab and throw big tyres and a lift kit at them.  When you see how EVERY track has been destroyed over the last few years, you can tell it hasn't been a successful recipe!

*A complete aside - we now have a new rule that, if your sills are dented, you won't pass a warrant of fitness.  Talk about discouraging anyone from using a new vehicle off road...

That is ludicrous!  

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11 hours ago, Snagger said:

That is ludicrous!  

Worse.  Borderline evil as it most affects lower income people who can least afford to fix it.  There is an awful lot of that sort of thing about these days.

Ironically, newer vehicles often have plastic in that area, an acknowledgement perhaps that your sills are vulnerable to minor scrapes.

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The trouble is when a law (especially a new one) is open to interpretation.
A copper/inspector in a bad mood is not the ideal person to make a judgement call.

Maybe the actual wording is more specific?

A little dent/scrape shouldn't be a problem, but 'stoved-in' could affect the structure of a monocoque, which applies to most vehicles. If the latter it could affect driving and/or safety.
Similar applies with a rusted-out chassis.

On private land (in UK) you can drive whatever clapped-out, dented, rusty vehicle you want.
Driving it on the public highway is, of course, a different matter.

My local friends with post-2010 old standard Defenders also don't go extreme off-roading.
I have one of those terrible, ugly, expensive new Defenders and it only sees roads, muddy fields and country lanes. Personally, I think they all look great and I wish I'd bought one of the last 2015/16 models.
Local farmers usually use 4x4 pickups (except rust-rot older Navaras) as they are reliable, practical, relatively cheap. And on private land they don't give a stuff if their sills get stuffed :)

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I'm told any dent more than 5mm deep on the main monocoque is now a failure, if it's in a sill, A or B pillar or within a certain distance from a window.  It's not up to interpretation at the inspection stage but a registered panel-beater can inspect it and pass it (yeah, right, like they're going to pass up the chance for some extra work - one quoted me $450 for what would have been less than two hours work.  It took me about that long and I'm not brilliant at it).  I went around the yard with the mechanic and quite a few cars had dents which classify as a failure.  

The rules don't apply if the car has a separate chassis (old Defender).  A new Defender, with an aluminium monocoque, is going to be a worry.  I haven't seen one with sill protectors yet!  Ironically, my humble Freelander 2 has plastic sills which can just be popped off and replaced in a worst case scenario.

It makes me grumpy.  Five millimetres!!!  There isn't a car made today that hasn't been designed to tolerate a modest tap in that area.  I wish Big Brother would just join the far queue and let us get on with our lives...

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Sounds harsh and, as you say, a good excuse to make cash for someone with a hammer and some spray paint...

I just had a quick look at NZ Transport Agency and they qualify the dent with a tiddly 40mm diameter to edge of crease. Not a lot, but I guess they have to generalise for every pressed tin vehicle which might fold up in a crash.

We don't seem to have such strictness in UK MOT vehicle inspection. (But please don't tell them or else they'll change it).

I just had a look at my Defender and the plastic-covered sill is quite high with some fat longitudinal structure a bit further underneath. But, I admit, it's far easier to fix a separate chassis. A badly dented monocoque is likely a write-off.

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1 hour ago, BogMonster said:

Looks like some sort of washout or maybe quicksand. Any vehicle that deep in salt water is scrap, and even the scrap isn't worth much.

From what was in the comments, apparently got stuck at low tide and then watched it get drowned.

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That drowned one made me think how that excellent water-proofing must make it quite hard to dry out!  I am also genuinely curious about what survived and what didn't.  In this throw-away age, nobody bothers with that sort of nightmare any more but it would be interesting to know if any major components got through that.  I guess we will never find out.  Years ago, I had a Toymota HiLux as a company car.  On a 4WD course the instructor sent someone into deep water and it drowned (never used him again!).  I was surprised then that it was an insurance write-off but it was a good thing for me as it got replaced by a massively better Nissan.

The one that nose-dived in the rocks is actually quite cool.  Someone using a Land Rover like a Land Rover and taking the risks, like so many of us have done over the years.  Looks like it's popped a radiator or oil cooler but it's probably going to be fixable.  Surprising the airbags didn't go off...

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