finally over it

[motozen]

I went by plane and came back driving this "waited" black defender 90 td5:

Today, 111111 km on the clock!

first impresion was that it did good on the road, good perfoming while climbing (above 3000 m o sea lev) and considering that my old car was a suv (honda crv), performing "s" shape roadways was nice.

Economy in my opinion, perfect! Arround 720 km of autonomy, expense of a full tank in this country is arround 12 euro.

The rear lateral windows where totally noisy, i felt also a lack of braking, probably brake pads are in bad conditions, and defntly i need new shoes (appreciate some suggestions-how about the same General tyres)

I didn't bought this car to reach high speed, but climbing the Andes arround 120 km/h was nothing bad.

Then i got to bad roads, I imagined that the lr was lighter, even with lack of tyres, performing was smooth, no problems in muddy cnditions.

i also checked the winch and had little problem putting back the dif lock on normal position.

i'd like to have a rpm gauge (probably i'd like to install one) cause i (first time driving a diesel) felt necesary to keep pushing and pushing the throttle in low rev, while overpassing obstacles.

Now, what should i check? Turbo? Transfer case? ECU? New with this machines, new with diesel, new with computer to tune the car and also new with lrovers. Oils and filters are all new, installed before the first 700 km journey. Someone wrote to read about maintanance, but i didn't found it in this forum. Please explain where can i find a schedule of mntnce (checking tips) of the car. Spare parts in Ecuador are REALLY expensive, so suggestions are welcome.

The old owner told me about doing an upgrade with a new ECU (not sure if i understood), is it posible, does it worth the effort (and expense)?

[Porny]

I went by plane and came back driving this "waited" black defender 90 td5:

Today, 111111 km on the clock!

first impresion was that it did good on the road, good perfoming while climbing (above 3000 m o sea lev) and considering that my old car was a suv (honda crv), performing "s" shape roadways was nice.

Economy in my opinion, perfect! Arround 720 km of autonomy, expense of a full tank in this country is arround 12 euro.

The rear lateral windows where totally noisy, i felt also a lack of braking, probably brake pads are in bad conditions, and defntly i need new shoes (appreciate some suggestions-how about the same General tyres)

I didn't bought this car to reach high speed, but climbing the Andes arround 120 km/h was nothing bad.

Then i got to bad roads, I imagined that the lr was lighter, even with lack of tyres, performing was smooth, no problems in muddy cnditions.

i also checked the winch and had little problem putting back the dif lock on normal position.

i'd like to have a rpm gauge (probably i'd like to install one) cause i (first time driving a diesel) felt necesary to keep pushing and pushing the throttle in low rev, while overpassing obstacles.

Now, what should i check? Turbo? Transfer case? ECU? New with this machines, new with diesel, new with computer to tune the car and also new with lrovers. Oils and filters are all new, installed before the first 700 km journey. Someone wrote to read about maintanance, but i didn't found it in this forum. Please explain where can i find a schedule of mntnce (checking tips) of the car. Spare parts in Ecuador are REALLY expensive, so suggestions are welcome.

The old owner told me about doing an upgrade with a new ECU (not sure if i understood), is it posible, does it worth the effort (and expense)?

Nice choice of Land Rover

Is quite a personal choice when it comes to tyres - but I'm not a fan of General Grabbers as fitted as standard to Td5's... I find them pretty bad on wet roads, and not the best off road.

Depending on your useage, I'd rather go for a set of BFGoodrich MT's (or AT) or a set of Goodyear MTR... the BFG's especially have a long life, and both are good on and off road.

A rev counter isn't hard to fit to a Td5 - as the ECU outputs the correct signal.

Some Defenders already have the wiring behind the dash, but if not you simply need to run a wire from the black ECU plug under the right hand seat to behind the dashboard.

A genuine part Td5 Rev counter is around the £100 mark (plus postage).

I don't know if you have a local dealer, but I'd invest in a diagnostic kit so you have the ability to check everything on your Land Rover. For the money, something like a Nanocom ( http://www.nanocom.it ) isn't bad for the money (£200)... or the other option is a Rovacom SV ( http://www.blackbox-solutions.com ), although this works out slightly more expensive.

Maintance Schedule: http://www.lrforum.com/articles/00039/TD5_...2MY_onwards.pdf

ECU upgrade/remap...

Personnally I'd stay away from plug in boxes (although others might disagree), and have a proper remap. If you bought one of the above diagnostic kits, I could post you a remapped ECU (but you would need to do a few things with the diagnostic kit to get it to work). Have a read here: http://www.irbdevelopments.com/remap_td5.html

Ian

[motozen]

thanks a lot Ian.

Very valuable info!

Regards,

moto-ktm-zen