1000 miles
Pat has done over 1000 miles in his Defender during June
NOT having confidence in your Land Rover is not a good thing. While breakdowns are part and parcel of the fun of owning an old Landy, when they become the norm, then you start to consider selling or you might even ask yourself what am I doing here? The only way to gain confidence in your ride is to pile on the miles, do regular checks and services. You can also drive it on a long memorable journey and repeat several
times. If you are able to do that without any drama then it is sure to put a smile on your dial.
I recently took my Defender 110 to Woburn 4x4 for its annual service, a good friend Mark Dilks, who drives a D4 and new Range Rover Sport, recommended them. Also they are not a million miles away from where I live. I met Mark when waiting for my son Isaac to come out of school. Do you also favour the parents who drive Land Rovers?
This all happened just before I headed off to France on a dune driving trip. Read all about it on page 50. While doing the service they also replaced all the wheel nuts as the old ones were not in the best condition. As the brake fluid failed a boil test it too was replaced. Finally the rubber panhard rod bushes were worn once again and this time they were replaced with heavy-duty Polybush ones. Before driving to France I had to attend an event at the London Land Rover Experience, a round trip of about 100 miles. The engine was running better thanks to the oil change and when I hit a pothole the Defender just held its line. Yes the ride was slightly harder but at least these bushes would last longer than a month or two. I was good to go to France. As the family had other commitments I drove there on my own. My Defender has a long-range fuel tank and so I filled both tanks up prior to making my way to Dover. It was a sunny and hot day when I drove down to the ferry and I was a little concerned about my engine overheating, a common problem on BMW M52 engines. A few months ago we made some modifications to the new fan; basically we trimmed it to prevent it hitting the cowling and smashing into a million pieces. Fortunately the temp gauge stayed just below half for the whole trip, even when I was giving it some beans to get up the dunes. I was so happy at how it behaved.
When I drove off the ferry in France and I couldn’t help but wonder if this was the first 2.8i petrol Defender in France? Remember there are less than 1400 of
them in the world, and over 90 per cent of those are in South Africa. Most of the Land Rover owners on our dune driving trip had never heard of a Defender with a factory-fitted straight-six petrol engine but all were in awe of its sound and performance. It did love the sand and so did I. Nothing beats driving a Defender off-road. As for the tar road stuff I kept it at just over 100 km/h. I could’ve pushed it to around 120 km/h but then the fuel consumption goes through the roof. If you drive it conservatively you can still get around 20 mpg. Once back in Blighty I still had about 100 miles to get home. My Defender smoothly purred on. I was absolutely elated when I got home as it was the longest trip that I have done in the Defender since buying it a few years ago.
Two weeks later we headed down to Marham in Norfolk with some friends for the weekend. I confidently told the wife that we should take the Defender instead of her little Audi. She agreed as then we could take along the kitchen sink. While away when someone needed something from the shop or butchers I jumped up and said let’s go in the Defender. None of my friends who were with us drive Land Rovers. They are into sports cars. By the end of the weekend one of them was considering buying a Defender 90 to tootle about in. Once again my Defender got us home safely. This time it was a round trip of nearly 200 miles. If I count all the miles that I did in my Defender in June then it is way over the 1000 mark. This has made me fall in love with it all over again. Long may it continue.