wri t es Simon says
by Simon Hastelow
Positive Diversity No this is not going to be a lecture on cultural diversity or embracing different creeds, colours and religions - unless you think of your truck as a deity! I have complained in the past about the cost of new SUVs and 4x4s. I know I do complain a lot, but I’m at that age when everything irritates me, but I think I have worked through my issues and I’m ready to embrace a new life. Until very recently I had several saved searches on eBay and AutoTrader. They constantly threw up all kinds of goodies, along with a lot of scrap metal. I have now deleted them all, and I’m widening my search to ‘anything and everything’ - nothing is ruled in, and nothing is ruled out. There’s just no point looking at a Defender anymore. The prices are just ridiculous for anything that doesn’t require a new chassis, and the new one, lovely as it is, is now only a lottery-windream.
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THE MUD LIFE MAGAZINE
The TD5 Discovery II is my next favourite, but most of those are now rotten, and the £5k purchase price will need to be underwritten by at least another £5k of workshop man-hours. I couldn’t trust a D3 or D4 as I’ve seen way to many lose their minds over a splash of water on the wrong sensor. Land Rovers and Range Rovers are generally shoddily built and have more problems than other makes, regularly topping the charts in unreliability surveys, but we still buy them, and I still look at them when they come up for sale! It’s like that old cardigan with threadbare elbows and missing buttons that you just can’t throw out. We know its tatty but we still love it. On a side note, have you see the prices that good Discovery 1s are fetching nowadays? They are catching up with the Defender! Japanese pickups are a great option if you can find one that hasn’t been thrashed by ‘Bob the Builder’, and Jeeps are so few in number (at least the real 4x4 ones, not things like the Patriot) that they have been modified, and are also commanding hefty sale prices too, so we start to look at the less-popular makes.
