Looking at a Defender 110

Debbie and I are going to test drive a Land Rover Defender 110 Utility tomorrow. The road out to our house has flooded 5 times since August. We love our Z4 but it can't drive through 2 feet of water.

A Defender is overkill, but the test drive is free.

This is a dealer photo of the one we are going to look at tomorrow. It is 2 years old and has about 21,000 miles on it.




BMW trivia. A few hundred Defenders were built with BMW inline 6 engines back when BMW owned the company.

Drove it yesterday. Amazing. On the other hand, I would not want to drive a Defender to work every day. We test drove a new F25 X3 after the defender.

I'll post drive reports when I've got time.

Can you post a link to the ad? What are they asking? Are there any pics of the interior?

Asking price is £19,995. Interior is very clean. I'll post a link in the morning.

a/

Originally Posted by 01Byte

Can you post a link to the ad?

Here you go:

http://www.conwy.landrover.co.uk/App...ocator?id=8241

The interior is very clean. The Defender comes with a set of factory seat covers. The seats under the covers look almost new.


Send me a PM if you are serious about this 110.


Moderators, feel free to remove this post if it violates forum guidelines.

you can't legally import this vehicle into the US, can you? (without significant hassle, expense, etc)

Love these, they are super cool....but we just don't them here in the states.

Are they still selling new ones in your area?

It would be all but impossible to import. Non-US residents could bring one over, but they'd have to ship it home within a year.

A few hundred Defender 110's were imported into the US in 1993. I saw one in San Diego in the mid-90's. There were also some V8 powered Defender 90's imported for a couple of years. You might be able to find one. Getting parts for the Rover V8 might be difficult.

You could import a 25+ years old Land Rover 110. Best bet might be an ex-MOD unit from Witham. Last time I looked, they had some Left Hand Drive 110s. They are crude compared to what I drove.


New Defenders are still being built in England. The new ones are powered by a 2.2L Ford diesel.

The Land Rover Defender is highly capable off-road vehicle that is a direct descendant of the original Land Rover built in the 1940's. There has been a gradual evolution over the years.

The Defender is built like a truck. The aluminium body is bolted to a steel ladder chassis. Ground clearance is nearly 10" but the amazingly capably suspension allows clearing larger obstacles. The 2.4L Ford "Puma" engine on the 2011 110 is located high in the vehicle. That helps protect the motor from rocks and water but does't do much for the center of gravity. Official fording depth is 20". With an aftermarket fording kit and a snorkel, you can swim a Defender in water much deeper than that. You will get soaked but the car will keep going.

The no-nonsense interior is well laid out and functional. The hand brake is a little awkward. You have to reach down to get to it. Visibility is good to the front and sides. The solid rear quarters on the Utility wagon we tested do restrict vision to back somewhat.


The 110 and the 90 are basic no-nonse vehicles. There is no automatic transmission available even as an option. What you do get is a easy to shift ford 6-speed manual coupled to a manual 2-range transfer box giving 12 forward gears and 2 reverse. The transfer box is entirely mechanical. No electronic anything. Four wheel drive is on all the time and the center differential can be locked manually. On road you'd ignore the 2nd stick and stay in high range with the differential open. Even in high range, 1st is very, very low. Perfect for getting a 7000lb trailer moving uphill. Not great if you are trying to pull out in to moving traffic.

As much as it rains around here, I couldn't see pulling a horse trailer with anything else. If we had a horse, I would have bought that Green 110 Utility the same day we test drove it. But we don't have a horse. We have two large dogs.

The Defender is a bad on-road as it is good off-road. The gearing isn't right, the steering is slow,and there is a ton of body roll. Zero to sixty is possible. So is zero to seventy but don't use a mechanical stopwatch. It will run down before you reach 70. Not that you really want to go 70+. It isn't fun. We couldn't hear the radio at all at 70 and I had to keep correcting the steering. Cruising at 60 in the slow lane felt about right. 60 was stable. At 60 we could tell the radio was on but I wasn't really sure what song was playing.

ABS is an option. Airbags are not available at all. The steering ratio is like 1st gear. Very low with many many turns lock to lock. That probably just as well since there is no stability control. Do something stupid and the Defender might flip, spin or both. Driving over the speed limit? Stupid. Passing a farm tractor on a two lane road? Stupid. On the other hand the Defender lets you know this. I could imagine it saying "I warned you once. I'm not going to do anything to stop you. If you persist in behaving like an idiot you will get hurt. Badly"

The turning circle is large too. Parking is possible, but like everything else in the 110 it is best done slowly.

Originally Posted by Andrew*Debbie

It would be all but impossible to import. Non-US residents could bring one over, but they'd have to ship it home within a year.

A few hundred Defender 110's were imported into the US in 1993. I saw one in San Diego in the mid-90's. There were also some V8 powered Defender 90's imported for a couple of years. You might be able to find one. Getting parts for the Rover V8 might be difficult.

You could import a 25+ years old Land Rover 110. Best bet might be an ex-MOD unit from Witham. Last time I looked, they had some Left Hand Drive 110s. They are crude compared to what I drove.


New Defenders are still being built in England. The new ones are powered by a 2.2L Ford diesel.

Yup, the easiest way is to get one that's 25 years old and bolt on the new body parts and swap the drivetrain. I looked at bringing one back but rebuilding an old one was almost was the price of a new one. Some of the places had a few LHDs, usually they were imported from Germany.

what does the drivetrain need to be swapped out for?

I've been browsing Land Rover forums. Swapping Defender drive trains is just something owners do. A Defender is slow with the 2.5L normally aspirated Rover diesel. Others swear by the simplicity of the older motors. I've read that the cylinder heads for the 200tdi are made from unobtanium. Td5 parts are expensive compared to other options. A swap could be far cheaper than a rebuild.

A lot of the ones that I was finding had the 3.5 V8, I'd rather have the newer TD or a 350.