16/05/2025
This 2001 Defender in for its 650,000k service! The owner has had it since new and has done lots of heavy towing and fetchin' and totin'. The engine was rebuild at 550k but has hardly ever caused any trouble.
What's different about this Defender that's made it last so well you ask? It's quite simple really:
1. Regular maintenance. Open the service book(s) and you'll find entries for every 10,000ks. Extended service intervals which you find on most modern cars are a one way ticket to mechanic way earlier than it should be. Even using modern synthetic oils, the heat cycles, contaminants and general degradation of the oil mean it can't do its job as well as when it was new. Infact, go through the owners manual under servicing and even in modern extended interval cars they will list a bunch of 'extreme operating conditions' in which the oil change interval drastically reduced, often halved or more. What are some of those conditions?
- Stop/start traffic,
- Lots of idling,
- Never getting the engine properly up to operating temp,
- High heat or cold,
- Towing,
- Off-roading,
- Extended intervals under high load
And so on. If you read it carefully just about every type of driving you'd do classifies as 'extreme conditions' and will require reduced oil change intervals!
2. Its pretty stock standard. Not all mods are bad, infact a lot are very good. But when older cars have had bodged modifications thats where we see a lot of problems with reliability. If you do mods, do it properly and use quality components. As the old saying goes, do it once, do it properly!
Hope everyone has a great weekend!
