Defender Buying Advice Wanted

Hi all

Looking for a Defender 90 for the missus for a budget of somewhere up to £15k. Having looked around, it appears that the Hardtop versions appear to be much better value than the Stationwagon versions...how easy is it to get rear side windows fitted and proper seats installed? And does this work out more cost efficient that buying a Stationwagon? Has anyone done this themselves?

Cheers...

Stationwagons are in huge demand........................... but it is dead easy to convert a hardtop to one as I had mine done. The windows and seats (all sorts of designs) are available from the OEM supplier. Even your dealer will install the windows and seats for a fee but I used an Indie to do the job and it cost me £700 in 1997 - my seats are the front to back benches over the wheel boxes, I think today you can only fit the two folding front facing seats for legal reasons but my 1996 car is exempt from that rule. Youc an even convert a hard top to an open top quite easily as the top is only held on with a few nuts and bolts and pop rivets. I didn't do it myself as the thought of cocking up the cutting out of the window holes was too much. Couple of things to watch out for when buying your hard top - check it has the vehicle has the small windows each side of the rear door (not all Defenders have them), check it has the "Alpine lights" in the roof above where the side windows would be, on the curve section of roof line and check that previous owner of your hard top had the good sense to spec the factory fitted roof liner/ headlining. Those three bits being on the car will save you a lot of money with the convertion. If you find one, the best option to go for are a County Hard Top with cloth seats (basic car has vinyl seats) or an XS as they have load soy luxury things like heated seats and windscreen and air-con. If you would like some photos of the inside of mine I'll post them. Before you go ahead, check with your insurer - mine were quite happy with what was done despite increasing the passenger capacity from 2 to 6, they were more concerned that I hadn't increased the engine performance.
A company called Exmoor trim sells all the interior bits you will need too.
I recommend buying a copy of one of the LROI/LRM/LRE specialist magazines as there are always ads for the bits for the convertion in them. £15k is a good budget to have form a Defender and you might get a late TD5 engined one for that, Puma's tend to have stratospheric miles at that price. Most important things to look out for are suspension lifts, heavy off road use, rotten chassis (can be easily hidden by a recent coating of Waxoyl!) chipped engines. Pete Bell or Defender_uk are good people to also ask as they own 90's too
These are the guys who did my HT - CSW convertion http://www.lixtoll.com/ take a look at their For sale section and it will give you an idea of what your money will get you - but be warned quite a few of their cars are commercial vehicles and have VAT ontop of those prices.
Aslo VED.................. pre 2010MY TDCI cars (IIRC) are rated differently to the later cars and will cost you £460pa in VED!

Thanks Tim...awesome response (what I have come to expect from you) and very helpful...I will start looking into it properly based on your advice.

Top man!

You could also take a look in the For Sale Section of Martins Defender2 forums - mostly Pumas (the one with the bump on the bonnet and the stonking 2.4ltr Ford Transit engine). Something really important to check when /if you go for a test drive of a pre-owned car is that the Diff-Lock works properly. A car that has been regularly offloaded will probably be fine for this but one that is used for the school run or doggie walking may have a seized transfer box - all you need to to is drive the car, using the short stubby gear lever move the lever across the gate to the left while in neutral and select either difflocked High or Low box and then check that the orange icon on the dash comes on, drive a very short distance (otherwise you might wind up the transmission and damage it if you are on the road ) then shift back to the Normal box. If the Difflock light doesn't come on then there could be expensive gearbox repairs to free it up. When returning to High box sometimes it can take a while for the diff lock light to go out, just drive it gently until the light is extinguished, if it doesn't then the Diff lock will still be engaged and you could damage the transmission.

Here is what I had done:

1) Two benches - 2 people each side - I had 3 adults in the back offloading on Sunday, it is't comfortable and if you are going to drive any distance with people in the back either the proper County Bucket seats or the folding forward facing seats would be way more comfortable


2)The "new" side windows - to fit you have to remove a strut and cut a huge hole in the side panels


3) An Alipne light is this narrow window, not essential but helps add some more daylight, they don't open


4)The side benches fold up once the cushio has been removed, for a tiny amount of extra load space


5) Full view of the side bench with both cushions and the waist belts


For the options on seats and fabrics then you can see all the options of seat design and fabrics here, my side benches are the same fabric as the front seats, http://www.exmoortrim.co.uk/
Mine also came with a dog guard that was standard with County spec cars back then, I only took it out as I knew I was going to carry people in the back and the mesh makes the back more like a cage!
County pack comes with alloy wheels, dog guard, radio /cd player, side steps, rear headlining, cloth seat facings, "proper" tyres not farmers' special narrow Avons!, rubber load space mat, driving lights (mine have long since been left scattered across Scottish forests!) and a pop-up sunroof (best avoided, not because they can leak and mine doesn't, but because in cold weather you get condensation on the join between the surround and the aluminium roof that drips icey cold drips down the back of your neck the first corner you go round or big bump you go over!)