madmatt

The best way to protest about fuel prices is not to buy the stuff! Gordon Brown must be sat there laughing at all these people racing out to buy all the fuel they can, they are swelling his coffers nicely. If we all stopped buying fuel for a week or two he'd start to worry as the amount of dosh entering the treasury plummets!

There is rumours of blockades and protests, most papers said it would be yesterday, They will catch people on the hop to be most effective. I disagree about racing out and buying gallons and gallons of fuel, thats panic buying, if people just bought what they actually needed then chances are garages would not run out fuel at all.

What tyres do you run on your hilux? All the pickups mentioned in this thread all come with road biased tyres as standard, these will be rubbish off road. I hate Hilux's with a passion after many months of unfortunate ownership, but with mud terrain tyres on the hilux and L200 are quite capable in the mud.

Pete, i went to the Wembley Quo gig the last night of the Rocking all over the years world tour that was supposed to be the last!............. I've seen them every year for the past 4 at either Nottingham or the NEC in nov/december time, Obviously the pension is gettin low!

Or you get the big houses with two Bmw's on the drive that don't wanna pay the going rate and try and knock ya down, Then you see where they've had their money from!

Nene overland ain't cheap!! The defender centre at Sturbridge is good as is G&S Drake at Wakefield, I hear what your saying about shelling out on works vehicles, However personally I don't try and bend mine in actual fact I avoid if at all possible. My vehicle is my office, so I like it nice and smart, also find a nice smart vehicle is a good advertising tool.

Marc, its a personal thing, I hate small petrol engines like those found on hydraulic power packs with a passion! don't ask me why, think a lot of its to do with noise, a big diesel sounds so much better! Its all pie in the sky anyway it'll be a while before I can ever afford a nice trailer like that!

Why?! Because if I can ever afford to by one, my 130 is fitted with a full Pto driven hydraulic system, including several spool valves to the rear, it would only be towed by this vehicle, there is little point in dragging, two engines, two pumps, two hyd tanks etc around with me! plus take that lot off the trailer and it would give me more pay load.

Frans I Think it was Jim, I'm registered over there too, so I'll see you on the other side!

Sounds like my situation thats why I bought a 130, sure it has flaws but it does make a lot of work accessable.

nope i'll be in the land of nod, i couldn't give a monkeys about it all to be honest!

Its got to better for security too, stop the pikeys in their tranny's gettin in!

I'll second the above comments about front tow hitches very usefull. I was drooling over that trailer at the AA trade fair, I'd like one one day, can they be supplied without the power pack as I have a hydraulic PTO?

Well we don't use it on a trailer as there are two many down sides when the depot has a road tow but a few of the flaws are, Even though its on a low trasnporter trailer the chute is still quite high and the stop bar is too high to do its job properly. The chipper is probably 3 times the weight of the road tow so you have increased wear and tear on the tow vehicle. Infact all the controls on the chipper are too high when its on the traioler you have to reach up high for the ignition key. Max what type of work you planning on doing with a 4x4 tipper?

Ours is away at another depot at the moment when its back I'll take some pics its on a Brian James trailer really low, but its still no fun to use on the trailer. I'll get pics to show. Ground clearance shouldn't be an issue on the road. I don't know what Green mechs weigh or timberwolfs, but you need a landy some thing bigger to drag the Jenson as its over 3 ton on a trailer.

Thats the sort of trailer our track chipper is on but its still a pain, plus your dragging a hell of a lot more weight about, the trailer is wider than a road tow chipper etc, there are solutions but non of them are perfect as I said earlier

hope your back at work soon Matty, personally I don't wear jewellery, and I've never liked those hicrack PTO spliters. I like the nice hydraulic ones where my little fingers are safely on a spool lever!

The 110 Hi-cap has a standard gross vehicle weight of 3050kg, there is the heavy duty option availiable which makes it 3500kg. They are thin on the ground second hand. The rear body is very easy to remove from a 110 or a second hand exutility 130. We did ours in less than 3 hrs. Max, Its horses for courses, I still belive now there ain't such thing as a perfect vehicle. you need to way up the pro's and con's. I hear what pete says about 4x4 trucks the thing that concerns me is if I had to employ someone they probably wouldn't have a licence to drive the dam thing. We are lucky that we have a track chipper to use when its really wet and we don't want to carve the ground up, its great, but its a right pain in the bum in town when space is tight and we just want to chip into a vehicle. So we take the road tow, thats ok if you have enough work and money to justify two chippers. You will never beat a tractor off road but you need to think about the amount of road work and distances involved, even a fastrac gets tedious after a while on the road. but it has the advantage of being very adaptable. Land Rover list a 130 chassis cab as being £22895 on the road, so you'd be looking at about 26-30k with toolbox and chip body all in. I hear Pete's comments about handling of 4x4's but if you fit wider tyres it won't cut in as much and 130's have anti roll bars so on road handling is pretty good. If you want tyres for your cabstar, I'd avoid Grabbers they are a soft compound and wear quickly, Look at BF Goodrich Mud Terrains, they should meet your load ratings, they are on My 130 and there are a couple of Merc Sprinters running them around here. Winches are a good insaurance policy but never rely on one as a way of getting somewhere, you need a lot of winch tackle too and it soon gets frustrating when its cold, wet, and dark and all you want is ya tea! If you want to see my justifications for buying an LR then look at the post My 130. Just some of my thoughts Good Luck with ya choice!

I think its about right, its about what an Ifor would set you back, but you'd have still been waiting for a special build from IW

I heard they were not selling enough, dam shame I loved my old fourtrack.

Td5's will cruise the wrong side of the legal motorway limit and happily drag 3500kg along at 60+. If you really want to improve the noise and cruising issues then try and budget an etra £850 and fit a GKN overdrive it basically gives a 3rd & 4th split and 4th & 5th split and 5th overdrive, effectively 6th. The new 07 defender is a good motorway tool but there is a lot I don't like and wouldn't recommend besides for that in 130 format and having a chip box I would imagine it would be about 32k

They will be old as well, EA vehicles have a life expectancy of 10years or 100'000 miles and many go over that. leccy boards keep them maximum of 5 years. A county transit is a viable alternative though.

Hi Max, welcome to the forum, I've got a landy so here goes with some of my thoughts. A 110 is too small, if you want just a tipping body it ain't to bad but if you want a tool box behind the cab then the wheel base is to short to allow for a decent sized chip box. aslo standard 110's have gross vehicle weight of 3050kg. The 130 on the other hand has a longer wheelbase which means you can have a toolbox behind the cab then have a large chip box, or have a big chip box if no tool box is needed. The 130 has a standard gross of 3500kg thats an extra 450kg over the 110. In my mind the 130 is the only 4x4 tipper that can gross at 3500kg and get a reasonable amount of chip on board. if a vehicle grosses at less than 3500kg you are either going to empty it every 5 mins or be running over loaded. Are you looking secondhand? If so there will be quite a few well specced ex utility 130's about, its a simple job to unbolt the box body and bolt on a tipping body.

I personally wouldn't touch a 110 Land Rover double cab the actual pick up is tiny compared to all the jap stuff. and you will be paying 23k+ for an 07 model Best Land rover double cab is the 130 but thats 26k+ but as Pete says they don't depreciate any way near as much.

Ok here goes! I've driven em all! Nissan, went ok but, good build quality but looked like it had been squashed! i.e out of proportion. Ford ranger the newer one is well specced goes very well. It also tows 3000kg which I think is only equaled by the Isuzu Rodeo and bettered by Land Rover. Toymota Hilux, I ran one for 13 months and I hated it, it was like driving a boat down the road, very bouncy and rolled in the corners cruised well at speed not great on diesel. It made an awfull tow vehicle it hated towing weight, we had 2 clutches under warranty. Mazda BT50, A while since I drove one but it was a poor mans ranger and I don't think Mazda have kept up with ford. Mitsy L200, I worked for a country park that had one for 18 months drove it most days not a bad motor, towed well, handled ok went like a train but the fuel consumption was bloody awfull, running with the sheep trailer on grossing 2500kg we had as low as 10mpg from it! Off road ability fairly good. If I was to chop the Landy in tomorrow for a nice comfey doublecab it would be for the new Ford ranger, but not before I'd driven a Isuzu Rodeo again. Oh and if your buying brand new and intend to tow with make sure its possible to fit a digi tacho.