Hey Backyard,
Whatever you do, don't do what I did. I have a 300tdi 130 which I am now really happy with. Most of the things that I would have alerted you to you seem to already know. Eventually I seem to have gotten all of the anoying and/or unsafe things under control.
So what did I do that was a BAD idea?
Even if you start to get desperate looking for a 300tdi 130, don't, whatever you do, buy from 3WJ or 4wdcity as they also call themselves these days. They are in Sydney but deliver anywhere. I am sure I have to be carefeul with what I say on here so as to not breach any forum protocols so I will restrict it to (just) a few of the things that happened to me before I decided that the supposed warranty cover was not worth the on the ground realities of pursuing them and the FACT that they 'legally' rebirth cars that have been written off by insurance companies. Or at least they were when I bought from them.
When asked about some of the disparities in the ages of some of the parts (for example how come the windscreen rubbers on a three year old car were completely perished? Apparently no reason...it just happens some times!) and some remaining roof damage they flatly denied that it had been rolled or anything of the sort. You would not believe the amount of broken shattered windscreen and window glass I have found in every nook and cranny of that car when crawling all over it and pulling the dash out and other various bits and pieces (seat boxes, window slides and frames, batteries etc) at times!
Funnily enough although they promised log books and service history it never arrived despite me asking for it so many times I was like a broken record. More fool me you say and you are right. I had given a holding deposit and they weren't going to give it back unless I could PROVE why they should. You can only take so much time off work to drive out to the yard so many times.
http://www.4wdcity.com/profile.htm
Walk around the yard or their website and they have some cool 4bs at what generally seem like really good prices which they explain as being due to the volume of vehicles that they sell. From my own experience (plus others that have relayed to me plus what an insurance guy told me plus NRMA roadside assist guy plus tow truck driver plus 4wd specialists plus some of their former stockists etc) some of their stock has obviously been not just heavily damaged but insurance write offs.
They probably have some good stock too but how can you tell unless you get it up on the hoist and dynoed and have it crawled over to within an inch of your life. It all takes time and money and eventually you just want to buy and get on with life. Wherever you buy try to get an independent landie expert check it out for you rather than just NRMA or equiv. person check it. Not just a 4wd expert but a landie expert. Don't let the seller recommend the expert either ... more fool me again.
They are in Sydney, Aust and I didn't find out about their reputation amongst the industry until after I had bought from them. I could never understand (and still don't) why no one ever warned me BEFORE I went shopping there but I was pretty new to the 4wd scene and was kind of finding it all out as I went. I know of others who have been through this same experience as me but we didn't discover our similar experiences until it was too late.
The point of this post is not to randomly slag them but to let you know that they seem to end up with heaps of landies (incl. 130s - it is as if they buy them all!) and I was really keen on getting a 300tdi 130 for the same reasons you have outlined. They advertised themselves as the biggest and so I figured that even though they were extremely difficult to deal with as used car salesmen that they would have to be legit or they would be out of business. Twice while I was there attempting to chase up waranty issues there were police there searching through their lot for who knows what. Several times I was told that the work was completed and to come out and pick it up only to take time off and arrange lifts and find that they had not yet even started and that I would have to come back the next day. Too bizarre to be true. At times it felt like I was living in an episode of Seinfeld only I wasn't laughing.
I am not going to go into more detail than I need to because I understand that most people let it go as a painful lesson because they are just too scared of them to really take them on. I suspect that if you scratch the surface you will find a lot or people out there who have made the same mistake as me and paid for it. They fix cars up and sell them - nothing wrong with that but just realise what that can mean at the extreme end of that situation. They are entitled to sell landies but landie buyers should also be allowed to have a hint as to what they might expect.
They deliver around Australia so the temptation may be there for you. Because they get the vehicles super cheap as write offs they can afford to fix them and transport them around and still get really good markups for themselves. They offered to accessorise my vehicle to the hilt for me at close to trade prices plus cheap labour so it was increasingly attractive to buy from them all in one hit including accessories yet to be fitted but the problems then for me be were the vehicle that the accessories were bolted to and the lack of care that they bolted the accessories on with. More troubles and expense to get fixed.
I had them fit a snorkle but when I went to pick it up it wasn't sealed against the body properly. You could put three fingers in the gap and their solution was to fill the gap with black silicon and believe me I did well to get that as they were starting to get very aggressive! Unless you have dealt with them you probably won't understand quite what I mean by that!
When they fitted the tjm canopy they bodged the job so bad they had to do it again. In the end it was still bodgy (and they supplied the wrong configuration of windows and told me to be grateful for what I got) and when the rear window eventually fell out I had to get one customised so that it wouldn't rub itself to death. Although the waranty period on that had passed the reseller arranged it all for me as a warranty job because he knew them and felt sorry for me and felt that I needed to get a break at some stage. He won't even sell stuff to them anymore.
I would not choose to buy a 300tdi 130 defender or any other vehicle from them nor to do any kind of business with them at all. There is only so good a job that can be done with a written off vehicle especially when they are cranking them through their workshops and problems will slip through the pre purchase checks.
You might get what seems like a good deal at the time but you can't turn a sows ear into a silk purse. Take your time and find a reputable dealer and buy a defender that you want to tinker with for fun not one that you have to work on endlessly to keep it on the road and doing what it is supposed to do. Or get one from someone who was obviously an enthusiast or through a club or a forum like this.
Best of luck - 130s are great beasts but crikeys they are long when it comes time to turn around in a narrow lane or down some steep mountain switchbacks!
Cameron
