Old vs. New Land Rover

[Jenny W]

There has been some talk on Land Rover recently and what they are doing for the environment so I thought this thread may be interesting....

I have a 28 year old Series 3 Land Rover - beautiful it is too! I know it's a gas guzzler - does about 25 miles to the gallon we reckon (it's a diesel).

Now our Landy will run for another 28 years if looked after properly, so I reckon my carbon footprint from the use of that Landy over that period would potentially be similar to, or less than the carbon footprint of someone who bought a new shiny, but 'eco-friendly' car every few years (as so many people do), purely because the carbon footprint from manufacturing all those new shiny supposedly 'eco-friendly' cars will be huge.

Do people think it's better to keep an old vehicle for as long as possible thus reducing 'manufacturing' carbon footprint, or buy a new 'eco' car every few years and have a reduced carbon footprint from the actual driving of the vehicle?

Please be nice to me - I'm just curious because I know what the classic Land Rover community would say and was wondering what people on an environment forum thought!. I guess I'm on both sides - hypocritical or not?

[Pete Collins]

I think you've got a valid point. Surely the 'carbon footprint' of a vehicle over its entire lifetime is the important factor, including manufacture and disposal, not just its MPG and emission values.

But perhaps you could buy something more environmentally friendly in 28 years time!

[Jenny W]

Originally Posted by Pete Collins

But perhaps you could buy something more environmentally friendly in 28 years time!

Nice one!

[Kayleigh]

I too have a Series 3 Land Rover that is 26 yrs old I love her to bits and wouldn't part with her for the world..

[Hippychic]

We have a series 3, 109 thats 30 years old. We bought her because we can fix her ourselves or easily anywhere we happen to be. She will get anywhere we want to go, doesnt matter if she gets messed up with camping and the kids etc. We wont need another car for many, many years. Its heap to fix as its less complicated and no onboard computer. The insurance is low so we paid for her and the insurance in one go outright as it was so cheap. She seats 10 so we can take family out and about in one car.
To do this the modern way would mean a huge debt for a big family bus thingy that we would be paying off for a very long time with no return in the long run. The parts for the new cars must be astronomical, finding anyone other than the dealers that can repair them would be impossible, so you couldnt shop around for cheaper garages.
We are going to do a water conversion on her, which will halve the petrol used along with improving the emissions.
Im sure thats alot better in the big picture with all the environmental problems we are in, especially when you take financial side of it into account. I dont like the governments carrots to get you to scrap your old car. Ours has years left in her and I certainly wouldnt send her to the scrappy for a new piece of junk that wont last 3 years then need replacing! What use is her rotting away giving off all sorts of rubbish into the atmosphere, just so we can buy a new shiny one and encourage commercialism.
I think some companies use the current problems to just sell anything they can by praying on the well meaning, concerned public (but not necessarily well enough educated in this area, which is hard achieve).
Thats my thoughts anyway lol

[Pete84]

i have a 30 yr old ex-military series 3 lightweight . since i've owned it i've done everything possible to increase it's mpg including an lpg conversion , k@n air-filter, webber carb, unleaded gas flow head , electric fan , free wheeling hubs etc ,etc and although she's still not the most fuel efficient vehicle on the road , if you take into consideration the re-use/recycle aspect of an old jam jar, i believe it's still a greener option than buying new.

people often forget the carbon footprint incurred during the manufacture and the transport of materials for the manufacture of cars and goods in general.

the truly green option is recycle/re-use. the govt have come up with buy new then tax for the use of.

unfortunately the economic system we have now relies on consumption. jobs and livelihoods depend on it.

[ring ouzel]

I used to run the species conservation department of an international NGO - and run a Series III SWB. Several people took exception to the fact that I love Land Rovers but had no problems with them doing conservation work in other parts of the world. I think people like to jump on bandwagons. I eventually sold the Landy to get a FJ1100 motorbike, from the frying pan into the fire. I'm looking to buy another Landy again for my business, probably a Defender CSW this time... then a Rangie Classic....then a SIII 109

[Hippychic]

does anyone know why they dont recycle more from old cars in the scrappy? I saw a program where they showed you what happens and they only take a few things then they squashed the rest. I thought you could reuse the metal and rubber from the tyres (which they shredded), plus the parts as spares. Seemed like a huge waste.

[eeyore]

Originally Posted by Hippychic

does anyone know why they dont recycle more from old cars in the scrappy? I saw a program where they showed you what happens and they only take a few things then they squashed the rest. I thought you could reuse the metal and rubber from the tyres (which they shredded), plus the parts as spares. Seemed like a huge waste.

its a price thing - the metal price is seriously low at the moment which means its not economical to recycle steel from car bodies etc.

you can of course strip for spares , which they do with vehicles where there is a spares market - but new cars are so difficult to fix yourself that their second hand spares arent worth the time taken to remove and assess them.

This is one reason why Cuba leads the world in recycling technology - the american embargo, and the collapse of the soviet union, meant that they couldnt get spares or resources for anything so virtually everything is recycled and there are still 1950s and 40s cars running which would have been scrapped years ago here.

[FungiJus]

Really glad you posted this one - I have been meaning to do something similar for ages.

I have a 15 year-old Toyota Corolla with 120k on the clock (the last 70k of which were mine). The only times it has ever let me down were not down to Toyota parts (battery failure, and alarm immobiliser failed after I had left it for 3 months on the drive).

Anyway, it averages 33.55 MPG and I do most of my own servicing (not the complicated stuff!) so running costs are pretty low. I had a Toyota Prius as a hire car from work a while ago, and I worked out that I could save myself £1.72 a day in fuel if I bought one of them, so even with a couple of grand off the asking price for the Prius, it's still a no-brainer for me.....

As for the environmental impact, I would take a lot of convincing before I believed that buying new, 'eco friendly' cars had less impact than keeping my current one.

Only trouble is, it does lack a little street cred