You've got it. Trailers tend to weigh under a tonne, examples being the Brian James Hi-Max (which is what I normally hire) weighs 720 kgs unladen with a gross weight of 3,500 kgs so you could acrry a car weighing up to 2,780 kgs or the Ifor Willimas CT177 (which I hire if there's no Brian James ones available) weighs 805 kgs but still with a maximum weight of 3,500 kgs. Both these and nearly all that you will find as hire fleet, will be 5m with a 1.9-2.0m bed. The place I use most used to have some 4.5m ones on their hire fleet but as you can fit a small car on a big trailer but not a big car on a small trailer, everyone went for the 5m ones to make sure they had the capacity.

The bit about the trailer not being heavier than the car only applies to Cat B licence holders, those that don't have grandfathers rights so can only drive up to 3,500 kgs anyway. It's to stop someone trying to tow a 750 kg trailer behing a 600 kg Smart car. As a 750 kg trailer won't have brakes, you'd be tryng to stop over double the weight on brakes only intended for a 600 kg car. However, I will admit that towing a heavy trailer can be a bit hairy at times. The P38 on EAS is a superb tow vehicle (which is why I bought one in the first place), streets ahead of a Disco on it's coil springs and I wouldn't even contemplate towing behind a Jeep. The car is too light and the suspension too soft,the trailer is in control, the driver only has a marginal inout to direction. I've towed my P38 and a Harley Davidson on a trailer behind a Disco 1 and 50 mph was the absolute max, much to the annoyance of the truck drivers sitting against their limiters. But equally I've towed a 4,500 kg boat and UNBRAKED trailer behind the P38 and while I had to think well in advance and only apply the brakes when it was pointing in a straight line, it did it without any problems.

added to clarify Morat's post while I was writing mine. The note 119 limts the weights. If you started with a post 1999 licence, you would get D1E if you took what used to be called the Class 3 HGV (goods vehicles up to 12 tonnes) but if you have grandfathers rights to D1E, you are limited to maximum of 8,250 combined MAM. I saw exactly the same thing on my licence and thought I could go up to 12 tonnes until I looked up what exactly the notes meant. I've also got, as I assume you have, C1E, which is trucks and trailer with the same limits, but note 107 restricting the weights.

No, not halfway across France yet, that's tomorrow. The P38 is plated (certified) to tow a braked trailer up to 3,500 kgs, so as long as the trailer is similarly rated, a P38 can tow it. I mention the rating on the trailer as it depends on different makes. The larger twin axle Brian James and Ifor Williams car transporters are rated for a gross weight of 3,500 kgs and weigh between 750 and 900 kgs empty so will take a P38 and still be legal. Other larger twin axletrailers, Indespension being one of them, look very similar, are the same size (5m long load platform) but are only rated for 2,800 kgs. So adding the unladen weight of the trailer to the weight of a P38 on it and you would be overloaded. So you do need to check the plate on the trailer. If you are overloaded and get stopped by plod, not only do you get stuck with a fine and points but you aren't allowed to continue with the journey until you are within the legal weights. Ordinarily, this would mean offloading part of your load and either leaving it at the side of the road or getting someone else to come out and meet you to take the excess. However, when the load is one big lump (i.e. a P38) you can't really start stripping bits off it to make it lighter.

There's a lot of confusion over what you can and can't tow as the Caravan Club recommend never towing a trailer that weighs more than 80% the weight of the towing vehicle. I suspect a lot of this is down to the affect a crosswind has on a caravan and what that will do to the vehicle towing it. But the important thing is the weights that the vehicle itself has been certified for. You need to check the plate under the bonnet which will give weights. The kerb weight of a 4.6 litre automatic P38, that is ready to go with a full tank of fuel and a 75 kg driver, but nothing else, is 2,220 kgs. But the Maximum Authorised Mass (MAM, what used to called the gross vehicle weight) is 2,780 kgs. So you can have just over half a tonne of crap in it and be legal.

Anyone who passed their driving test after 1999 can only drive a vehicle with an MAM of 3,500 kgs (so something like a big Transit or Sprinter) and can tow a 750 kg unbraked trailer providing the gross train weight (referred to as the combined MAM these days) doesn't exceed 3,500 kgs. So a fully loaded P38 with a fully loaded 750 kg trailer would actually be 30 kgs overweight (2780+750=3530) for someone with post 1999 licence entitlements.

If you passed your test before 1999 you have grandfathers rights so can drive a vehicle with a MAM of up to 7,500 kgs with a trailer of up to 750 kgs giving a combined MAM of 8,250 kgs, OR a vehicle and trailer combination of up to a maximum of 7,500 kgs providing the weight of the trailer doesn't exceed the maximum trailer weight the towing vehicle has been certified for.

So, the answer to a simple question with a long answer is if you passed your driving test after 1999, you can't drive a P38 with a trailer heavier than 750 kgs. This might be something Marty would need to check his licence for as I assume he swapped his NZ licence for a UK one. Dina did the same, having passed her test before 1999 but in Latvia so when she swapped her Latvian licence for a UK licence she was only given the post 1999 entitlements. If you passed your test pre 1999, you can legally drive a fully loaded P38 (2,780 kgs) towing a braked trailer with a combined trailer and load weight of 3,500 kgs making a gross train weight 6,280 kgs.

Lpgc wrote:

but I'm sure it'll hold together fine for the holiday

A good cue for the next thread entitled 'Collapsed wheel bearing on holiday in Cornwall'.......

I think someone mentioned that while it is the same engine, and possibly fuel pump, the electronics are different so it can talk to the BeCM. Whether they live in the top bit that has to be calibrated or not I have no idea.

Budgie tweeting might just be exhaust manifold to head joint, could be worth just nipping the bolts up a bit and seing if that makes a difference. Equally, it could also be a head gasket starting to blow out to the outside world. I did one a while ago that for the best part of a year had sounded just like a manifold blow. Owner had changed the gaskets, filled the manifolds up with water while they were off to see if the flexi joints had cracked and it was only when it started to sound more like a traction engine that we realised it was the head gasket.

This trip is just a short one, 953 miles each way towing a car transporter trailer. Will hardly notice it on the way down as all it will have on it is a motorcycle, but coming back with a 66 Mustang Convertible on the back. Even with ADAC Continental breakdown cover, I'd still rather not have to be towed home.

Mine doesn't weep but I've never taken it off which might have something to do with it. I always use Hylomar blue on gaskets (even the ones they say to fit dry) but if it still leaks, RTV, as it fills the gaps.

I wasn't counting the diesel issue as that seems to have been ongoing for some time rather than being this week. But, I suppose I can count it and relax.......

Be careful. The P38 may have it's foibles but it is by far the best to get. The earlier Classic rusts while you look at it, decent ones are going for very high prices, while cheaper ones will require an awful lot of work to keep them on the road. The later L322 is even more complex than the P38 so consequently even more expensive to maintain.

The diesel P38 uses a BMW engine, a version of the engine fitted to the BMW 325d. After spending a fortune with a French Land Rover specialist, the lady owner near Paris took her car to a BMW specialist who was able to sort out her problems. Not particularly well, but it was at least running reliably and I was able to sort out the numerous other, P38 specific, problems.

OK, as things normally go in threes, can someone else have a problem in the next few days? I've got a run to the South of France and back setting off on Thursday so if someone else can be the third, it would make me feel happier.

I agree Rob, lifting a diff into place, especially when it has the harmonic balance weight attached makes you realise you aren't as strong as you thought you were. They don't balance on a trolley jack that easily either.

Mazz1 wrote:

Right. How in heavens name do you identify a P 38 when looking from a normal RR.

P38 was the codename for the 94-02 model of Range Rover, also known as the Mk2 to differentiate it from the Classic that came before it and the Mk3 (codenamed L322) from 02 onwards. So all Range Rovers between 1994 and 2002 are P38s.

Modern diesels are a bloody nightmare, far too many bits hung on to try to keep the emissions down, whereas the engine in the diesel P38 is old school and pretty basic as they go. As you say though, it needs someone that knows how to set them up to get them running right.

The pump in the tank is purely there to get fuel from the tank to the engine. Even if it wasn't working, it wouldn't generate a fault code and certainly wouldn't affect the fuel quantity adaptation.

If the pump hasn't seized then it looks like it was just one of those random failures that could happen to virtually anyone at any time. Put it down to metal fatigue, dodgy manufacture or a dodgy weld, nothing that you could have foreseen. As for the heater core, I wonder if O rings would have acted as a sort of secondary pressure relief rather than blowing the end out of the Audi core.......

Now I don't know that much about diesels but it's my understanding that the glow plugs are needed for a cold start in cold weather. If two have failed then there's still 4 more to get it to start and, if my bosses diesel Discovery is anything to go by, you don't actually neded them in the summer.

Martyuk wrote:

I wouldn't like to say how long the engine was running without the pump turning or after the heater core let go - It feels like it was an eternity, but it was a hill up the offramp and there was still enough power to get my up that, and I don't remember hearing any nasty noises from under the bonnet before I turned it off - though as soon as I was stopped the key was off!

If you had to turn it off to make it stop, rather than it stopping on it's own, I would say the engine is fine. It's when it starts pinking and cuts out on you, you know that you are looking at a big rebuild.

I think you may have less to do than you seem to think. OK, so the heater core let go with the pressure so you may have an iffy cap, or it may have just been a weak pattern part (do Britpart do bits for Audis?) but it isn't the end of the world. If you rebuilt motor had top hat liners and studs rather than stretch bolts, unless it got so hot it started pinking and was starting to lose power, I doubt you've done any damage to the engine. Simplest thing will be to bypass the heater and run it, hopefully, you will be pleasnatly surprised.

I went through the same thing with mine when I first got it. Bought with a head gasket blowing into the Vee and a burst rear air spring. Fitted a new pair of rear Dunlops, pulled the head off and noticed a nick in it right where the fire ring was, skimmed the head and whacked it back together. Took it for an MoT, gave it a bit of a run and within 80 miles of doing the head gasket, it started blowing into the Vee again. Left it for two weeks in disgust before deciding to have another go at it. Just as I was about to take the same head off, did a compression check and found it was the other head gasket that had gone. Found an identical nick in the other head too.so had to do the whole lot again. Then I started using it and found that just about everythng that can go wrong on a P38 did and for the first two years of ownership I kept the Classic that I'd bought it to replace. I had a trip to Holland planned that was to be the first European run in the P38 but ended up using the Classic as I couldn't trust the P38. I did a run to France and, while sitting in a queue for a motorway toll, it got very hot, far too hot. That really did kill it so I arrived with it running on 6 and drinking 5 litres of water every 50 odd miles. I ended up borrowing a Discovery and putting the P38 and a Harley Davidson on the trailer to get it home again. This time it had got so hot that two of the threads in the block pulled out and had to be helicoiled. But, I knew if I got it sorted, I'd never need to buy another car again. That was in 2011 and, once the head gaskets had been done yet again, as everything else had been sorted, I just used it. Until, after another 60k+ miles, it could only manage 45 mph uphill with an E Type Jag on a trailer behind. It was at that point I decided I had to make a choice. Try to sell an ex-police P38 with almost 300k on the clock and a very tired engine, add some extra money to it and end up with someone else's pile of trouble and start all over again, or use the money to get my engine rebuilt and keep the Devil I knew. I chose to do the latter and now, with 378k on the clock, I'm taking it to the south of France again next week and will continue doing so while I'm still capable of doing it. But I do know that the car will do it.

If you took it in to be repaired and they haven't been able to repair it, how the hell can they charge you a grand for doing sod all? Offer them a token amount for their labour charges and leave it at that. Cost of transporting it wouldn't be a lot. I'm hiring a trailer next week to deliver a motorcycle to the south of France and bring a Ford Mustang back. If I was going to be anywhere near to Portsmouth after I've dropped the Mustang off, I'd have offered to pick it up and at least get it to you, but I'm going to be pushed for time to get the trailer back to the hire place as it is. Trailer hire is £50 a day at the place I use, so all you'd need is someone with something capable of towing it.

They are additive once you get to use them and appreciate their little foibles. I've recently sold one of mine so I'm down to just two. But it at least gives me space for another..... I honestly can't see myself ever not owning a P38.

The reason you are getting so much support is because we do all our own work and if something crops up we don't understand, we know who to ask. So when we see someone apparently being taken for a ride (I say apparently, as we don't know exactly what the problem is and how much knowledge the garage doing the work has), we get slightly annoyed. You are in much the same situation as the woman near Paris who's car I look after. She spent over 3 grand on her car and it still wasn't right. I called in on my way by and spotted the remaining problems immediately. It was cheaper for her to pay my expenses to drive over there a couple of weeks later and do it than it would have been to take it back to the same garage as it had been to before..