SaintPanzer
Well-known member
One of the problems with buying a "new to me" used car is you don't always know what is where it is supposed to be, what has been moved, hacked, or otherwise "personalized", because you have no frame of reference.
Case in point: when I bought my '98 ROW Defender, I thought I had some idea what I was getting in to, but my only real reference was my old, lamented, '94 Discovery that I sold back in '03 with over 200,000 miles on it. So I thought I had some understanding of how British engineers who work in Solihull think, but I was wrong.
I expected, from my Disco years to find a hydraulic bottle jack and chock tucked up under the bonnet and ready for use. Instead, I have a "high" (not really) lift jack strapped to the bulkhead and I can't find the chock. Maybe under the passenger seat? No. Check the manual (always RTFM) where I notice it says "when jacking, use the provided two chocks in front of and behind the wheel diagonally opposed to the one being lifted..." But no info on where these two hypothetical chocks reside when you are not in fact jacking the vehicle.
So my question is: Where do I find these chocks? I understand that the bottle jack/lift jack thing is an "either or", but even if I were to find a chock or two at a Rover Jumble, where do they stow?
And what other "hidden compartments" am I missing? The drain plugs are in a leatherette bag near the jack on the bulkhead... and I've been through the battery box which is empty except for the battery and the wrenches I've placed there.
Case in point: when I bought my '98 ROW Defender, I thought I had some idea what I was getting in to, but my only real reference was my old, lamented, '94 Discovery that I sold back in '03 with over 200,000 miles on it. So I thought I had some understanding of how British engineers who work in Solihull think, but I was wrong.
I expected, from my Disco years to find a hydraulic bottle jack and chock tucked up under the bonnet and ready for use. Instead, I have a "high" (not really) lift jack strapped to the bulkhead and I can't find the chock. Maybe under the passenger seat? No. Check the manual (always RTFM) where I notice it says "when jacking, use the provided two chocks in front of and behind the wheel diagonally opposed to the one being lifted..." But no info on where these two hypothetical chocks reside when you are not in fact jacking the vehicle.
So my question is: Where do I find these chocks? I understand that the bottle jack/lift jack thing is an "either or", but even if I were to find a chock or two at a Rover Jumble, where do they stow?
And what other "hidden compartments" am I missing? The drain plugs are in a leatherette bag near the jack on the bulkhead... and I've been through the battery box which is empty except for the battery and the wrenches I've placed there.
