I have a guy working with me at the moment, he drives a Defender with (I believe) the 300tdi engine. Yesterday, it sprung a fuel leak just as he arrived - diagnosed as a problem with fuel lift pump. He got a replacement and set about fitting it today.

After a lot of arguing with an almost completely inaccessible bolt, he eventually got it swapped over and went to start it. No problem with the starter, but just not catching.

Face palms all round - we had forgotten to prime it. 25 pumps on the little lever with fuel audibly passing through the filter, we gave it another go. Still not catching. More pumping, more trying, nothing working.

In the end, we phoned his usual specialist mechanic several hundred miles away. He said " it could be one of two things. Look on the back of the injector pump and there should be a black wire". That was as far as he got before the black wire, disconnected from the injector pump, was spotted and pushed back on. It then started immediately.

It just got me thinking, it could have been sat in a garage whilst somebody looked for the OBD port or just tried it again for weeks on end, but it took someone who knows these vehicles 30 seconds to fix on the phone. Will these people still exist in 20 years time? Will any depth of knowledge exist in 20 years time?

Edited by Adampr on 14/08/2025 at 21:15