High mileage early TDi Disco sensible choice?

You'll be needing the faq - I can never remember the URL but Martyn (Mother) has it in his sig.

TDi engines go forever (if looked after). The manual transmission is a weak link, as is the clutch. If they are original at 130K you are likely to need Mr Ashcroft before long. About £900 for clutch and recon gearbox fitting, plus the cost of getting to Luton. LEGS are another potential supplier of good replacments.

mpg claims vary wildly, but I'd say 28-30mpg would be easily achieved, some claim a lot more.

Chassis are generally OK, panels rot around the rear lights, the alpine windows, where the mudflaps are stupidly bolted in with steel fasteners, in the rear door arches and the front inner wings.

I reckon that if you find a good early Disco you can get a cracking motor for peanuts. I paid a bit more for my V8 (and factored in for the gearbox swap), so total cost about £7500. That's almost 2 years and 40,000 miles ago. The exhaust blowing apart was a bit of an unexpected downer, but apart from that I've been happy (and so have my dogs, who are the main reason I need a Disco not a Freelander).

Tim Hobbs

'58 Series 2 '77 101FC Ambulance '95 Discovery V8i

Steal Stopper car alarm (or similar)- input your code here

On or around Mon, 14 Jul 2003 22:18:19 +0100, Tim Hobbs enlightened us thusly:

That's about what we get from a 300 TDi in normal use.

The floor can be dodgy too, in the same way as a Range Rover. check out all these areas, and with that sort of miles be wary of the LT77 gearboxes, the words you want to hear are "cross-drilled gear" which is a mod to the transfer box which alleviates a lack of lubrication, which is the main cause of failure, in the output shaft splines of the main 'box.

that or "it's just had a new gearbox" :-)

On or around Thu, 17 Jul 2003 23:34:27 +0100, John Halliwell enlightened us thusly:

rather difficult to say. It (the mod. that is) dates from after the early

300 TDis, I daresay someone will have a date. There is an alternative fix from Steve Parker, involving an oil catcher installed in the back end of the transfer box, which does the same thing, viz. provides lubrication to the splines inside the gear at the top of the transfer box (on the main gearbox output shaft). The fault is noticeable through excessive play in the splines leading to a calnk/clunk from the middle of the vehicle when taking up drive - especially noticeable when going from forward to reverse or vice versa, or when coming off the power and back on again in (say) 3rd. Provided it's not very bad, it's not a terminal problem, although eventually, if uncorrected, you can lose all drive. More of a bargaining point, really - factor in the cost of a replacement/reconditioned 'box when haggling, if it seems that there's a problem.

In article , Austin Shackles writes

Thanks.

Is that a 'normal' calnk/clunk or a 'Land Rover' one! Not having driven one before, how easy it is to detect when you're not sure what it should sound like. My IIa clunked and clanked most of the time one way or another.

Is it plausible to repair without replacing the whole box? Aside from this particular problem, is there anything else that limits the life of the box (i.e. if the mod has been done would 100K+ be a problem)?

Hmmm, don't think I'd have much leeway to start haggling on that one at the price point I'd be looking at (4K upwards).