Wanted:: Advice for first time Disco buyer

Ok, first up let's define the simple bits. Do you want petrol or diesel (or LPG), and manual or automatic transmission?

being a relatively new owner myself i'll tell you what i looked for, i am sure some of the more experienced owners will be along shortly with more info. we spent about 3 months going around looking at discos before we found what i felt was a gooden. if you look on ebay there is allot of rubbish around but also a few bargains. the main area's i looked at were - if its a four door, open the rear doors and check that there is no rot where the wheel arch meets the body. this is a common problem have a good look around the boot floor, inside and underneath for rot have a good look in the wheel arches for holes or bad rust check the chassis and basically the whole underneath for rust, take a torch and get underneath. have a look in the engine bay for any bad leaks of oil or coolant. find out when the cambelt was last changed ask about the service history if its been self maintained i would expect to see receipts and some sort of record as to what was done when. take a test drive and listen for any loud clonks, i say loud because i think most landies have some clonk when you take up drive. check that the gearbox changes ok, again you will find all the boxes are notchy to some degree when braking make sure it does not pull to one side. i think ideally if you are really not sure try and take someone with you that knows abit about landies.

if you do get one buy a few tools and have a go at doing some minor servicing, its not that difficult and will save some cash too.

hope this helps

Paul.

Diesel, manual. cheers G

Snippage occurs

Very helpful thanks! cheers G

Watch out for off road damage by looking underneath too. The clutch on the Disco I can be a little shuddery, especially at low engine revs, that's not a fault. 1st to 2nd gear can be stiff when cold, again not a fault. Watch out for stupid little electrical problems - bulbs blown in dash lights, central locking iffy etc. If it's a 300Tdi ensure it has had the cam belt modification done. Check with the seller if it has had grease put in the swivel joints, if it has it's maintenance free, if not the oil needs changing regularly, or grease put in instead. It should start on the button with a good puff of smoke out the back. The smoke should clear immediately after starting. They tend to leak via the sunroof and around the rear side windows. The sunroof is easily fixed usually, dunno about the windows , mine have always leaked and I've just put up with it. Have a good look for radiator damage. At that age it may be about to fail anyway but they are expensive as they are so huge. I think mine was £250, other parts are often very reasonable, especially from Beamends Ltd, you will often find Richard on this ng for parts advice.

TonyB

excuse the smirk, I said that and bought a v8 auto ;-)

Si

Many thanks, very useful! Any idea about expected price? I'm currently considering a 1995 N reg

200Tdi with full service history and 109,000 miles, full test and 6 months tax, from a dealer (a 4x4 dealer, not a Land Rover dealer) What should I pay? cheers Gary

Apart from rot and general mechanical condition, check for peeling dash as this age was the peak of the problem, just after they introduced the modified and retrograde dash design. Also check for the dreaded gearbox output shaft spline wear. Also you may have a choice at N registration late '95 when they changed the gearbox model. At around this time they had poor hygiene at the machining stage and some boxes had much swarf left inside to the detriment of life. These should have failed at a low mileage but you never know. If everything works as it should then all should be OK so be aware but don't worry about it.. The newer gearbox will have reverse opposite 5th while the perfectly good older model had reverse on a dog leg to the left of 1st.

Huw

Again, very useful, thanks you! cheers G

There's no such beast, 200TDi went out in 1994 ish. It should be a

300TDi at that age. Price is all about condition, but somewhere around 3-4K seems about right if it's in good nick and not a loaded up ES.

Having said the above, I must find out who owns the 300 Discovery on a

51 plate that's often parked outside Charlotte's day nursery.... There has to be an explanation for that.

On or around Sun, 27 Nov 2005 20:50:52 +0000, Gary Grainger enlightened us thusly:

don't buy the first one you see, unless it happens to be a good'un, of course.

There a lot around in that age range, and the key points are mileage and service history. A full history, with dealer stamped book ideally, is good. Low mileage is good. On that age you're looking at earlier 300 TDi engines which have known timing belt issues, so records of it having been modified are good too.

Also on earlier ones there's still a known transmission problem that dates back to the previous model - this is fairly expensive to fix. The problem is of wear in the output shaft of the main gearbox and the input gear of the transfer box - the splines wear due to poor lubrication design. The fix for this is called a "cross-drilled gear" and was factory fitted after about

1996 I think, though someone may have an accurate date.

This is only usually a problem on high mileage motors or ones that have done a lot of heavy towing - especially if they're not maintained as well. Not too easy to diagnose if you're not an LR expert (or nutter) and so well worth finding someone who is if in doubt. basically, if you change gear and hear clanks or clunks from the drive line, it's iffy. Try pulling off forwards, stopping, then pulling off backwards. any noticeable clank or clunk is not supposed to be there. Also try driving at about 2000 rpm in

3rd, say, and come off and back on the power rather heavily. Again, should be no noticeable clanks or clunks - if there are, walk away.

And remember it's a buyer's market for this age discos - there are plenty around, and it's got to be exceptionally good to make more than about 4000 quid.

For what it is worth, I just sold a 1993 200Tdi with 200k on the clock.

I had the gearbox problem (it was replaced at 154k with the clutch).

I can reccomned putting grease in the swivel joints (there is a LR "kit" for doing that, including a sticker that should stop the local garage putting oil back in) - it didn't with mine though and I had to re-grease them again!

Look for corrosion underneath, particularly near to body mounts. My local MOT tester is getting very "funny" about rot neat body mounts. They must have this vision of the chassis stopping and the body carrying on! I had to weld up the floor pan in the load area to get mine through the last MOT.

I also had corrosion on the rear corner near the bottom hinge - a real sod to weld up again.

The note about instrument lamps (and in fact the illumination of the heater controls) is good. They tend to go and on mine replacing the bulbs in the heater panel is a real sod of a job (to the extent I never bothered!)

Neither my sunroof, nor windows leaked (I must have been lucky).

I had also recently replaced one of the central door locking units and the door mechanism, unusually both had gone!

I had a three door DON'T - make sure it's a 5 door!

I also had bubbling in all the usual places, but nothing that really worried me.

I hope that helps. Enjoy the Disco (whatever you buy).

If you're interested, I didn' change it because I didn't like the car, there just wasn't enough space in the back load area for my 5 spaniels!

Cheers

Peter

Changed it for a 40ft artic trailer?

Huw

No, just a 110 CSW with the rear seats removed :-)

Cheers

Peter

On or around Mon, 28 Nov 2005 00:00:59 +0000, Tim Hobbs enlightened us thusly:

3-4K if it's low mileage and a 300 TDi...

seriously, the only ones making any sort of money are fully loaded and fully historied.

I was looking at prices a bit back when we were wondering whether to sell our M-plate 300, and the ordinary models, as opposed to top-of-the-range, just ain't making money.

On or around Sun, 27 Nov 2005 22:16:04 -0000, "Huw" enlightened us thusly:

overall, I found the LT77 just as good as the R380 - and early R380s still have the output shaft problem, AIUI - and in fact I prefer the feel of the LT77. The R380 gearshift isn't *quite* as good IMHO, although the box is slightly quieter, and has synchro on reverse...

the R380 comes in along with the 300 engine in late 94/early 95, ISTR. There are "200" type L regs and a few "300" type, I think - certainly by M reg they're 300 type.

There was quite a bit of overlap with 300tdi fitted with LT77 etc. Also there were stocks of these vehicles at central points and at dealers which explains a late N reg '96 that I know of that had the LT77 which failed and was replaced under warranty with an R380.

Huw.

Must have made for interesting gear changes! :-)) TonyB

Gary, You may like to know the difference between the 200 and 300 in general terms. The 300 has bigger headlamps than the 200 ( although it is possible to do a conversion from 200 to 300 only a few people have done it.) I suspect your N reg is a 300 though. TonyB