I'm considering purchasing a 98 Disco LSE with 152k miles. Needs new driver's seat & headliner and a paint job. Any idea what a paint job would run? And do you think needing paint would be a deal killer?

Thanks for the help!

 

What is your intended use for the truck? Is this a daily driver?

 

Some off-road fun. A lot of driving around town.

 

Depending on where you are paint could easily exceed the value of the Rover. Plus there are all the other things that will come up ,that you don't know about yet. Which is not to imply the seller is dishonest, they don't know about them either.

 

Drivers seat, headliner, paint job, all the unknowns, 150k miles. $500 tops.

Get a mediocre paint job for another $500

 

You could probably do monstaliner on the outside for less than $500, then never worry about painting it again

 

Paint on a LR is the least of your worries. You can always get a 500.00 paint job and call it a day. Being mechanically sound is way more important in my book!

My XD's paint job is sadly way past it's prime with clear coat & some serious fading on the roof, however covered in mud she looks extremely sexy and it's my trail truck anyways.

 

I just bought a couple cans of base coat from one of those indie paint-mixing companies on ebay to use on my hood. The clear coat was shot mostly, so I just sanded it down and re-applied some base coat and then clear coat. Easy, bada-bing!
Now, it it an exact match? Eh, close enough. It will look better after detoxing and waxing the rest of my panels.
I also bought some used plastic LAND ROVER letters off an old Freelander to put on the front. Altogether I only spent about 75$.

 

If you're thinking about paint, it might not be the vehicle for you. D1 is a project vehicle. They won't do what you want without more than $10K, and that's with you doing all the labor. If that's not your budget, you will probably only keep it for a year and lose everything you put into it. You might see one advertised for less than $2000, but they are not a typical beater car that happens to have fun off-road ability. They come with an extensive list of problems, and none of them are exempt. Most multi-year owners are in a long process of fixing one after another. Most people bail out of the whole ordeal long before they finish it. Fewer and fewer people are getting them completely sorted these days because for the same money they could buy a 4-seat SxS that takes them off road without all the time in their shop. The Disco 1 can be a good project car, but it does not make a good low-budget deal. It's only low-budget if you compare it to a JK/JL, a Defender, or a Humvee.

 

I kinda disagree on the whole money pit thing. 94-99 D1's are 27-22 year old vehicles for starters and ANY classic 4x4 of that age unless well taken care of = will require $$$$ to fix it up. Any 4x4 requires more maintenance vs other 2wd vehicles. I own 5 LR's and if they truly were massive money pits there is NO WAY I could keep them all on the road.

Now $$$$ on buying price can be anything from a rusted out, no paint, destroyed interior/exterior trim D1 for 500.00 to a 5,500 D1 with no rust, some paint fade (normal for a vehicle of this age), but mechanically sound minus a few small things that need attention with a clean interior/exterior. I've bought LR's for as little as 500.00 all the way up to 5,500.00 (before prices started to soar). One of my best D2's only cost me 1,500.00 and all it needed was a new battery, alternator, a good cleaning, and after I started driving it the MC seals started seeping. Besides that I have owned that D2 for 5 years now and haven't spent .01 on any parts. She has survived hurricanes, has pulled 2 LR's home on a Uhaul trailer, and I even pulled a 36ft travel trailer out of harms way before another hurricane made landfall. 5 years and nada zip nothing besides fuel, oil changes, inspection, and tag! Then I paid 4,500.00 for my 02 Kalahari and fixed a few interior items and I've owned it for nearly 7 years now with zero issues besides a water pump, and finally a power steering pump that got hard steering in cold weather. I have never owned one of these so called famous money pit LR's. The key is finding a good one in the first place! It's worth the extra 2-3k to get a well sorted and well maintained LR IMHO vs someone's project.... A lot of people think they can fix stuff, and in the end they only mess it up more and then sell it with way more user induced issues vs what it really had wrong with it.

My friend in Houston bought 2 D1's a 99 SD & a 98 SE. Both did not run, both were rust free trucks from TX, and both were 500.00. Both of them had owners that tried this or that and finally gave up. We got a hold of them and one just simply had a CPS which wasn't plugged in!!! It was connected but not fully seated! Fired right up and ran excellent for the first time in over 2 years of sitting. The other one got an ECU swapped out due to being immobilized, and it cranked right up and drove off the guys ranch! The owner was not amused it fired up and drove off lol. It also ended up having a cheap chinese MAF causing issues, and the CPS wiring was awful causing it to run at only lower RPM's. Fixed all those issues and zero problems after that!

I spent way more time working on my Jeeps which were much newer with less than 50K on each of them. Jeep truly does mean Just Empty Every Pocket, and places like 4Wheel Parts are in business because a stock Jeep is made extremely cheap. Sure it can go out on the trails for a while, but just about the time the warranty runs out you will start having issues until you upgrade almost everything on it. LR's on the other hand have very solid drivetrains the ZF HP22/HP24 4spd is a great transmission in the D1/D2, LT230 transfer case can take a lot of abuse, and the frame, and axles are strong until you slap on 33+ larger tires. The V8 if kept cool, and maintained will also last you well past 200K.

Paint should not be a deciding factor really in a vehicle that is 22-27 years old. That is the least of your issues. You want to find a vehicle with a clean body, no rust, clean interior with all the interior/exterior trim intact (some stuff is getting harder to find), and one that is mechanically sound with the exception of needing a small amount of work or TLC to get it into tip top shape. The under 1K LR's are great for parts, or in the case of my friend 2 perfect D1's people just gave up on because they were clueless. Those do exist, but finding them is getting harder and harder.