hi there i am new to the site and i am considering going to buy one of these, a possible 96 with 90k on it, seems to be in good shape. i dont know anything about these, are they reliable? do they break down are they expenisve to fix,how do the motors/trannys/diffs hold up? no real offroad abuse i can do all the repairs myself i work on cars...mostly ls1/lt1 camaros though, a far cry from these landrovers. why are they so cheap? i really like them and have always thought they were pretty neat looking....any advice you give me i would appreciate, thanks alot!
should i buy it or stay away?

 

edit, found a 98 with 90k, which is a better year........no input from anyone? i am hearing horror stories but am still interested....any feedback please?

 

A month ago I bought a '02 with 58k. Since then, I've plunked down about $3000 in her. By the way, this Rover had full service records which still didn't keep me out of the shop. Head gaskets, valley pan seals, new brakes, it all added up quickly.

Cool vehicle. I really love it. But the stories are true...these things eat money.

 

I just bought a 02' Disco with 56,000 miles. I immediately bought an extended warranty for it. The warranty wasn't cheap but I figured it was money well spent after viewing the problems posted on these forums. I went with AA waranty company. They offered a full warranty with a $50 deductible for $2,000.00. Here is the link to the specs http://www.aaautowarranty.com/bc_premier.asp. I got the Premier Plan. Good luck with your decision. What is your budget by the way?

Ryan

 

hi i borught a disco 300tdi for offroading purposes it has been through lakes and up mountains and nevergiven up on me and it dose 500mile to the tank i purchased it for £2300 and it had about 143,000 on the clock !!!!!!!!!!! exelent investment fot 15 years old (91 plate)

 

Best bit of advice I can give comes out of my last experience (hey I am a bicycle rider)! Applied to all makes and models.

1. Don't trust a dealer ... if buying second hand (four, fifth hand), may say the it has a great engine, and it may even seem that way (at first).
2. check a couple of the simple things. Air filter is intaked, no rusty color under the oil cap, no oil in the coolant reseviour.

3. and this is most important, if the dealer has the tank on empty take the car to the petrol station and put $5 in yourself and take it for a decent test drive e.g. 1/2hr, that was how long I had my disco before it overheated.

(But in honesty, I did buy it as is as a do up, just didn't expect it to be as bad as it was.)

 

I spent about $1,500.00 over about 3 months fixing the problems that made the previous owner trade it in. Not too bad since I paid several thousand less than trade-in value for the truck. In hindsight I probably should have bought a warranty, but it may even out in the end. I'm hoping for good luck on that one.

My advice: Even if the truck looks good, assume you're gonna pay a couple of grand's worth in various repairs and then you'll have a pretty good truck. Remember that when you're negotiating price.

 

That is the best advice I've seen yet. For me, it was about $3000 in the first month. She runs like a top now, but I when I bought it, I expected maybe $750 in initial repairs and $3000 in fun stuff. My "fun stuff" budget was devoured by the repairs that completely blind sided me.

 

For what it's worth, I've had my 00 DII for a couple of months now, and been very pleased with it. I was fortunate the previous owner took good care of it. Be sure to consider that a lot of cars are traded in to dealers because of inherent problems that the owner doesn't want to fix. This is true of all makes and models, not just Land Rover. Usually you can have an independent shop that specializes in particular makes inspect a vehicle for ~$50 or so. I would advise you to have anything you're interested in checked out for the reasons stated above. Call, make an appointment, save yourself the headache. If you get a warranty, I would advise you to buy one of the more expensive options, as your chances of getting something repaired are much greater. This would be my advice for purchasing any brand of car, not just Land Rover.

 

I bought a '96 DiscoI with 80k miles and a stuck #8 exhaust valve. I paid $2000 for it and replaced pretty much the entire upper end. To date I have $3650 total into it and it runs great. It was one of the easiest vehicles I've worked on and I've wrenched on many cars and trucks. I'm looking for another project Disco now. If you're mechanically inclined and can do some research on parts before you buy, buy one but buy it cheap and when something goes wrong it doesn't hurt so bad. Just my two cents.