Hi

I was wondering if buying a D2 is a good choice for me.

As a college student,my budget is relatively limited. However, I've been saving up for a bit to the point when I can afford a 8-10k car.

After seeing the recent post on D2 that was sold I got myself thinking if it's the right choice for me. My main concern would be the depreciation. If I do pay 8k for a D2 ('03 maybe) how much will the car depreciate? Or not at all?

Another concern would be the reliability and cost of maintenance; just how reliable are those? I take massive road trips (~3k miles a leg) and cannot afford to have a car break down at me.

Looking to hearing from you guys;

CarParter

 

They are high maintenance, but you could also get a running one cheap, especially an earlier model. You would have to refrain from blowing the leftover money on cool accessories, but for 8-10k you could build a reliable one easy.

Buy it contingent on passing a compression and coolant pressure test to make sure the heads are good. Doublecheck it is not tossing codes, too. Check for frame rust, and signs of accident damage.

Make sure the driveshafts are good, and swap in a 180 degree thermostat, and update the radiator hoses, or go with an inline thermostat setup. Then change the fluids, run seafoam through the crank, intake and gas tank.

The front driveshaft and cooling system are what will kill the vehicle. If you take care of the truck, you'll be fine.

If you are mechanical you can do a lot of this yourself, or teach yourself like most of us have, there is a lot of support.

 

As said, its a high mentenance car. When you are in college, i would devote my time studying than maintaining a car. So the question is time. Will you have the time to maintain it? Its an old car and it breaks. Save your money and have a good meal each time than spending it in gas. Then soon if you did good im college, you can get a Range Rover instead.

 

I don't consider a D2 high maintenance. It just depends on what you get your hands on. If it's the typical CL special oh yeah you'll be opening up a can of worms. Or you can find one from a one owner (I own 3 like that) and get every single service record and a full history and be good to go for years as they maintained it properly.

It's getting harder and harder to find a D1/D2 in what I'd call good condition these days. They'll either be torn to pieces inside, or covered with duct tape and zip ties outside. That's not evening looking under the hood!!!!

I live in a small town & I saw someone recently bought what looked like a 99-01 White D2 and for a week or two they were driving all around in it looking thrilled. Now it's been sitting over at a local garage and I am willing to bet $$$$ that it either over-heated because they never bothered to lift the hood, or check anything. Or it tossed a drive shaft and destroyed the transmission.

I'm waiting for it to pop up on CL for cheap and I might buy it haha.

My advice is don't just jump on the first one you find. Know what to look for like the color of the thermostat (first clue if someone cares about it), rusty drive shaft (probably about to explode), rust on the frame, wet passenger carpet (leaking heater core), take an OBDII reader like a ScanGauge II or UltraGauge to monitor temps on the test drive, and to see what codes it has.

If the owner list or says something like runs good, but needs it needs a 20.00 part run forest run! I always love those little sayings in the ad's if you can't fix a 20.00 what other things have they let slide???

 

Wow thank you guys for your feedback.

My original post was inspired by this thread;

https://landroverforums.com/forum/pr...ntained-84577/



Since I am not much of a mechanic, I would be getting a PPI (pre-purchase inspection) regardless of what used car I buy.

The main thing I liked about D2 is the money factor; they don't seem like cars which would depreciate massively.

Reliability and cost of maintenance are definitely the scary factor for me; however, I just love how D2 looks and I feel like it's the ultimate offload adventure vehicle

 

They will depreciate like any vehicle. But if you maintain it, keep your service records, add good accessories, and keep it clean, you will be able to maintain the value. There is a niche' market for the vehicles and as they get older and become classics, in my opinion, they will regain value and keep going up. You just have to find a good one to start with that has been maintained properly, has records, and is not eaten up by salt depending on where you live at. The best ones come from down in the southern half of the us where snowy roads aren't a problem.

 

The thing about Rovers is they have already depreciated. New D1 and D2's cost around $40k so they are roughly valued at 10% of original cost now. There is really not much more to depreciate unless you just ruin it.

The other side of that coin is if you buy one for $5k, spend 2k a year on it for five years, you are in it $15k and its still worth 5.

I've seen it posted, and agree, that a good average cost of maintenance is $2k per year if you plan on using a shop to do any major work.

Some years will be less, but others will be more. In my experience this has been true over the years.

Learn to do some of your own work and that cost will go down.

 

What maintenance items usually constitute those 2k/year?

It comes to around $166/month. I can live with it.

 

At a shop a brake job could be $700 per two axels. A tune up could be $800. A head gasket job could be as much as $2500. Recently I had a front cover gasket blow out and decided to go ahead and replace the radiator and water pump as well: $1200. Tires, $500 to 900. It goes on.

Of course as I mentioned all of this is cheaper if you do it yourself.

You won't have 2k per year if you are lucky, but save that amount because if you don't use it one year, you'll use more another.

Oil changes are $80 at one of my locals, and $125 at another... drive 15k miles per year and you change oil 5 times per year and you are at $500 per year in just oil, and thats if it doesn't burn or leak any!! BTW the 125 oil change is based on Swepco 20w50 at $9.50 a quart. not something I do often.

I'm sure i've missed some routine items.

This is why maintenance history is important. You don't want to be on the bad side of repair bills if you can't do some of the work yourself.

 

2 girls in college 2 hours away. 1 girl in college 8 hours away at the Colorado School of Mines. They all have Discos

My take is that the gas milage is a killer for them. I know cuz they always need money from me

Outdoor storage parking lots bother me cuz I like a roof over my babies. (Discos not the girls)

As far as maintenance/ reliabilty, I am not on the same page as most here. I get them cheap and go through them. After that they are about average in my opinion. They have specific quirks but no big deal.

They have cool factor that makes it all worth it. But honestly as a guy who beat my way through college (7 years) I can tell you that you need to focus on grades and punnany. Buy a pathfinder