Had a few discoveries in the past year that I have bought and wound up selling, the one constant is my rotted out 99 with 313,000 miles. She runs well, but has issues. Lots of rot and water inside, the wife is scared of it etc. Power locks don't work and I would eventually want to fix that even if I go with a remote start, needs tires and I would want to do a mild lift eventually, and has intermittent o2 codes. I'm loving these trucks and would like to keep it and see how many miles I can get, but I also don't want to put much into something that is rotting so badly. Also, I know other problems are likely to creep up on me in the future.

I found the same car with 70k miles recently. It appears to be clean but I would most likely be buying it sight unseen as it's a couple hundred miles away. Back story is that it sat for about a year and mice chewed through some of the harness. Electrical work is kind of my Forte so it doesn't have me terribly concerned. Asking price of 1350, and I can get if for about 1000 plus Shipping of 500, so 1500 when all is said and done. It is stock with an arb front bumper

The price of d2s in my area has been skyrocketing, with average examples going for 3-6,000 and even parts cars for 2-3000. I figure I can probably sell mine for 800, sell the bumper for around 5 and be all in for a few hundred bucks

I recently have developed an interest in doing a nice stereo build, which makes me even more inclined to go for the new one, but will be sad if the old one has to go...

Should I keep the old one, patch and rhinoline the floor, and keep her alive as long as possible or seize the chance to upgrade to one with 240,000 less miles for next to nothing?

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I'd say go for it. If the new truck was too damaged, you could always part it out. 70,000 miles is really low and if you could fix it up it would be worth more than $1,500. The ARB bumper I think would be worth more than $500 if it's good shape, I'd say closer to $800. I'd just make sure the truck runs at a minimum, in case it was hiding overheating issues or something.

I just ended up parting out my one trucks because of the rust of the frame (it was from New York). It's been sad taking it apart, but I learned a lot about how the truck works.

 

Yeah, be careful. It's quite easy to mask the internal head gasket leak / cracked inner cylinder problem. I just got burned on that one.

Vehicle ran perfectly during test drives, no noise, no ticking, no problems.

Got it home and discovered after the first cool down cycle that it had a leaking internal cylinder problem.

Apparently, the previous owner would let it cool down, then start it up just long enough to clear the coolant from the cylinder, then clear the misfire codes.

Walla, a clean looking Rover dumped on an unsuspecting buyer.

Having said that, at that price, I'd probably still go for your deal.

 

I would jump on the lower mileage one. Rust never sleeps and unless you really like rust repair I wouldn't spend anymore money on a rusty D2. Clean ones are still available if you are patient. My 03 is flawless underneath, has absolutely zero rust anywhere, even under the spring perches were like new. The 2000 I used to own had corrosion issues and it was always a pain to work on, the 03 is a joy as all the bolts just come right out.

 

Unfortunately, the northeast Salt gremlins have been gnawing away at her and I don't want to commit to another car that will put be in the same place I'm in a year or two down the road

I had resigned myself to patchingy floors and rhino lining them, recovering the headliner etc and was OK with it but stumbled up a hooked up D1 for a grand (winch bumpers, 5" lift, 33s) so it looks like I will temporarily be leaving the d2 family

 

Sorry to hear about the D2. But that is a sweet-looking D1!

 

Oh hell...we'll still consider you family...you didn't stray to far.

Sweet looking rig, looking forward to more/bigger pictures.

Brian.

 

Thanks guys,
I must have terrible luck with my discos not wanting me to sell them. I took my old d2 to go look at this one yesterday and when I was driving on the parkway, my idler pulley grenaded. Last month when I was coming back from showing one of my others to someone who was interested, the thermostat housing split open. It's like they want to stay here forever

Picked up the new one today, it's a bit rough but it will be a good candidate for a beach rig and has a lot of potential, specs are 6" lift (2" body, 3" terrafirma suspension, and 1 inch blocks) 33x10.5 bfg mud terrains on ARE steelies, rockstar front bumper, and older RTE rear bumper (needs some welding as the mounts are broken, warn wireless fogs and HID fogs, full size matching spare, drawer system in the back, and some type of custom spare mount (rover eng?)

All in all for a grand I can't go wrong, the interior is gutted and ratty and it needs some minor bodywork. I plan on spraying the interior with bedliner, then the exterior with pewter metallic bedliner from tcp and white bedliner on the roof. It has the potential to be a pretty bad *** rig on the cheap and the sum of parts is much greater than the vehicle so one day when it dies, they all can transfer over

Took it out in the sand for a bit before and just got the cdl stuck on... Now I have to tow the other Discovery home tomorrow because it seems the threads where the idler pulley mount are stripped, so a roadside repair will be inconvenient with cars whizzing by at 80. No rest for the weary I suppose

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