Was this a good idea?
 

Noticed and in town mechanic had a 2003 Discovery 2 sitting on his lot for a couple of weeks. I figured I would ask if it was for sale and well it was, the previous owner had to have the water pump replaced/tstat/hoses/belt but decided to get a new car instead because they had already spent about 5 grand in repairs/maintience over the past couple of years.

Mechanic gave me the owners number and was able to pick this up for $500 bucks of course the disco has some other issues that need to be addressed like some doors wont open and the plastic trim at the bottom of the windshield is broken etc.

I guess the question is I am crazy for buying this ? lol from everything I have read it seems that most of the work I will have to do to the disco is work that would have to be done if I bought one for 2 grand or even 4/5/6 grand so I figure $500 is a good entry point. The engine is not blown and the HG are not leaking.

My plan is to pretty much go down the list in this forum of all the major service needed and cross my fingers it all works out until I can maybe get a cummins r2.8 engine in it ( 2-3yrs from now)

I've bought 500.00 LR's before and had them be great trucks. TLC goes a long way.

Not a bad idea at all

Great idea. Part for profit or continue restoration. Best vehicles are the ones where previous owners spent lots of $ and got tired of writing checks while being close to 90% done.

Great deal, I will buy it from you for $100 profit right now.

lol...

I'm going to be down on the idea of running it long-term. For sure you can flip it or part it out for a profit. Anything else and you will be sinking a lot more money into it for no return other than what enjoyment you might get out of it yourself. Flip or part now for a profit or run it for 5 years and lose something like $15K or more, but potentially gain something you'll like. Personally, I don't see much appeal to old Discoveries for exclusively on-road driving. The appeal comes with offroad use where they're a viable alternative to stock or mildly built Jeep JKU / JLU, but to fix them and build them for that use is not a $5K project, not even close.

Unless it has been wrecked or flooded, any Disco is worth $500. If anything, it would make a great Winter Romp vehicle!