We have had three discoverys, a 1999 DI and a 1999 DII and a 2000 DII.

The 1999 DII had just had a head gasket job by a good shop a few thousand miles before we bought it. Nice clean truck, with 71k miles. I think that I paid about $4300 for it. Within a few thousand miles I had ongoing issues with "air" getting into the cooling system. I was regularly bleeding the system, only to have the same problem develop shortly thereafter. We finally took it in for another head gasket job. Paid $1800 and 4 miles after leaving the shop engine started to overheat. Bad block. Long story short, we replaced the engine. The replacement engine only had 16000 miles on it and I paid $1200. Prior to finding the motor with 16k, I had also bought another "guaranteed" engine and shipped it to Utah from California total cost around $800, turned out to be junk. Can't collect from the bum that sold it to me. After the new engine was installed it ran like a brand new truck. That said, I spent more time eyeballing the temp gauge than I did the road.....

The 2000 I bought knowing it had a head gasket and fully expected to replace the motor. Ended up it was just the head gaskets, had those replaced for $1600, new wires, plugs and other misc. stuff. Ran really well afterwards, other than some debris that clogge the thermostat holes. We also replaced, unnecessarily so, the radiator, the water pump, the fan clutch, about 30 gallons of coolant, etc. In the end, it ran really well and is a solid truck. Moral of the story, kind of like forrest gump and his box of chocolates, you just never know what you are going to end up with.

We are now Land Rover free. I look longingly whenever I see one around town, then I smile, glance at my temp gauge and smile again. No three amigos, no overheating, no semi-weekly trips to the premium pump, no sagging headliners, no rebuilt drive-shafts, no dissenegrating parking brake boots, ....

$4000 for a 2004, not necessarily a bad price, you just don't know what you are going to end up with. Motors are very hard to find. I got really lucky with the one for the 1999 DII. Plan on buying a reman motor and paying a pretty penny. If you get lucky and it is just head gaskets, you scored. Have fun, they do drive nicely. Good luck. Phil

 

So, I let it go without even looking at it. Will continue the search.

Thanks everyone for the enlightening, funny, sad and expensive stories. Yes, we are a different breed... And somehow we like that!

 

Hey, have you been watching me again?!?

Good choice. An '04 would be nice, but not $4k nice with a blown HG. To put things in perspective, just a month ago I bought an immaculate '01 D2 in need of 1 rear suspension airbag, a windshield, and a HG. This truck looks like it looks like it just rolled off the assembly line. (Almost too nice to beat up out in the woods the way I've whipped my '99.) They previous owner was a friend of a friend, and swore that it hadn't been overheated. It just started blowing coolant smoke out the exhaust one day as he was pulling into the driveway and he parked it.

Anyway, I paid all of a whopping $700 for this truck. I can pull more than $700 in parts from it in a couple hours if it turns out the block is bad. The point here is, if you buy a truck with a blown HG, you need to make sure you get it cheap enough that you can afford to put a new engine in it or you're willing to part it out to get your $$$ back out of it...