You guys seem to be the experts so I'd like you to talk me into/out of buying a Discovery. - I I’ve always loved the look of the Land Rover Discovery but figured it was out of my price range and feared expensive maintenance costs. I’ve always been a Toyota fan because of their quality and reliability. We have 2 Camry’s (1996 and 2004) and my 1996 Camry now has 235,000 miles on it. I saw a 1995 4Runner (150,000 miles/$2,500) for sale in my neighborhood yesterday and it got me really thinking about getting something with less miles to replace my 96 Camry. When we buy a car we plan to keep it for a while. - I’m a civil engineer so I’d like to get something that looks professional. I’m looking for a quality SUV to drive back and forth to work (20 interstate miles each way), that doesn’t get horrible gas mileage, is reliable and will last for me at least 5 more years without concern for major repair work (transmission, head gasket, timing belt, etc.). I pretty much just drive back and forth to work and we use my wife’s car for all of our road trips to go see the family. My wife stays at home with our 1-year old and we may be having another in the next 5 years so I'd like to have something with a little more room than our Camrys without getting a van just yet. I understand that LRs do require more than the normal TLC but I also don’t have an excessive amount of time and money to spend on vehicle maintenance because of my family. We’ve had used cars our entire life so I know my way around under the hood learning to fix things that have broken at inopportune times but I’m not an expert mechanic by any means, nor do I just LOVE to work on my car. But I can do a tune-up or change a starter without too much trouble. Remember, I’m used to the Camry though. My experience with Toyota has been a good one because all I’ve had to do was change the oil regularly and I haven’t had any mechanical issues until after 175,000 miles. - I started doing a little research on the Discovery and I found that they were less expensive to purchase than I had previously thought. I was hoping you might be able to give me some advice with regards to durability and maintenance issues to help me decide if one is right for me and if so what to look for/look out for. I’ve seen some things on the forum which make me think that an older Discovery I with less miles on it would be better than an Discovery II. Is that a fair assumption? The Discovery I's seem to have less bells and whistles but far fewer common problems from what I can gather. I'm looking for a 10-15 year old car so I'm not expecting anything fancy, nor do I need all that. My preliminary plan is to look for a 1995 to 1999 D1 with 100,000-120,000 miles on it. I'm used to Toyotas so 100-120k is low mileage in my book. On some cars that's not the case, what about LR? Looking to spend less than $4,000. - From the forum it seems like I could do a lot of the maintenance myself pretty easily which surprised me. I always assumed the LR was up there with BMW/Mercedes. What about parts availability? Can you get normal replacement parts at Auto Zone or would I have to go through a dealership? If I do decide to buy one as I described above what kind of things should I look out for (i.e. normal problems that these vehicles are prone to, major maintenance that should have been done already, etc.)? The last thing I want to do is buy a car and then have to spend an extra $2,000 on it right away because the seller didn’t tell me something. I would prefer to buy from a private seller but I'm afraid of getting a lemon. I've owner 4 cars in my life and 3 of them I have inherited from either my parents or my wife's parents. The conservative, reasonable engineer in me says stay away but I can't shake off the temptation. If I do this I want to be smart about it though. - Like I said, I know next to nothing about Land Rovers other than the fact that I love the look and I always assumed that purchase price and maintenance costs put them out of my league. Any insight you could share with me would be greatly appreciated. - PS - Sorry about the formatting. I intended for this to be 6 separate paragraphs but it keeps jumbling everything together for some reason.

 

my opinion a land rover is not what you are looking for. If you are driving mostly highway then there is no need for always being in four wheel drive and getting 12 mpg city and 17 highway. Ill start by saying i love my land rover(and hate it sometimes)! I am a kayak and snowboard enthusiast I drive it off road at least 100 days a year and this car has always gotten wherever on the mountains I need to go. That being said it has required a lot of work. I have owned a disco II for two years it has 90K and I have put in at least $1k a year in maintenance most of it done by myself and some done by a local shop (seems higher then most others with that mileage). for what you are looking for I would look at a 4 runner or crv. just my 2cents

 

I love my Disco II, but as soon as I see people worrying about fuel prices and maintenance costs, I immediately think that they would never be happy with a Disco. There is a reason that the resale prices are so low and that is fairly expensive upkeep and repairs. Is it worth it? It is to me, but then again our other cars are a 99 F350 dually crew cab 4x4 with the V10, a 99 Mustang GT convertible and a 77 Trans Am. No gas mileage kings in that group, although the TA does get about 22 on the highway. I am doing the 60k mile service on my Disco myself and converting over to all synthetics and I will be into the fluids and parts to the tune of about $800 by the time I am done. BUT, then I will know that all is taken care of and I will have a benchmark to start from.

My final thought is that NO used car is bulletproof, sometimes they have been a great car for the first 100,000 miles but everything lets loose at 101,000 and sometimes they go for 200,000, its all a crap shoot. But if your main concern is expenses, you are better off to buy a Chevy, cheap parts and cheap labor.

If you go for the Disco anyway, I do think you will love it. I know I do!

 

Your best bet would be to use the search feature above and look up discovery reliability, new owner, etc. There have been several detailed posts on this subject that would prob help you make a decision. BTW: I love my Disco and plan on keeping it until it dies (then I will get another!)

 

rocky I am in the same position as you, married with 3 kids, wife stays home and I work, I drive 16 miles each way 15 of it expressway.
We had a 1990 Camry that I bought for $500 during my divorce, drove it for 2.5 years with no major issues.
It had a bad ingintion switch so the clock was always on and you had to turn the stereo off everytime you got out of the car.
You will need to find a Disco with over 100,000 miles to help insure that the headgaskets have already been replaced.
DII's 1999.5-2004 eat headgaskets around 80k, once replaced (if done right) will last the rest of your life.
You MUST use premium gas, you can expect 16-18mpg expressway, set the cruise at 65 mph and dont worry about it. You will get the best MPG at 65-70.
Stay away from the 7 pass model, the SLS (air ride) is troublesome once it gets older and the "3 amigos" can be a bother.
I did a write up on "what to look for when buying a Discovery", do a search for it.
We also have a Volvo wagon, we use that as the family car, trips to the store etc.
My wife uses that to take the kids to school and pick them up everyday because it is better on gas, even though she only drives 12 miles a day compared to my 32 it is still cheaper on gas for her to drive the car.
IMO you should get a DI, less problematic, still looks good and still reliable.
In the 27,000 miles and 2 years that I have owned my truck it has not once let me down.

 

All the advice so far is good. My advice is to just stay with a car if all you want is a commuter vehicle. An SUV of any kind is a pointless vehicle unless you plan on doing some type of offroading be it easy or difficult or live in a high snow region. I've never understood buying any type of SUV just as a prestige vehicle. They are gas guzzlers no matter what brand and far less manuverable on the highway or around town. All my SUV's from my Disco to all the Ford Explorers I owned went offroad constantly to the full limit of their abilities on a regular basis but I never took any of them to be a good commuter vehicle though the Fords got used some in that regard. If I did not offroad I would not own an SUV of any kind. Stay with a car.

 

You are not a Land Rover buyer. People that buy these cars because they think they're a good deal are always sorry. The reason they're so cheap to buy is because they're so expensive to maintain. Buy yourself a mid-90's Lexus LX450 or Toyota Landcruiser. I have a Lexus LX 470 and an '04 D2, and I love both cars immensely but for very different reasons.

Ford Explorers are also very inexpensive used, and you'd have fewer issues and mysteries. The Land Rover is not the car for an Engineer unless said Engineer is an enthusiast and enjoys wrenching on his cars. Just my opinion.

Cheers!

 

Nice man! Im one year with My 98 Discovery. part I had to buy was an alternator. she charged just fine! thing was the shaft the bearing sat on was wasted. dang thing made a horrible roaring noise. nothing else has been a problem.

 

As one person said already it's a 'crap shoot', sometimes you're lucky and others you're not. You have to really enjoy Landrovers and what they can achieve offroad. If you don't go offroading or towing big loads a Landrover is an unnecessary luxury you can do without. LR's require lots of maintenance regularly if they are driven hard particularly offroad. For only highway use there are many other regular vehicles that would suffice.

I would suggest you do some research on the various LR forums to get a feeling of what they are all about. It's a bit like a Roller (Rolls Royce), if you need to ask you don't need it.

 

" I also don’t have an excessive amount of time and money to spend on vehicle maintenance because of my family"

then run as far as you can away from the sickness of owning a D1 or D2.....you will thank me later!