Most of the vehicles that you see going for $15k-$20k all seem to meet several criteria:

1. Low mileage. Less than 80-90k miles and very clean. If not less than 90k miles, then less than 140k miles, but with a rebuilt top hatted Rover V8 from a reputable place. Long list of service records. I think nice LS swaps will start showing up in this category as well.
2. A perfect frame with no rust and no accident history. Good, original paint that isn't faded on roof or hood.
3. 2003 or 2004 facelift models with the plastic headlights and 4.6. Particularly the 2004 that has the central differential lock or a 2003 with the CDL added.
4. Is probably marketed on Bring A Trailer, eBay, or by a semi-sketchy dealer.
5. May have some off-road gear (especially like Xanthro said - special out-of-production parts)

The typical $1,500 Facebook marketplace or craigslist find is probably not going to have low mileage anymore. Occasionally there may be one, but it's a rare find now and people ask more for them. Few will have service records and even fewer will have rebuilt engines. A lot of them also will have at least surface rust on the frame and faded paint. Some on Bring-A-Trailer have been really some unicorns with rare colors, really low miles or special editions (others not as much). A decent, sorted, outfitted, but used Discovery I think is probably more realistically at the $8k-10k mark.

Part of the issue with the 4.0/4.6 engine is that late in the production run the castings started getting really bad. The last production Land Rover with the 4.0/4.6 was the Discovery. The 2003 and 2004s got, in my opinion, some of the worst blocks ever made. Add that in with Land Rover cranking up the temp and tightening the tuning to meet the emissions standards and the old design just couldn't take it. I have been hearing issues about some Rover V8 engine builders now having issues with finding good usable cores. I think the LS swap will be start to be more common in the higher-end builds that you see on Bring-A-Trailer as the cars get older.

 

I was offered $20k last year for my 2004 and declined. Why? I have $25k in it. Turner motor with cam and flowed heads, new cooling system, replaced rear frame section, lift with castor correction arms, all new hard brake lines and extended hoses, powder coated wheels, new headliner, safety devices rack, and so on and so on. The trucks you see going for $20k are well sorted and the buyers are basically paying what it would cost to do it themselves. I spent 5 years building mine, and plan on keeping it a very long time.

 

Why? You can't import current cars? I don't know anything about this, keep that in mind.

 

I also saw this video going on and on about how great the engines are. I've read that the blocks were porous, but I just can't believe that caused all the problems with them since all a block has to do is not flex and be strong, but I don't know anything about these vehicles.


So I'm getting a lot of conflicting information. Land Rover Discovery engines are bad but the rest (which are essentially the same engine) are some of the best motors of all time and still being used and made? It doesn't make sense. What does make sense is that the engine management was bad, but that can be reprogrammed. I've seen people trash expensive engines because they didn't know how to tune them. I also read where they went from 6 bolts per cylinder to 5 then to 4... this could lead to head gasket problems. So I'm trying to figure out why the contradiction.

Also using a cooler thermostat will keep the engine from reaching it's maximum efficiency.

I'm interested in this because the vehicles look so cool and just the mystery about the engines.

 

That's a lot of love for that car. I've put a lot of work into my cars to but did the work myself so I looked at it as a labor of love and a learning process, and I never spent more than I could sell the car for later. I'm coming from the Porsche world, however.

What got me interested in the resell value is this company who is selling this Discovery ii for $19k in Los Angeles. That seems like a great upside to these cars that you can get for $1500. I also like that their traction system means you (supposedly) don't NEED lockers to go off-road.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CKAlEXds61v/

I have no affiliation with that company and even noticed they use a lot of photoshop in their ads.

Do you think that LRD2 will sell for $19k? You can see what he says he did to it. I'm not a fan of the plastic fender flares however since it ruins the stock body for almost no improvement since it's still not a rock crawler (he didn't gain much by adding them.)

 

I dont think you can make any money restoring these.

anything cheap will need an engine, interior, paint, cooling system, and 20 years of aftermarket junk removed. If you’re time is worth nothing you might break even. My most recent purchase was a $1200 d1 and its got about 10k in parts, ( mostly tophatted 4.6) and no one would pay that if I added in a liveable hourly rate.

 

Bummer. I was hoping this was thread was about actual, literal bulletproofing.

Now that would be a great build thread.

 

I would suggest you read the posts from Robison Service. I don't agree with everything he says, but he does have a lot of knowledge about how the blocks fail. Once the castings got bad, the cooling passages in the block edged closer to the cylinder bores. Less aluminum between the coolant passage and the cylinder = prone to cracking.

See:
All you ever wanted to know about . . Land Rover V8 Engine Failures - JE Robison Service - Bosch Car Service Specialists ? the blog
New Failures In 1983-2004 Land Rover V8s - JE Robison Service - Bosch Car Service Specialists ? the blog

Not with informed buyers. Video is nice advertising ( ), but truck lacks it where it counts if you ask me. If it's going for the "offroad prowess" look, then it should be setup better than a plastic rear bumper and no CDL.

These trucks are a labor of love. No way around it.

 

Yes, a cracking block would be bad... like I said the block has to be strong. What would be cool is to get a scan of the blocks and cut them with billets in aluminum or cast them with iron... then use the aluminum heads.

He's selling to the LA market who doesn't rock crawl but drives on dirt roads to the beach and to the ski resort.

So his prices aren't realistic? Sounds like a good deal for him if he can sell a $1500 car after $5000 of fixing for $19k...

 

Why does the D2 in that video say it has a 4.0? When did the 4.6 come around?

I heard the 4.0 isn't so bad (Car Wizard YouTube says he loves the D1)