buying a discovery

[Patty]

Hi i am looking at buying a discovery for off roading and also as a everyday work vechicle and was wondering what i should be looking out for in the positives and negitives when viewing?

[carracarra13]

from our personal experience, on a disco1 200 tdi j plate 92 , bad points  Rear floor, cross member , wheel arches both inner and outer , under bonnet innerwings they rot near the batertray also, boddi mounts rot out  ask muddy henery he will tell you, chassie make shure no rot or if it has been welded make shure its not been bodged, ours is all good excpt for rear cross member, breaks arnt soft or when you put youre foot on the peddle it dosnt start to sag, not excessive smoke from exhaust, GEAR BOXES should NOT CRUNCH at all having said that ours crunches in 2nd slightly cured it with two gearbox oil changes,  see  service history not made up then you no you got a good place to start, dont expct mint you wont find it, fuel on ours we are getting a good 30mpg +,

 Good points on ours solid engine no rattles or clunks very trustworthy, very cheep in my opponion to run parts not as bad as some pepole think if you can do the work youre self, or no a man who can (we do HENERY )  I was supprised how easy these old girls are to work on like a big macano set every thing (eventualy) comes un done, dont forget if you do everything is HEAVY, spairs widly avaiable some one nearly allways has some bits laying around if not remember Paddocks etc,  Ill put it this way Ive had a few rucks and wish Id bought one of these babies in the first place would of saved me a fortune, the only thing I would replace it with if mainly road use would be a  V8 but the thurst is just too much on the v8 and in my experience water is a big problem if you go v8 tdis dont have this disadvantage hope this helps  this is our experience

[Patty]

Cheers for all that information it will come in very handy!

[Chris Putt]

Look at any of the threads on the forum with 'welding' in the title, the one from disco-pinky is a particular eye-opener!


Slack in the gearbox/transfer (esp 200tdi with LT77 box)
Engine breathing heavily
Power steering box leaks
Slack in the steering
Saggy springs (cheap to sort)
Dodgy-botched electrics, Loads of people do S*ite jobs on electrics and they are potentially a nightmare to sort.

Rot on:
Inner Wings
Rear X Member
Sills
Boot Floor
Rear Arches/seatbelt mounts
Front/middle and rear body mounts

If the one you get has been offroaded, make sure that the owner is keyed up on basic maintenance- will save you a lot of headaches if they have kept up to date with it.

Service history isn't that important, an oldish landrover should just be treated as a selection of parts rather than a whole vehicle, chances are that if something Major-ish breaks then the parts can be sourced cheaply and easily.- Especially with discos as so many of them rot and get condemned theres always loads of spares about.

Best bet is to take someone who knows there stuff along with you to view.

Chris

[clover]

Don't touch one that's been off roaded or was used on a farm (like Pinky was). There is plenty of Chelsea tractors that need to find out what they are made for and they tend to be better on the whole. Don't get one that done a lot of heavy towing either.

On the rot front see my post - "Pinky terminally ill I think". One bit or rot and it was curtains for her...

You will almost always be able to find some rot. Outer sills are Ok, but anything, anywhere else walk away!

There are solid ones out there... just a matter of finding one.