Disco 2 TD5 Buyers Guide/pointers?

Hi Guys

Im looking at buying a disco 2 TD5 manual within the next few months (all being well) and i was just wondering if there was anything major/costly/obvious i should know to look out for? I want it to be safe as its mainly for my wife to transport the kids around in.

I hope i can get as late a model as possible and im looking at about a £6k budget

I have had a look on here and searched for buyers guides but im struggling.

Any advice?

Cheers

Rob

ps, great forum!

Hi Rob, I am a noob to Discovery II's myself although like you, I researched them before looking at a few and driving a few, so I can give you what I looked for:

1. Rust on the rear chassis - I looked to try and assess if the corrosion looked bad or if anything was done about it such as underseal or signs of welding. Bit of surface rust is probably to be expected, but I personally wanted to avoid holes and heavy flaking.

2. Rust on tops/bottoms of all doors.

3. Ask to check the oil level and sniff the dipstick for any diesel smell, to indicate if the injector seals have gone.

4. Like all cars, don't trust a 'Full Service History'. Ask to take a quick look at the air filter to see if it looks clean enough to match the service history. My Disco II has a FSH, yet I am discovering now that many things that should have been replaced don't seem to tie-up with that history, such as axle oil and automatic gearbox oil (they don't look to ever have been replaced).

5. Make sure there is little to no play in steering, small movements of steering wheel should translate to the wheels.

6. Another thing for me is look for general minor wear and tear that could have easily been fixed but hasn't. That is a clue as to how the previous owner looked after his car. Personally I don't want to buy a car that has been neglected on the minor stuff as you can be sure the same attitude is likely for the more important stuff like regular oil changes.

Having looked at quite a few Disco II's upto around 8k I dismissed most of them. I have seen and driven several Landmark models on 04 plate that have had many things from the above wrong, including serious untreated rust, sloppy steering, electrical faults.

I ended up buying an excellent condition 2001 (X reg) model for £3900, with hardly a mark on the paint work and just minor surface rust in places on the rear chassis.

Price is not always a good indicator!

Anyway, hope that others add their tips also, and from having spent months looking I can only say, be patient.. there are a lot of doozies out there.

I want it to be safe as its mainly for my wife to transport the kids around in.

Click to expand...

In all honesty there are better cars around for that purpose!!!!! Ours was bought to tow a 2 horse trailer, and other than in the snow we dont use ours that much.

There are not a cheap beast to keep going we were faced with a £1600 bill for new clutch, refurb propshafts, master cylinder, slave cylinder etc after which I changed the front discs and pads and removed the EGR valve. We paid £3000 for our X plate with 145000 miles, not the tidiest but very serviceable and looks appropriate with our old horse box!

Further things to look out for:

- sticking EGR valve (best removed)
- Oil in the ECU plugs
- make sure all warning lights come on then go off when engine started (not uncommon for people to remove bulbs)
- The manual is IMHO better for towing and 5 mpg more "economical" but the clutch is heavy and very dead feeling
- Sunroofs leak and can cause the boot floor to rot
- any addl complication such as air con, air suspension, ACE might be nice but it's more to go wrong, ours is basic spec and all the better for it given our usage.

Heres a link to a brief story about ours, the wheel wobble turned out to be warped front discs, our only remaining issue is vibration above 55 mph but I am not bothered about fixing it as we dont drive that fast with the horsebox on the back!!!

http://www.landyzone.co.uk/lz/f8/my-disco-2-story-so-far-185898.html

Agree, I think as a day to day run about a Landrover is probably not a good choice. If you want to be able to tow trailers/caravans or go off-road then it is in it's element. For the wife and kids a Volvo or a Ford will generally be happy with a once a year oil change and brake check. A Landrover however will need quite a bit more looking after.

Thanks for both of your replies chaps. Very useful.

Point taken re. cheaper/more practical cars out there but snow has featured heavily on the moan list this winter which has been a factor. Also the high driving position is one in the plus column as well as 7 seats.

I have a couple of friends with disco 2's and Range Rovers who like them and a good friend of mine with a garage is a big landy man (will probably come in handy!)

I have always liked landies and have had a couple of 90's in the past but a disco 2 seems a bit more comfortable (and probably cheaper initially). I did consider an L322 but having researched them on here and seen one in bits in my mates garage i decided that was probably not the best route to go down.

Im hoping a late series 2 TD5 will fit the bill.

I've got to say that these fellas are putting you off what is probably one of the best land rovers, I would prefer the range rover purely because I think they are more superior but the d2 is a very capable car.

It's an excellent general purpose car, excellent for towing horses and equally as good around asda car park.

Get one with all the bells and whistles, yes it's more to go wrong but its very comfortable when its working.

Most of the stuff is easily fixable and will last if cared for. Get one with all the major stuff in good condition, gearbox and engine being the obvious. Look for signs of impending failure of stuff like the ace and air suspension but don't dismiss an otherwise excellent car because it needs an airbag!

Every car has its issues, each model has particular nasty points but tbh most I have seen are easily repaired. True if the engine goes the car is pretty much worthless. But if an ace pipe leaks it can be fairly cheaply repaired or modified with off the shelf parts from any hydraulic supplier.

The automatic gearbox is excellent for towing, I pull two heavy horses with mine and tbh it doesn't even know the trailer is there, the mrs is used to having Isuzu trooper manuals. She towed the horses with my range rover p38 and was hooked on autos, she now insists on the auto I won't drive a manual because I love the auto.

When you go look at them take a nanocom or hawkeye or someone with one. If your in the sheffield area your welcome to have a go in my auto es premium see how it feels and of course I don't mind accompanying you with the hawkeye to check things over.

Thing is with landrover a its a way of life, if you want cheap hassle free motoring go for a small Japanese hatch back, if you want a true automotive icon, get a landrover

Thanks for the positive response Gav and the kind offer of assistance! I have actually seen a nice looking one around the Sheffield area.

I once drove one of my mates p.38 autos and it went very well. My personal preference is a manual box but thats just me. I did drive one of his p.38's (he's had about 7!) with a manual in and the was fine too.

I think its very easy to put Landies down as they do have their faults and its hard to gauge on here (when someone is typing and not talking to you in person) what type of person they are.

Yes, my priority is my family's safety, and yes, the wife will be mainly using it to run the kids to school and then nip to ASDA but as i type this I am sat at work in my oily overalls (so i'm not too afraid of getting underneath a motor) as opposed to say an office. Although if it could try its best not to break down too often it would be appreciated!

However, i do realise that in most cases people are just being honest and trying to keep a novice out of trouble!

We like the idea of a big safe car that can cope with the snow and would probably be nice and comfy for going camping/caravanning in.

Gav, i like what you are saying re. all the bells and whistles as my gut feeling would be to avoid all this stuff for fear of it breaking. I was having this conversation with a mate of mine yesterday as i had been looking round what i think was an ES(?) with electric seats, parking sensors etc. and was worried that it would all go wrong but he said he had never really had any electrical faults on his Range Rovers.

Had my ole girl 15 months.only pobs i have had was hidden 3 amigos,fuel pump,and wife putting in unleaded.she coming up to 164k.no probs in snow and ice so long as driven sensibly.tows my 6 berth avondale and my horse box no prob.
but just cos its a big chunky 4x4 its not the safest.
Crash Test 1999 - 2004 Land Rover Discovery II (Frontal Offset Test) Mfg after Oct 1998 - YouTube

I wasn't trying to poo poo the others, its just that a lot of people find forums because of issues and the forum members are usually the ones with lots of issues and trying to fix them as cheaply as possible. Trust me if I could afford a mechanic to do my work I wouldn't even have found landyzone, I am glad I have though as I have made quite a few friends and had some laughs obver the years.

Regarding the bells and whistles. If the do go wrong you can either fix them or remove them your not stupid and your not incapable of fixing stuff. Not sure what oily job you do but I would assume you have access to a good tool set and access to the bigger tools like a press if you should need it.

There's plenty of help and advice on here. As I said I will accompany you and run diags on the car if local to me as I, sure others will.

I know you will regret not getting the extra bits and for that luxury feel the auto box does make the difference. Plus towing with the auto is simple and stress free. The mrs will love it.

My mrs often nags me for the time I spend on our cars but I like to get in amongst all the parts and see what's what. I like to fiddle and see what I can break and replace. I had a pipe break on the egr cooler. I only pulled it a little as I don't trust plastic coolant pipes and it just disintegrated. Popped to the motor spares round the corner and got an equivalent rubber one. Job done and £3 quid.

At least consider the high spec ones as the low spec ones have been used as that, in my experience at least.

Where abouts are you based rob, other people may be close to you and be able to offer insight into niggles with certain specifications. Such as the parking sensors, mine often give a long beep reversing off the drive in a morning at 5 am it annoys the crap out of me but the rest of the day it's fine.

Also when I got the car the abs had an issue logged as historic, I didn't worry about it but after a week noticed that the t/c wasn't working and cruise didn't work. So I looked into it and found electrical tape stuffed in the dash binnacle where the warning lights are. Oh **** thinks me, £400 for an abs pump, how did I miss this? When I research it I found it was the electrics within the abs unit. Stripped it out, tested it with multimeter and found it was purely a dry/corroded connection at the plug inside the unit. Cleaned the connections, bent them to tighten the contact a little put it all back together and cleared the faults and its working 100% only took me an hour aswell so a £400 job turned out to be a free fix!

I'm not saying all fixes are this simple but if you apply a simple logic to it then its easier to fix.

I had another issue with cruise not working. Traced it back to the high leve brake bulb. It was blowing the fuse for the brake lights and disabling cruise in the process. Replaced bulb and its sorted.

Also if you do visit the sheffield area I will demonstrate my most prized modification, my webasto Preheater. Makes the car nice and toasty warm at 5am all from the comfort of my bed. It's just an amassing experience not to have to de ice the car on winter mornings

I hope you do think long and hard about getting the highest spec you can find as it will make you either like the car or truly love the car.

Once you have the bug then you will be hooked for life!

Gav

I know you werent 'poo pooing' the other lads - and i wasnt trying to either - never would. Sorry to anyone if it came across that way - again, thats the problem with typing and not being able to talk face to face i guess. But lets not get into all that - I am very grateful for the pointers. In fact i would like to back up your point Gav that people usually use these forums when they have faults. I have always used forums for the various different cars i have had and its the same whatever manufacturer. We currently drive a BMW and i use a forum for that. Its just the same - the forum is littered with problems and not much praise. When they are running right, people are out enjoying them - not on their computers.

Maybe someone should start a new thread: 'I love my disco because...'. I would but i dont have one yet!

In answer to your other questions Im from Halifax and a Fitter/Supervisor on an Asphalt coating plant. Im no car mechanic and would never profess to be. The gearbox i have just rebuilt is 5 times the size of one in a car and much simpler. Most of my repair work involves the oxy/acetylene and a big hammer!

Cambridgecockney

Thanks for your advice - point taken re. the crash tests. Size insnt everything! well, thats what i keep telling the wife!