The Money Pit

Hey hey,

I have an M reg Discovery 300TDi. (Will attach some pictures).

I bought it in the summer thinking ahead to the winter months after my Mum bought a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. Really I wanted a Range Rover but couldn't find one in my price range and eventually settled for a Discovery.

I got it at what I felt was a good price, and everything seemed to be in good working order except for a noise from one of the front wheels. Immediately took it off road and got stuck (literally about 50m from my house!). It was fun to try and test the car and it was altogether different from cars I'd owned before.

But as the bills piled up and the novelty wore off I began to realise that it was the worst car I've ever owned. I'm not at all mechanically minded, but I've always been lucky with older cars that I've bought before (and I never did take the XJ8 off-road!) - I guess my luck ran out though because this car has been a ****ing lemon from start to finish!

First of all the noise from the wheel was the wheel bearing - I got that and the rear brake pads replaced at a cost of X (don't remember anymore - but it may have been about £150).

Next thing to go was the clutch - I bought the parts for about £70 or so and my mechanic fitted it for about £200.

Next up one of the wheel hubs cooked and disintegrated - can't remember the cost to get this sorted but I think including parts was around £200. (Kind of guessing, I think I had to blank the bills from my mind to cope!).

Next the battery died. Think I paid around £70 for a battery (installed it myself though so saved on labour!!).

Then (whilst off-roading, I'll admit) the other front hub did the same thing. I saw it smoking and knew it was ****ed - before I even got away from the off-road site there was another clunk and I lost drive. It would move with the diff-lock engaged so I figured the drive shaft had snapped. Drive shaft, wheel bearing and hub bearing all ****ed. The mechanic, obviously by now taking pity on me, endeavored to find second hand parts. He had the car for six weeks (yup, right through all of the snow!!) before it was fixed. He charged me £200 for parts and labour which I think was very reasonable, but he wasn't exactly quick with the job.

(Oh, and £65 to rent a trailer to pick it up from the site)

About half an hour after I picked the car up, the heater blower (which was already dodgy) gave up. Needless to say, my 2 hour drive back to Edinburgh was a bit chilly. My journey was also somewhat marred when something new broke. I had to brake quite hard and heard a crunching noise, followed by the car yanking me across the road towards oncoming traffic. It now pulls violently to the right when braking.

I had Kwik Fit (I know!) look at it and he told me that the brake caliper was fuxored, and that my front discs and pads were badly worn and really needed replaced (not a con, my mechanic from home told me that the brakes would need seeing to soon). Obviously Kwik Fit aren't the cheapest place to get work done but the guy reckoned £600 would be a ballpark figure.

Oh, and a dodgy resistor (or something!) means that the only way to start the car is to have the key in the ignition and then touch a wire to the + terminal on the battery.

Just totting up, I reckon that's easily £800+ spent on the car. I know a lot of that is labour but the harsh reality is that I'm about as good with a spanner as I am with rocket science and I simply couldn't do the work myself.

I could probably source cheap parts myself and find a mechanic to do the work for, I dunno, £200? But I literally can't afford to keep ploughing money into this ****ing heap of **** car. I don't even enjoy driving it. It spends more time in the garage than in my possession, I'm afraid to do any serious off-roading because of what I might break, the worry of what will go wrong next is constantly on my mind. I ****ing loathe the car. Next to a 90 it's useless off-road, on the road it wallows around like a ****ing barge, it's noisy, uncomfortable, looks like ****, and now it's ****ing freezing into the mix.

/RANT.

So... What should I do with it?

Do I try to get the brakes fixed as cheaply as possible and hope nothing else goes wrong until the MOT runs out in March/April? Or do I just cut my losses now? I literally spend every spare penny I have fixing a car that I don't even want or particularly need..

It's my gut instinct to just get rid, but it sticks in my throat that I would have spent £200 on repairs just days before getting rid of it.

Answers on a postcard...

I'll give you £200 for it.

Advertise it for spares/repair. Some people would spend the money required on parts and get it back into a working condition, although unless you can do a lot of mechanical work yourself, it will never be cost effective.

If it still has MoT, realistically its £500-600 with faulty brakes. Maybe £1000 with working brakes to ease the new owner's experience and getting it home etc.

I once foolishly bought a 3 year old Renault van, the piece of crap was costing me around £80/week on repairs. In the end I set to work with a stone cutter and after 15 minutes there was nothing of any use left. Sold it to the scrappy for £25, believe me I felt so good after cutting it up. Ok I could have got around £3k for it, but the pleasure of cutting it up came second to sex. So my advice is cut the focker up, the pleasure is amazing

AC7X said:

Hey hey,

I have an M reg Discovery 300TDi. (Will attach some pictures).
I'm not at all mechanically minded,

First of all the noise from the wheel was the wheel bearing - I got that and the rear brake pads replaced at a cost of X (don't remember anymore - but it may have been about £150).

Next thing to go was the clutch - I bought the parts for about £70 or so and my mechanic fitted it for about £200.

Next up one of the wheel hubs cooked and disintegrated - can't remember the cost to get this sorted but I think including parts was around £200. (Kind of guessing, I think I had to blank the bills from my mind to cope!).

Next the battery died. Think I paid around £70 for a battery (installed it myself though so saved on labour!!).

Then (whilst off-roading, I'll admit) the other front hub did the same thing. I saw it smoking and knew it was ****ed -

I had Kwik Fit (I know!) look at it and he told me that the brake caliper was fuxored, and that my front discs and pads were badly worn and really needed replaced (not a con, my mechanic from home told me that the brakes would need seeing to soon). Obviously Kwik Fit aren't the cheapest place to get work done but the guy reckoned £600 would be a ballpark figure.

Oh, and a dodgy resistor (or something!) means that the only way to start the car is to have the key in the ignition and then touch a wire to the + terminal on the battery.

Just totting up, I reckon that's easily £800+ spent on the car. I know a lot of that is labour but the harsh reality is that I'm about as good with a spanner as I am with rocket science and I simply couldn't do the work myself.

So... What should I do with it?

Do I try to get the brakes fixed as cheaply as possible and hope nothing else goes wrong until the MOT runs out in March/April? Or do I just cut my losses now? I literally spend every spare penny I have fixing a car that I don't even want or particularly need..

It's my gut instinct to just get rid, but it sticks in my throat that I would have spent £200 on repairs just days before getting rid of it.

Answers on a postcard...

Click to expand...

Owning a Land Rover and not being mechanically minded was your first major mistake. If you will not make the effort you have to pay the price. The only control you have is the labour element.
Wheel bearings and brakes are relatively easy to fix. Remember, when one side goes you should always assume the other side will need doing. Applies to any car.
What is it that prevents you reading a manual or using a few tools. You might even enjoy it if you made the effort.
I can understand the clutch replacement may be beyond your ability but the other jobs should be achievable.
Battery's are treated like consumables.
If you don't want to try and keep it as a project, sell it now.

Bring it up to Fife mate will take it off your hands & give you £500

All the parts you had fail are just run of the mill.
I hope you did not pay kwik fit to do your brakes because they ripped you off.
If you take you disco off road or any Land Rover then you will brake things.
Discovery's like all Land Rovers are very basic to work on and most parts are cheap.
Most mechanical things give you plenty of indication that all is not well and you should sort them out before they brake.
Nearly all ways it's not the cars fault but the stupid drivers fault.

Like the previous replies, they are good old trucks but need to be owned by enthusiasts.
Remember it's 15 years old, feck knows what abuse it's had in the past.
If you took the time learn and do your own maintenance I bet you a pound to a pile of ****e you would start enjoying owning your LR.
Your on the right forum to learn, I've only recently joined (but been a browser for a while) there is wealth of info and experience on here.
Good luck to you mate, I hope you get it sorted...

shoulda bought a `fender...

Agree with ice 100%, I'm also a fairly recent convert and have plenty of problems with my 300tdi but am still into the old girl. If you don't do your own work I think you're onto a loser with a Disco IMHO. On the upside the parts are cheap as chips, easy to work on and there's no end of advice out there, but if you won't get your hands dirty and maintain as well as repair, you may as well get shot

fleck said:

shoulda bought a `fender...

Click to expand...

Same under the skin but bloody uncomfortable and even slower.

Hi, I am also on my first Discovery - 1999 TD5 ES with 143,000 miles.It is a beautiful machine and drives great but I would not dream of abusing it off road. Just because a vehicle has off road ability does not mean that it has to be used off road, I think this is where a lot of people go wrong. Throwing Land Rovers or any other vehicle into demanding off road conditions will ultimately result in mechanical failure.
This does not mean that there is anything inherently wrong with the vehicle and a Land Rover is built with this sort of punishment in mind but at the end of the day it is a complex collection of mechanical components which will ultimately wear out and eventually break down.
As said previously, pro active maintenance is the key to reliability alongside re active maintenance when things go wrong.
I think this is why Land Rovers get such a bad press - yes they have inherent faults as do all cars but if Land Rovers are bought and used without at least some appreciation of their encumbant engineering / maintenance requirements then they are bound to be a source of constanation to their owners.
I will take my vehicle off road but only when I am satisfied that it is in an appropriate state of repair to do so and even then with the knowledge that I am likely to break something, but then thats what Land Rovers are for .

We have the same age disco as yours. In the last 15 months i have replaced the following, bear in mind apart from the welding all other work i have done myself.
New wheel bearings
pads all round
new clutch
new swivle and seals
New alty
soon to be new turbo
new inner and outer n/s sill
new rear inner n/s arch
x4 wheels and tyres
New lapbelt
new brake vac pump
bulbs
new o/s rear trailing arm
new o/s rear axle to trailing arm bracket
Trailing arm bushes
new rear shocks
Complete new exhaust.
plus more.

My point is its an old car and parts wear out. Not so much a lemon mar=tey more like its getting tired.

They will also wear out *MUCH* faster in offroad conditions, servicing will be far higher for a vehicle used in severe offroad conditions. There seems to be a trend towards those that use the motor in bad conditions just because its a 4x4 and then dont follow up with higher service intervals, then get ****ed off and start blaming the motor when bits drop off.

Bits don't drop off on a disco. Its just getting rid of the parts it no longer needs lol

I think its a shame that you feel that way about the land rover.

obviously i am biased, but you cannot say its a bag of **** car. theres a hell of a lot going on in a lan rover, and it's all 50 year old technology (more or less) so that you can fix it yourself in the jungle.

this means they are high maintenance.

i once spent about 500 quid on repairs in the space of 3 offroading days, one time it COST me 150 quid just to borrow some parts so i could drive it home - but thats the nature of the beast.

if you spend the money on it, you will have a very capable vehicle that will not require mega bucks spending on it again for a good while and it is cheap and easy to self repair if you grab a haynes manual - theres not a lot of cars that can boast the ease of repair, availabilty of parts, and the fact that wherever you break down in the uk you can guarantee that there's someone nearby who knows a fair bit about land rovers. theyre a great thing to have in the garage for that reason alone.

modern day drivers arent used to their cars breaking down all the time. i work in a car sales business and we get a hell of a lot of grief of people who are genuinely suprised that their 5 year old car has got a fault, usually minor. the difference is that the land rover needs about 50 quid spending on it every few months maybe, your german car will run just fine for a year, then it presents a 500 quid bill, maybe more in some cases - and you cant use the damn thing for half as much as you do your landy and especially not when it snows.

its a bit of a culture shock owning an old style land rover these days, but believe you me, theyre better than the modern stuff, which invariably costs you 200 quid to get someone to even guess what the problem might be!

dont lose faith!!

I cannot agree more with Mr Noisy's post above.

I have come from running new cars, one was even a D3.

So quite a culture shock in running the D1, especially the last few weeks, as the cold snap seems to have brought to the surface some faults - the front wheel hub/bearing collapsing when 280 miles from home - £180.00 and fixed the next day. Not starting - a wire to the starter, job done. Constantly starting, a few days on the drive, and a £2.00 relay, job done...I can go on.

Yes I am spending more time on it than previous cars, and yes, it is frustrating at times, but I am spending far less money (when I think I was spending £450.00 a month just for the privilege of having a D3 on my drive )....and I am quickly learning so my time spent is getting less and less - will I be getting rid - no sir, this disco is staying in my family for good.

And I will go out on a limb and say its one of the best, fun, enjoyable cars I have owned - and having owned it for 18 months - coming on to one of the longest which speaks volumes.

You do get down when the thing plays up, and autotrader appears on the laptop, but what other car can do so much for so little.......

Landys' are basically big meccano kits, great to play with and easy to fix. I have a D1 and a Mondeo, I prefer driving the landy and it's getting more use than the Mondeo. The mondy does 55mpg and the disco 30 if I'm lucky, BUT it's fun.

If there was a fuel efficient option I would have a series 3 too.

The ford sucks when it goes in for service/repairs, the landy just needs some time with the spanners.

aaahhh! the joys of land rover ownership. we shout, we swear, we spend money, we make do, we sweat, we bleed, bang our heads, srape our hands get covered in grease, oil and diesel, we loose sleep we develop stomach ulcers through stress! but..... we love it. and we wouldnt have it any other way. we suffer, and gain valueble knowledge so the next dumb f**ker who buy's a landy can ask us "how to fix it?" and because we know just how much pain and suffering is involved..... we lie, we say it's an easy fix, it's cheap and you should'nt have any proplems, knowing..... that somewhere tonight.... some poor git is in the man shed..... annoyed.... and looking at the PLASMA CUTTER!