Buying a discovery

Looking at buying a discovery, the budget is £4500 max so looking at between
8-10 years old. Do all mk1 disco's have the gearbox problem which i have
been reading about? if so looking at vehicles of this age if they have the
original box fitted would be best to avoid them? Do the automatics have the
same problem? if i go the automatic route how much worse are they as regards
mpg. how often should the cambelt be changed?

Paul.

On or around Fri, 11 Mar 2005 21:15:34 -0000, "Paul"
<[email protected]> enlightened us thusly:

>Looking at buying a discovery, the budget is £4500 max so looking at between
>8-10 years old. Do all mk1 disco's have the gearbox problem which i have
>been reading about?

yes, up to about erm... 98 I think. might be 97.

>if so looking at vehicles of this age if they have the
>original box fitted would be best to avoid them?

not necessarily. our '95 TDi is OK. You have to check it, which you can do
by listening for excessive clank/clunk from the midsection of the vehicle
when taking up drive, changing gear, or when going from over-run to drive
again. try moving off forwards and then backwards, drive in say 2nd or
third gear, come off the throttle and then put the power back on a bit hard.
If you get loud noises from doing this, then it's on the way out. Not
necessarily a "walk away", though - if the vehicle is otherwise sound, then
you can haggle about the price. Just fixed this problem on mine, recon
gearbox (main only) plus new transfer gear plus fitting comes to about a
grand, if you go the whole hog and have a recon transfer box as well, you're
looking to add about another 500 to that.

>Do the automatics have the
>same problem? if i go the automatic route how much worse are they as regards
>mpg.

no, and not much. The ZF 4-speed is a nice box.

>how often should the cambelt be changed?

36K miles is prudent, 'specially on a 300 which may have the cambelt
problem.

--
Austin Shackles. www.ddol-las.fsnet.co.uk my opinions are just that
"Would to God that we might spend a single day really well!"
Thomas À Kempis (1380 - 1471) Imitation of Christ, I.xxiii.