Discovery 3? Any good?

Disco1BFG said:

I think provided you go into D3 ownership with your eyes open, have the patience and ability to do a chunk (I.E. most ) of the work on it yourself, and are able to purchase your own diagnostics, then you stand a good chance of getting a decent, very capable vehicle.

I wouldn't contemplate one without diagnostics - it'd be like trying to run a D1 without being able to weld

Click to expand...

well said that man and sound advice

soon after i bought mine i also came to realise a diagnostic reader was a must , seeing my local land rover dealer charge £120 to plug there’s in , it was a no brainier in buying my own

gstuart said:

seeing my local land rover dealer charge £120 to plug there’s in , it was a no brainier in buying my own

Click to expand...

OM*G! £120 a pop - no wonder they can afford to offer "free" tea and coffee etc whilst you sit and wait for them to break something else * ...



* - Years ago, took my RRC in for a service.... had to wait three weeks to get it back, cos they had to repaint the NSR corner ...... never knew paintwork was part of a service

Great advice so cheers boys! There's a couple I'm looking at now, the second one I may be able to get for a little more than 6k. It's got 128k on the clock but as with the other one it's had the belt done and is immaculate. I'm not sure about the oil pump cover I would have to check. One of them is very close by so am tempted to throw caution to the wind and go and see with an offer in mind.

As a spanner in the works my mother asked me to sell my late fathers l322 last night. It's 2003,130k miles and v8. Not the vehicle I really want as I like the discoverys a lot more, bit it did occur to me I could probably have the rangie for decent price. It would at least tide me over for the next 6 to 12 months when I could part ex it for a disco that I want. I will have saved more money to put towards one by then as well. I'm lucky to have that option on the table so thinking it might be foolish to pass up. Especially since mum was saying she doesn't want to see it go as it reminds her of dad. Would probably be a good test for me to see if I could keep up with the running costs of a car like this! I'm going to get insured on it today and will hopefully see what it's like over the next week or so to drive.

Disco1BFG said:

OM*G! £120 a pop - no wonder they can afford to offer "free" tea and coffee etc whilst you sit and wait for them to break something else * ...



* - Years ago, took my RRC in for a service.... had to wait three weeks to get it back, cos they had to repaint the NSR corner ...... never knew paintwork was part of a service

Click to expand...

did also shock me with the amount they wanted to charge

bloody hell what on earth did they do to the panel, assume they damaged it somehow ??

at first i thought that included an hours labour, but is just for them to plug it in and print out any error codes and what it would cost to fix , alas the diagnostic reader was £400 quid , paid for itself very quickly as i must have used it 10 x times, inc turning things the cruise control on after i retrofitted it , setting up the suspension etc , to make matters worse it’s plus vat , when i had the brake servo recall done FOC they done a free health check

they reported i needed a new turbo, 2k for the parts plus labour, body off so would have ended up with a bill for around £3.5k

after plugging in my diagnostic i found the actuator arm was sticking , had an update put onto my iid reader then reflashed the discos ecu, cost £25 as the updated software will now motor over the actuator arm every time i turn the disco on and off , go figure

Hi,

The oil pump cover I think was an issue from 2006 I'm not 100% sure it has not been done yet, but it will get done next belt change which I will do ahead of schedule. Can I ask how much the "gap iid diagnostic reader" cost and a link to it if possible I've been looking at a USA tool for checking the car and setting ride heights etc.

My D1 didnt need any welding it had no rust until the other half parked it into a tree.

400 quid for the IID tool, worth joining the D3 forum as they are always doing group buys, I actually got mine cheaper from island4x4, make sure you get the bluetooth one that way you can use your phone/ipad/tablet etc
The tool is vin locked, BUT will still read all the info etc on other land rovers, you just cant programme anything, to add a vin or swap the vin is 25 quid so no big deal.
Very healthy second hand market for them as well and I bet you wouldnt lose as much as a 100 quid should you decide to sell it.

lynall said:

400 quid for the IID tool, worth joining the D3 forum as they are always doing group buys, I actually got mine cheaper from island4x4, make sure you get the bluetooth one that way you can use your phone/ipad/tablet etc
The tool is vin locked, BUT will still read all the info etc on other land rovers, you just cant programme anything, to add a vin or swap the vin is 25 quid so no big deal.
Very healthy second hand market for them as well and I bet you wouldnt lose as much as a 100 quid should you decide to sell it.

Click to expand...

To add another vin to the Idd tool is £60 as I've just done this for another forum member

lynall said:

400 quid for the IID tool, worth joining the D3 forum as they are always doing group buys, I actually got mine cheaper from island4x4, make sure you get the bluetooth one that way you can use your phone/ipad/tablet etc
The tool is vin locked, BUT will still read all the info etc on other land rovers, you just cant programme anything, to add a vin or swap the vin is 25 quid so no big deal.
Very healthy second hand market for them as well and I bet you wouldnt lose as much as a 100 quid should you decide to sell it.

Click to expand...

I lost almost nothing on my IID BT when I sold it. Lucky for me the price shot up from £360 to £420 just after I bought mine. I sold it after 18 months for £330, so lost just £30.
There's a strong market for second hand BT IIDs.

johnlad said:

To add another vin to the Idd tool is £60 as I've just done this for another forum member

Click to expand...

My mistake, but you have to agree its still a cheap way to get access to the tool, if you cant afford the tool itself but you mate has one he will lend you?

It’s been a week or two since I last posted but I’ve been looking every day. I’ve been dead set on autos and my budget has been creeping up as I’ve been looking for one with less than 120k on the clock. There’s a few that look good, but one has come up locally which has 85k on the clock. It’s a 55 plate so almost 13 years old, and it’s a manual which I’m determined not to get, BUT it does seem cheap. I think I could have it for around the 5500 Mark which for that mileage seems very good. Just wondering if that sounds too good to be true, and if it’s worth taking a hit on the manual box, for the benefit of a lot less mileage?

ReadySalted said:

It’s been a week or two since I last posted but I’ve been looking every day. I’ve been dead set on autos and my budget has been creeping up as I’ve been looking for one with less than 120k on the clock. There’s a few that look good, but one has come up locally which has 85k on the clock. It’s a 55 plate so almost 13 years old, and it’s a manual which I’m determined not to get, BUT it does seem cheap. I think I could have it for around the 5500 Mark which for that mileage seems very good. Just wondering if that sounds too good to be true, and if it’s worth taking a hit on the manual box, for the benefit of a lot less mileage?

Click to expand...

I test drove both manual and auto when i got my first D3 back in 2006, the auto is simply a nicer car to drive although it does slightly less to the gallon, i found the manual gear stick ridiculously tall, also the speck on the auto,s was generally higher,
I assume the 13 year old one has a traceable history, belts done around 7 year old and shortly due again?

ReadySalted said:

It’s been a week or two since I last posted but I’ve been looking every day. I’ve been dead set on autos and my budget has been creeping up as I’ve been looking for one with less than 120k on the clock. There’s a few that look good, but one has come up locally which has 85k on the clock. It’s a 55 plate so almost 13 years old, and it’s a manual which I’m determined not to get, BUT it does seem cheap. I think I could have it for around the 5500 Mark which for that mileage seems very good. Just wondering if that sounds too good to be true, and if it’s worth taking a hit on the manual box, for the benefit of a lot less mileage?

Click to expand...

Ive not read of many problems with the manual box in the 3 yrs Ive had my D3, apart from loose gearlever and calibrating some gearchange sensor switch, but have heard clutches are very very expensive and theres also a danger of people not fitting the exhaust crossover pipe securing bolts that fixes onto the top two flywheel housing bolts and many mechs leave them off as its an arse to fit, then some time later the crossover pipe splits as its unsupported, the pipe itself is expensive never mind the labour.